Ep 81: You're Speaking My Language!

00:00They play so much importance on the different languages and how much that just destroyed

00:08everything.

00:09I mean, it takes humanity from literally the precipice of Godhood to, "Oh, now you're

00:16all just screwed.

00:17Ha, sorry.

00:18You're all just dumb now."

00:19Now you're Bronze Age goat herders.

00:20Yeah, suck it.

00:21Ha!

00:22Hey, everybody.

00:23I'm Dan McClellan.

00:24And I'm Dan Beecher.

00:25And you are listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast where we increase public access to

00:35the academic study of the Bible and religion and combat the spread of misinformation about

00:41the same.

00:42And we're going to be doing some combatting today.

00:45There might be a little misinformation out there.

00:47Yep, there's some.

00:49It's kind of fun.

00:50Moving forward to it, but astute listeners will need to sort of really carefully parse

00:57out this entire episode because we've hidden messages in if you know how to truly discern

01:03the words that we're saying.

01:05So go back and re-listen a whole bunch of times and listen to the ads while you're at

01:11it.

01:12And it'll be good for you.

01:15Yeah.

01:16Yeah, so what we're breaking down today, we're going to do two, obviously, as we normally

01:23do two different segments.

01:25One is going to be a chapter in verse, just a little Genesis for you, a little fun origin

01:31story.

01:32And etiology, if you will, Dan.

01:33Yeah, I don't know if you've ever heard that word before, but I'm glad to teach you it.

01:39I want to appreciate that.

01:42And then, and I'm excited about this, you guys are going to want to wait around for the

01:45last segment because we're going to be talking about it.

01:50We're calling it watch your language because we're going to be talking about the idea

01:56of did did the ancient Hebrew or ancient Greek have mystical sort of magical words sprinkled

02:06in that have extra meaning or extra power, and I'll bet you can figure out what our answer

02:13is going to be on there.

02:14But don't jump ahead, don't get ahead of us, we're going to talk about all of that.

02:19But first, let's just jump in with our chapter in verse.

02:23All right, so Dan, we're in, we're in Genesis chapter 11, right at the beginning.

02:34And we have a really weird story.

02:39It's weird in like a whole bunch, considering it's only what, nine verses?

02:45They pack in a lot of weird in the, in these nine verses.

02:50Yeah.

02:51And this is the, so this is the end of what's called the primeval history, Genesis one through

02:5511, right before we get to Abraham.

02:59And the, and one thing I think it's, it's good to know about the primeval history is we've

03:04got three main narrative arcs.

03:07We've got the creation of the Garden of Eden, we've got Noah in the flood, and then we've

03:11got our story at the beginning of Genesis 11 with the Tower of Babel.

03:15And then interspersed between them are these genealogies.

03:19So this is kind of the way they did things, uh, anciently when they're, they're trying

03:24to tell these origin stories and they want to get from, uh, from as far back as they

03:28can, uh, imagine all the way up to when the story of, of their people begins and there's

03:35nothing spurious at all about those origin stories.

03:39Don't worry about the fact that everybody lived 400 or 700 years.

03:42Yeah.

03:43Yeah.

03:44And we've got, uh, we've got etiologies kind of in the, in the same vein as aesop's fables.

03:49It's like, oh, how did, uh, snakes, how did they lose their feet?

03:53Oh, well, the snakes tricked even to eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of

03:57good and evil.

03:58And God was like, Bam.

03:59No legs.

04:00That's right.

04:01Uh, you're Slytherin now.

04:02Uh, the sorting hat has put you in Slytherin and, uh, and we've got a bunch of different

04:09ways that the, the way society and civilization in the world is when these people are writing,

04:15they got to get from point A to point B. And so we've got a bunch of stories to do it.

04:18And one of those things is the fact that all the nations of the earth speak different

04:23languages.

04:24Yeah.

04:25That's interesting, like the, oh, and we should say like we've used the term etiology a couple

04:30of times.

04:31Some of, some of our listeners probably haven't caught the, the definition of that before

04:35definition.

04:36You hate that word.

04:37Uh, but, but an etiology is just sort of an, an origin story.

04:42It's a, it's a story that is meant to explain why something is, why ever certain phenomenon

04:48is or why people were in a certain place or whatever.

04:51Right.

04:52And it's interesting to me, first of all, what, I, I, one wonders why they even felt

05:01they needed a reason why everyone spoke different languages.

05:06I, I don't think we, we know the answer to that, but, but do you have any insights or

05:10thoughts on why they, why it was important to them to know why, why, why there were multiple

05:18languages?

05:19Uh, well, a large part of it was that ethnic identities were frequently divided by language

05:25and, uh, and particularly written language.

05:29So different scripts were often, um, associated with specific ethnic identities.

05:34Now in the end of the second millennium BCE, beginning of the first millennium BCE, you've

05:41got your main empires of Egypt and, uh, Mesopotamia, whether the Assyrian or the, the Babylonian

05:48and they are a very clearly defined, well, not, not incredibly clearly defined, but you

05:53know who they are.

05:55And then you've got a bunch of tribes and city states and less well defined, um, people

06:01groups kind of spread out in between.

06:03And so this is the period when we have the rise of what are known as secondary states.

06:08These are smaller, uh, local powers that are trying to, uh, unify and create kind of

06:17a, uh, a kingdom identity.

06:20And one of the ways that they begin to do this is to, uh, use a language, a shared language

06:26and a shared script in order to demarcate things.

06:31And so you have like the Moabites popping up around this time, the Ammonites, the Edomites,

06:36the Israelites, the Judah Heights, uh, and, uh, so Mesha's monumental inscription, a second

06:43half of the ninth century BCE.

06:45This is, this is the first use of, uh, alphabetic script in, uh, historical narrative prose.

06:54And there's an argument to make that this is kind of a, a means of establishing, uh,

06:59their identity and their, their ethnic identity, their, their kingdom.

07:04And so language is critical to identity.

07:07And so we've got a people as a part of the secondary state of Israel, um, that has its

07:14own identity is beginning to, um, crystallize the lines between the us and the them.

07:20And this is just a way to say, Oh, we got all these nations.

07:22We've listed 70 nations in Genesis 10.

07:25That's what's known as the table of nations all descended from the three sons of Noah,

07:29Adam, Ham, and Jay, fifth, uh, and so this is the known world back then.

07:34And so the next logical step is, okay, well, we've got these, these national identities

07:41and language seems to be one of the, uh, identity markers.

07:45And so how did we get that?

07:47Why is that different?

07:48Yeah.

07:49I think it makes sense to say, you know, especially since, yeah, the, these books are delineating

07:54like where, where each of these different tribes comes from as descended from Noah and his,

08:02his progeny, uh, it makes sense that then they would say, well, but why do they all speak

08:07different languages?

08:08Cause they were all on the same boat together.

08:10Why would they, uh, why would they all speak different languages?

08:13Okay.

08:14Yeah.

08:15Now that makes sense.

08:16Now I'm, now I'm with you.

08:17I'm, I'm, I'm on board, uh, as it were, um, and chap and another thing to point out is

08:22that chapter 11 is kind of backtracking a little bit.

08:25Mm.

08:26Cause chapter 10 is like sham, ham, J fifth, and then we got all these nations.

08:29And then chapter 11 says, now look, the whole world had one language, they also use the

08:34same words and they migrated from the east.

08:38So we got the idea that they have, they have come off the boat.

08:41They are beginning to proliferate and they're coming from the east and they came to the

08:45land of Shinar, which is supposed to be Babylonia.

08:48So this is Mesopotamia and they settled there.

08:51So, so, uh, the land of Mesopotamia or Babylon represents like major stop number one after

08:59these groups are coming off the boat and they have, um, you have generations enough to,

09:05to multiply to have all these different, um, identities, but they're all still speaking

09:11one language.

09:12And since this was after the flood, that means that these are literally the only people

09:16on the whole earth, according to the story.

09:18Yeah.

09:19Um, according to the story, don't know how seriously the story was taken when it was

09:24initially circulating because there were a bunch of other, um, etiologies for the people

09:29groups that were no doubt in circulation.

09:31And this story is probably coming from, uh, the seventh century BCE.

09:36So pretty late in the game, uh, when it comes to, uh, the spread of civilization, but yeah,

09:43but I'm not saying like it, like, to be internally consistent, this, the, the people that we're

09:51talking about here that are, that are settled in Shinar are the only people in, in existence.

09:57Right.

09:59And they, okay.

10:00And they decide to make bricks and fire them thoroughly, uh, and they had brick for stone

10:07and bitumen for mortar and they decided to build a city and a tower with its top in the

10:15heavens.

10:16There you go.

10:17So that's a, that sounds fine.

10:20That sounds pretty normal, uh, by modern standards to build towers.

10:24Yeah.

10:26And then they say, and let us make a name for ourselves.

10:28Otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

10:32I don't, that's one I've never understood.

10:34I don't know why they need to make a name for themselves, uh, or else they'll be scattered.

10:39That doesn't make any sense to me.

10:40Does that make sense to you?

10:41Is there a sense to be made of that?

10:44So I, I think there's a part of this is foreshadowing because they're, they're writing in a period

10:50when everybody has already been scattered across the whole face of the earth.

10:54And so I think that's just the, the existential dread is that, oh no, we want everybody to

11:00be together as one, um, and for whatever reason, um, whatever McGuffin you want to imagine,

11:07they were thinking of, uh, the threat is that we will be scattered.

11:11Uh, and, and I think it's important to point out a couple of things here.

11:15Uh, the, the tower with its top in the heavens, uh, a lot of people think, what 80 it's, they

11:21thought they were going to build a tower and climb up and hop off onto the clouds and they

11:24were in the heavens.

11:26And there's probably a degree to which that is true, but at the same time, you know, we

11:29have buildings that we call skyscrapers.

11:32So, I mean, how many people think that they actually scrape the sky?

11:38Um, it is.

11:40So there's, I think there's a degree to which this is, uh, just rhetorical.

11:45I think the main focus is let us make a name for ourselves.

11:49So this is that question of identity, um, but at the same time, a name, uh, is associated

11:56with permanence and so, uh, for individuals, this is one of the reasons that you had your

12:01name inscribed in your, uh, tomb and you wanted people to, um, invoke the name because that

12:08was a means of ensuring that you were remembered and your afterlife was extended the more you

12:16were remembered, um, going back to the whole cocoa, uh, analogy that your afterlife lasts

12:23for as long as you are remembered.

12:26Uh, and so to make a name is to, uh, extend the afterlife and in a sense to divinize oneself.

12:33Well, and that becomes literally the worry in just a second, but yeah, and we're going

12:38to be talking about the importance of names later on in the show as well, because that's

12:44going to, that's going to become important.

12:46Um, but yeah, this idea of making a name for themselves, um, becoming a divinizing, divinizing,

12:53can I use that word?

12:54Does that mean anything?

12:55Uh, yeah, becoming a, uh, because yeah, we've talked about, you know, you've talked about

13:01the, uh, uh, a name being, uh, a weight, I'm going to, I'm going to come up with the phrase

13:09a divine.

13:10Oh, what do you call it?

13:13Ah, what's your book called?

13:15Oh, uh, divine agents.

13:17Yeah.

13:18Or divine image.

13:19Yeah.

13:20Yeah.

13:21So it seems like that's the concern here that like they are literally trying to become

13:28God-like somehow by touching the sky with their tower.

13:32And the way that we know that is because God becomes very worried about this.

13:37Yeah.

13:38We have, uh, we have in verse five, uh, Adam and I came down to see the city in the tower.

13:43So God is represented as like, what's going on down there?

13:47Yeah.

13:48He is about it.

13:49And then he just.

13:50We give him a shoes on.

13:51Yeah.

13:52Yeah.

13:53Takes the, takes the elevator and then, uh, comes down to earth.

13:58See what the humans, uh, have built.

14:00What is the word there?

14:01Yeah.

14:02Ha.

14:03Dom, the humanity, uh, had built, uh, and then in verse six and that, and I said, look,

14:08they're one people and they have all one language and this is only the beginning of what they

14:12will do.

14:13Nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.

14:17Yeah. And basically the idea is, man, if they can do this, they can do anything.

14:23And I think this kind of reveals the, the porous boundaries that separate humanity and

14:27divinity and the understanding of the primordial civilizations and, and, you know, we think

14:33of it as more, uh, this binary, these in commensurate categories where, uh, according to Rudolph

14:40Altio, uh, Otto, uh, the divine is the holy other, but ancient Lake humanity kept knocking

14:47on the door of divinity.

14:48We have it in the garden of Eden.

14:50We have it where, um, the banalohim, the children of God are mating with humans to produce demigod

14:57offspring.

14:58So they can also mate their way into divinity and here they're building a tower their way

15:03into divinity and not happy.

15:06Yeah.

15:07So weird to me, like the thought that they might build a building so big that then they'll

15:11realize, Oh, we can actually do anything.

15:13Nothing is we once we build, once we finish up this building, yeah, nothing can stop us.

15:20Yeah.

15:21It is just a building, uh, but there you go.

15:26Yeah.

15:27And, uh, and so, uh, we get to verse seven and here's a part I like in, uh, in the Hebrew,

15:33it says, uh, narrow da, which is the cohortative or the first person plural imperative for, uh,

15:42let us descend.

15:43Let us go down.

15:44So God is talking to the other gods.

15:46Yeah.

15:47Again.

15:48So God is clearly talking to somebody because there's, because it's like, even in all, like

15:53in all of the translations, it's let us go down.

15:56It's never, I'm gonna, I'm talking to me and I'm going to say to me, I'm going down to

16:02do the thing.

16:03Yeah.

16:04So yeah, we, we did take, talk about this a little bit, uh, a long time ago on one of

16:08our episodes when we were talking about, you know, there being a divine council.

16:14It's not just one guy up there in the clouds, there's a whole group of them up there.

16:18Yeah.

16:19They've got a deliberative body.

16:20Uh, they got their nice cushy chairs and they sit there and talk about what's to be

16:26done with this Homer Simpson, uh, but no, here they, uh, says, let us go down and confuse

16:31their language there so that they will not understand one another speech.

16:35So Adonai scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth and they left

16:39off building the city.

16:42Mm.

16:43Therefore it was called Babel or Balel because there, Adonai confused the language of all

16:49the earth and from there, the Lord scattered them over all the face of the earth.

16:56And the NRSVUE has a little footnote that says that Babel is a play on the verb meaning

17:02to confuse in Hebrew.

17:05Yeah.

17:06Uh, but it comes from, um, Bob Ilu, gate of the gods, uh, is, is the Akkadian idea.

17:14And so, uh, that's, yeah, that's just a play on words.

17:17Is it related to Babylon?

17:19To.

17:20Yes.

17:21It's Babylon.

17:22Babylon is a transliteration that comes to us through, uh, through the Greek.

17:27Okay.

17:28So this is, that is what we're talking about.

17:30Like the city, the city, this is a, also an ideology for the, for the, for Babylon.

17:36Mm.

17:37Okay.

17:38I didn't realize that.

17:39Yeah.

17:40In fact, we know the tower that they're talking about.

17:44We have the remains of the tower.

17:46Is this like a ziggurat sort of thing?

17:49Yes.

17:50It's called, uh, the ziggurat or the tower of Etemononki.

17:54Oh, and, uh, this, uh, was started, uh, in, I believe the eighth century BCE, uh, it's

18:02just outside of the city of, uh, Babylon.

18:08And it was completed and then kind of partly demolished, dismantled.

18:15And, uh, when the, uh, Babylonian empire.

18:18So the, the Babylonian empire started it.

18:21I think the Neo-Assyrian empire came in and, um, in taking over, uh, demolish some of it.

18:28And then it was such a big tower and such a, uh, an important part of the landscape that

18:34some Neo-Assyrian, uh, king was like, yeah, you know what?

18:38We're going to, we're going to rebuild this thing.

18:40But it sat, uh, unfinished or partly dismantled for like 70 or 80 years.

18:47And this is, and this is in the seventh century, the period when these stories are being written.

18:54And so, uh, a lot of scholars think that this story is kind of thumbing the nose at those

19:00morons over in Babylon who've got this gigantic unfinished tower.

19:06And so it's saying, we're going to take that.

19:09What, what if, what if we took that unfinished tower and crafted this story around those,

19:16so, you know, the main, uh, imperial power in the region, uh, being the origin of the,

19:24the scattering of the peoples and the, and the confounding of the languages.

19:28Uh, so it's, it's a bit mocking them.

19:32It's a bit using that, uh, the tower of a Temanonki as inspiration for this story.

19:39Interesting.

19:40Yeah.

19:41It suddenly occurs to me, this Babel being Babylon thing has blown my mind a bit.

19:50And I think it's funny that modern translators don't just translate it to Babylon instead

19:58of Babel, just because we're like, whether it's Babel or Babylon, we're not going to

20:05get the joke, like the joke of, they called it Babel because the Lord confused the language

20:10that's, that's not in our language.

20:13Like we're not going to get that joke.

20:14So why not just translate it other than tradition?

20:18It just seems weird not to translate it to Babylon.

20:21I think there is you have babbling as a, uh, as a verb in English, baby, yeah, that's

20:27true.

20:28Or Babel, Babel be meaning like, blather or, or sort of, yeah, I think it, I think that

20:34is almost certainly, um, derived from the idea of the tower of Babel.

20:40Okay.

20:41But, uh, I could, uh, I can look that up real quick.

20:44I mean, I mean, okay.

20:46So there is an extra joke in there in English, okay, fine.

20:50It just, it's just, I never made that connection and I don't know how I would have without

20:54your help.

20:55And I just think that that's, I think the, the story becomes much more interesting to

21:00me when I realized that not only is this an etiology for the origin of the multiplicity

21:06of language, but also for this city and for that dumb tower that they never finished.

21:13And like it, they're really packing in a whole bunch of different sort of origin stories

21:18here.

21:19Yeah.

21:20Uh, well, I think I mean, it's more cool.

21:22Yeah.

21:23It shows how creative they were.

21:24Yeah.

21:25A lot of people think, um, one of the most annoying people sometimes asked me, what are

21:29the biggest mistakes that believers and non-believers make about the Bible?

21:33And when it comes to non-believers, one of the things I usually will bring up is this

21:37notion that these are Bronze Age goat herders.

21:40These were some of the most elite thinkers, uh, in the world back then.

21:46And they were crafting quite complex stories about what was going on.

21:50And this wasn't in the Bronze Age either.

21:53This is late Iron Age.

21:55So, uh, so I'm getting on, uh, online edimological dictionary that this come, uh, compared to,

22:02uh, Babalous Latin, which means babbler and Greek barberos, non Greek speaking.

22:07And that that's based on the, the mimicking of unintelligible speech as bar bar bar bar

22:14bar bar bar.

22:15Um, and so, uh, they say no direct connection with babble can be traced though association

22:21with that may have affected the senses.

22:24That's what the OED says about that.

22:26So, okay.

22:27Yeah.

22:28Um, well, there you go.

22:29I, I, I am appealing to future translators to translate it as Babylon.

22:36As Babylon.

22:37Therefore it was called, yeah, babble because they're out on, I confuse the language of

22:42all the earth and from there, the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

22:46Yeah.

22:47It does kind of, it's like wink, wink, get it.

22:49And it's like, well, if I got it, I'd be reading the Hebrew.

22:52Of course I don't get it.

22:54Um, let me tell you something.

22:55That is my response to so much of the Bible.

22:57There are so many things where it's like, and it was called blank because of X and, and

23:02it feels like they're like, huh, get it.

23:05And I'm like, no, I don't know how to get that.

23:07I can't.

23:08I have no way of understanding.

23:09Oh, well, the, the Septuagint, uh, the Greek says, uh, they called its name, Saint Jesus,

23:18which means confusion in Greek or sync thesis.

23:22So they don't even try to replicate the, the above L and the Greek.

23:27Okay.

23:28They just say, oh, that, yeah, that means confusion.

23:30Interesting.

23:31But yeah, they're going the opposite direction.

23:33They're not, they're, they're, there you go.

23:36Uh, I guess if you can either highlight the joke or you can highlight the actual thing

23:40that it was and, uh, or you can shoot straight down the middle and just come up invent a

23:46name of Babel.

23:48If you, if you look throughout the Bible everywhere, it says Babylon, the Hebrew is

23:52bevel, the exact same word that we have here.

23:55Okay.

23:56Yeah.

23:57Weird.

23:58Weird.

23:59All right.

24:00Well, that's, I, I find that interesting.

24:01I do like, and this is, this is going to be sort of important in our second segment, but

24:08the, they play, play so much importance on, uh, on the different languages and, and how

24:16much that just destroyed everything to, uh, to, to separate out the, the languages seems

24:24to have taken.

24:25I mean, it takes humanity from literally the precipice of Godhood to, oh, now you're all

24:32just screwed.

24:33Ha.

24:34Sorry.

24:35You're all just dumb now.

24:36I, I.

24:37Now your Bronze Age goat herders.

24:38Yeah.

24:39I suck it.

24:40Ha.

24:41I just think that's really, I think it's really weird that, uh, that, that one change would

24:49have that much power, but, uh, clearly, I mean, when you think about it, and even in

24:56modern times, but back then, especially if people just two towns over speak a different

25:03language than you, you can't do commerce, you can't do, uh, you, you can't even like

25:11find a place to stay travel becomes a problem because you can't communicate.

25:17And so I can see that like, especially in a time when I don't know, I don't know why

25:23they didn't just use Google translate, but, uh, they, uh, it, it was a, it was basically

25:29a no go.

25:30It meant you were, you know, starting from scratch.

25:33Yeah.

25:34And it, it is also interesting that around this time, uh, more like the second half of

25:39the second millennium BCE.

25:41So before this time is when we get the development of alphabetic scripts, which significantly

25:47democratize, uh, the ability to read and write.

25:51Now the literate folks were still the overwhelming minority of, of society, but four languages

25:58like Akkadian and like Egyptian, you had to know literally hundreds of different characters.

26:03Right.

26:04Whether it was syllabic or ideographic or whatever.

26:07And then with the invention of alphabetic script, it became a matter of 22 to 30 characters

26:14that represented just the consonants.

26:17So in, in this early period, the scripts of Israel and Moab and Ammon and Edom and, um,

26:26and further north in Syria, these are abjads where it's just the consonants that you are

26:33writing.

26:34So it became a lot easier to read into right, but the larger empires around them were still

26:40using those other systems and so, uh, yeah, for, for someone who was concerned with commerce

26:48and stuff like that.

26:49And eighth century BCE is when it, both Israel and Judah become kind of regional powerhouses.

26:55They both have kings that rain for unusually long periods of time, like more than 40 years

27:00each.

27:01And they're able to establish themselves as trading partners with Phoenicia and then by

27:08way of Phoenicia with other parts of the eastern and central Mediterranean and even

27:14Judah is kind of a secondary, uh, trading partner in this sense.

27:19They're going through Israel most of the time, but they're making a lot of money as well.

27:22So now they're starting to interact with the regions around them a lot more.

27:27And so it just becomes it, it, it bubbles to the surface.

27:30It's, uh, it's something that is a lot closer to the surface for the intelligentsia, the,

27:36the elites of these nations.

27:37So yeah, this story would, would, um, resonate with the elite more than it with anyone else,

27:43which is probably, uh, how it was circulated initially was among the elite.

27:49Yeah.

27:50It does seem like the, the, the literate who are actually able to read this would be the

27:54ones who would be the, who would be most a, uh, sort of susceptible to its message.

27:59Yeah.

28:00Yeah.

28:01The snootiest of, of the.

28:02Yeah, that's why I have to constantly, uh, learn another language to engage with the

28:09help.

28:10Yeah.

28:11Well, speaking of snootiness, I think we should move on to, uh, to our bit of snootiness,

28:18uh, which is a no one would ever say who talks like that.

28:25Nobody anymore, a bit of a deep cut, that's a bit of a nineties, buddy.

28:30Nobody talks like a nineties, nobody.

28:33All right.

28:34Uh, we're going to move on to our next segment.

28:35Watch your language.

28:38All right.

28:40Here we are.

28:41Uh, we, we've been talking about language this whole time, um, but there are other ways

28:46of talking about language and not just in the sense of like it's hard to do commerce

28:53or it's hard to sort of get by with your neighbors when you don't know what they're

28:56saying, but there's also a sense in which, um, we, you on your channels, you know, on

29:05your TikToks and whatever, end up encountering a lot of other creators who have a lot to

29:13say about why it's desperately important that you, that you go to the biblical language,

29:21that you go to the original Hebrew, the original Greek, because otherwise you just.

29:26I mean, yeah, we talked earlier about how you can't like you can't get the joke.

29:31If you don't know the original language or whatever, there's plenty of things in the

29:35plenty of meanings that will be lost if you don't understand the original language.

29:41But I don't, that's not what a lot of these guys are talking about.

29:44Right.

29:45There are, there are many, uh, there are many creators out there, you, you and I were sort

29:50of exchanging videos earlier, um, and one of the creators that you sent me, I, I'm not

29:56even going to say who it was because I don't want anyone to look him up because I don't

30:00want him to get any more views or whatever, but he was adamant and he's made multiple

30:07videos about this that if you say Jesus, the name, the word, the phonemes, Jesus, you

30:18are not saying his name and you are, and, and you're missing out on the magic powers of

30:25his real name.

30:26Yeah.

30:27They, and there are actually two different ways that I see this represented.

30:30One is you're missing out on the power.

30:32There's power in the real name and God wants you to use the real name.

30:35The other is if you say Jesus, you're actually invoking demonic powers.

30:41Right.

30:42Oh, there's a positive and a negative kind of incentive.

30:45Right, you get, you get good magic and if you say it wrong, you get bad magic.

30:49Yeah.

30:50And, um, and I think one of the, and, and this is, this is from people who think that studying

30:57the underlying language is, is, is kind of like, uh, you know, amassing, uh, doTERRA

31:03oils or, um, or crystals that this, this is somehow endows you with magical power, but

31:10only as long as you only, if you don't really understand the language at all, but you just

31:15get yourself a strongs concordance, which is, uh, you know, which is kind of the, the,

31:19the contemporary mystical Christians spell book, um, and you just understand barely the

31:27surface of what's going on, um, because I've responded to a number of videos and I've seen

31:33this repeated all over the place that the name Jesus pronounced as Jesus actually means

31:38hail Zeus.

31:39Uh huh.

31:40Right.

31:41And they're actually evoking an entirely different deity and, and then they have to go on and

31:45say, well, Zeus was an Anunnaki, Zeus was a demon, Zeus was associated with Molok and,

31:51um, B.L.

31:52Shabub and all that kind of stuff, um, and no, it absolutely doesn't mean hail Zeus.

31:58I think some people just hear it in Spanish.

32:01Hey Zeus and think, man, that sounds, that sounds an awful, shove a lightning bolt up

32:06your butt.

32:07Zeus.

32:08Yeah, exactly, another, another 90s deep cut, um, but, uh, yeah, hail, hail Zeus would

32:15be cada deu.

32:17Uh, it would have absolutely nothing to do with the way we pronounce Jesus.

32:21Yeah.

32:22Um, well, and the funny thing is that so many of these things are like, are, are that like

32:26it sounds a little bit like X and there reminds me of it.

32:30Yeah.

32:31They're, which they don't ever notice that, you know, lots of English words sound pretty

32:35close to other English words and have no relation whatsoever to them, but, but if it's in another

32:41language, then whoa, uh, I wanted to point out, uh, I'm, I'm going to hit you with an

32:46example.

32:47We have not talked about this beforehand.

32:49Oh, okay.

32:50Uh, but I'm going to hit you with an example that I'm sure that you've encountered before.

32:53Okay.

32:54Uh, and just sort of talk about it.

32:57This is a claim that your first, your favorite, uh, misinterpretation in, or mistranslation

33:05in the Bible.

33:06The first word of the Bible.

33:08Oh gosh.

33:09Barashit.

33:10How'd I do?

33:11Uh, sound okay.

33:12Pretty good.

33:13Pretty decent.

33:14Uh, actually is talk is, is talking about Jesus.

33:19It's a, it's a, it's a, it's Jesus in the thing, uh, I will, I will now explain to you letters

33:26in order are bait, rash, alif, sheen, yud, and tov bait and rash together form the word

33:36bar, meaning son of in Aramaic, it says, in the, which why are we going to Aramaic?

33:44This is in Hebrew, but it says in Aramaic in Hebrew, it's Bane, uh, or Ben.

33:48Uh, anyway, alif equals the ox head, meaning power, authority, strength said to be used

33:55by the Hebrews to represent God.

33:58Okay.

33:59So now we have son of God, uh, see where we're going with this?

34:04Sheen to front teeth, to front teeth, meaning sharp press eat.

34:10And then it says the function of teeth when chewing is to consume and destroy.

34:15This is like, if this feels like a stretch to you all, uh, yeah.

34:20Okay.

34:21Dan is banging his head against his microphone.

34:23Uh, yud is equals arm, meaning work, make and work, make and deed the functions of the

34:31hand and tov is crossed sticks, meaning, uh, mark sign signal monument.

34:39I don't know how cross sticks mean those things, but there you go.

34:42So the claim is that the first word in the Bible in the beginning, it doesn't mean in

34:47the beginning, but in the beginning holds this idea, the son of God will be destroyed

34:56by his own work on a cross.

34:59Ta-da.

35:00Yeah.

35:01Oh, I, I see, uh, there's a, there's a content creator on TikTok who, um, who talks about

35:06Bible tea, time to spill the Bible tea, uh, who, uh, made a video about this a few years

35:12ago and I responded to it, pointing out why it is complete and utter nonsense.

35:17But I see it getting reposted and reposted and reposted and getting millions of views

35:21all the time.

35:22And so you're saying that it's not true?

35:24What?

35:25Uh, it's entirely false and the, and the first thing to note about this is that this

35:30notion that all of this meaning is inhabiting each of these letters whenever they're being

35:35written is absolutely laughable, uh, when it comes to the Hebrew Bible because the, these

35:43letters do descend graphically from ideographic, uh, scripts, but those ideographic scripts

35:51were adopted into alphabetic scripts centuries before the Hebrew language even existed.

35:58I mentioned in a previous segment about how second half of the second millennium BCE, we

36:02have the development of alphabetic scripts and we should just be, sorry, I just want

36:06to clarify because we didn't earlier, but like, ideographic scripts mean that each picture

36:11represents a word.

36:13So it, right?

36:14A concept.

36:15Yeah.

36:16Or an idea.

36:17So you have to memorize each of the little, uh, graphs, each of the little, uh, images

36:23and know what each of them represents, whereas an alphabetic script, each of the, each of

36:28the little things represents a sound. So you're piecing together the sounds of words, right?

36:35But much, much like, much like Japanese, uh, anciently, uh, the ideographic scripts were

36:40often mixed in with salabic. And salabic is different from alphabetic as well. Salabic

36:44would be like, not just the sound bu, but the sound ba or bi or ba or bow or boo. Um,

36:51you know, you would have a different character for each of those. Okay. Um, and so, uh, you

36:56know, salabic scripts had hundreds of characters as well. Um, and what they did to create the

37:01alphabetic scripts was they created what's called an acrophonic script and acrophonic,

37:07uh, basically means beginning sound. And so each character, which used to represent a

37:14word or a concept was borrowed and in order to represent the sound made by the first letter

37:21of the word or concept. So I, a drawing of a house, which was, which was kind of like,

37:27uh, a little spiral circle only if you then make it, um, square, it looks like walls kind

37:33of turning in on themselves. It looks kind of like a house. And in Northwest Semitic

37:37languages, house is bite. And so the word bite begins with the sound buh. And so the

37:44picture of the house indexes or represents the sound buh. Okay. That's it. So once you've

37:52moved from an ideographic slash salabic into, uh, an alphabetic or acrophonic script, you

38:00have lost all of the other connections. People are aware of them, but they don't use them

38:05to make those associations. Though the character that looks like a house just means buh.

38:14So you're saying that when this says that alph equals an ox head, the, what probably

38:20happened, was the alph actually like meant to like, like, yeah, initial picture, actually

38:27an ox head. Think of a capital A, turn it upside down. Okay. It looks like you've got,

38:32uh, an animal face and with horns coming off of, of each side. So yes, the, the alph came

38:38from, uh, um, alph, or a alph, which meant ox. And so, uh, it represented the sound that

38:48started off, which is actually a glottal stop. So initially the alph represents the glottal

38:53stop. So it just indexes or signals or represents the sound that starts the word. Now, um, the

39:02association with, uh, the concept of God is actually based on a false etymology. Uh, people

39:08think that the word elohim, which starts with an alph, is based on a root, I yield, which

39:14means to be strong or to be mighty or something like that. And so fundamentally an L, a deity

39:20is a, is a mighty one or a strong one or something like that. That etymology is rejected by the

39:25majority of, of scholars today. Okay. So that's a false etymology. And we have absolutely

39:30no evidence whatsoever that anyone during the period of the Bible understood the character

39:35alph to in any way represent deity or a specific deity after the biblical period with when

39:43we get into, uh, like, uh, mystical streams of Jewish and Christian tradition, they, they

39:50start to read these concepts back in and you start to get this, uh, this mysticism read

39:56in. And so some of those concepts are re re put back into the letters with differing degrees

40:04of accuracy. So they didn't always know exactly where these things came from, but they did

40:08it anyway. And then once Christians started going, Hey, if we, we can use Hebrew to make

40:13it sound like we have all this extra access to information and insight, then they started

40:19adding Christian overlays to everything that was going on. And, and the thing with the

40:24top at the very end, we'll get to that. But that's one of the prime examples of, of that.

40:34I think that I think that right. You just hit on a key to this whole thing, which is that

40:41I think people who are engaging the text in this way are trying to get are trying to

40:48at least make the claim to having that extra insight or, or extra, some sort of added spirituality

40:56or some sort of added, uh, magic to the whole thing. Yeah, which is a, which is an impulse

41:03that I actually understand. Like that's an impulse makes sense, but they, but they don't

41:09recognize that or, or, or admit that they're just that they are imposing this and overlaying

41:16these ideas. They, they, they want it to be a sort of a truth or something. Yeah. And,

41:22and this is part of, of the fact that everybody has to negotiate with the text. And this text

41:27has been around for 2000 plus years. So there's not a ton to discover unless you find new

41:34dimensions of analysis and new ways to say, Hey, I just found a bunch of stuff. We, I

41:40struck a vein of information by imagining that the letters themselves have all this,

41:47uh, additional significance. And so every, every time someone says, well, what if we

41:51thought about it like this, suddenly that opens up an entire new universe of ways to

41:56approach it. So once you say, Oh, uh, all the letters have this significance, we can

42:01go look at Bereschit. And oh, well, now this means all this stuff. Well, no, it doesn't

42:06mean that ever until you decided you were going to put this specific lens on it. But

42:12when, you know, once you make it sound, uh, mystical and cool like that, you get millions

42:17and millions and millions of views on social media by saying that because suddenly you've

42:22made a dusty old text that people have seen a million times more interesting and more

42:29meaningful. And that's actually fine. That's actually kind of fun as, as a, as a sort of

42:33as an exercise. Yeah. And I've said that many times, keep it to yourself. Do if you're

42:39doing that in your own household and you're like, wow, that, this could mean this, this

42:42makes me feel connected. This makes me feel, you know, I get, uh, you know, that's what

42:47really, um, gets me, uh, you know, riled up and excited and, and passionate about this.

42:55Knock yourself out, go to town. But once you start spreading it publicly, um, and start

43:02trying to convince other people that this is what it really meant. And you're, you're

43:06in the realm of, of misinformation and maybe even disinformation and well, and yeah. And

43:11then people, yeah, people start buying that and they start, uh, going down some weird

43:17roads. I, I, you know, I was thinking about this in the context of other things. Cause

43:23I think that there's this, this tendency to ascribe sort of mystical power to other languages.

43:34I think it happens a lot actually. And I think we don't always notice it. But you know, when

43:40I, I remember being in a, I was in a coffee shop and I was, I was just working on my

43:46laptop and a woman next to me was sort of pontificating to the person that she was sitting

43:52with about yoga and how amazing yoga was. And she started talking about the Sanskrit words

44:00and how these Sanskrit words have all of this meaning and how, you know, like the, the word

44:05namaste at the end of every, uh, yoga session had this deep meaning of, you know, the light

44:11in me acknowledges the light in you. And while I was there, I just sort of quietly just googled

44:19what namaste means. Cause I've been, I've been to India and they just say it is like,

44:24namaste and it really does just mean sort of hello and goodbye. It's kind of the aloha

44:29of, of India. And to add this extra, these extra layers of meaning, you know, and I think,

44:37I think it makes it more interesting and more engaging for a lot of people to hear the Sanskrit

44:44words, to hear, you know, something Asana instead, you know, instead of just like touch

44:49your toes. Right. Yeah. Instead of, yeah, do instead of just child pose, you say shavasana

44:56or whatever, I don't know the poses, but, uh, it, it gives it that extra little bit of

45:02like sort of oomph, it makes it and it puts people in a different mindset. And I get that.

45:10But also you're not getting the words. The words don't actually have those extra meanings.

45:14You're, you, and we, I think it's important that we talk about like, okay, you're imposing

45:20a new meaning that you're choosing onto this stuff. Yeah. Uh, and, and the foreignness

45:27is important because you need people who don't understand. Yeah. Because when, when people

45:33come to me and say, Hey, guess what this means? And I go, I don't have to guess. Um, you know,

45:39it kind of deflates the balloon a little bit. You need people to not know the reality of

45:44the situation, which is why it's so much more effective with foreign words. And if you can,

45:49if you can tap into a specific type of foreignness that is considered exotic and mysterious and

45:57ancient like Sanskrit, uh, and things like that, then, you know, it, it has, it lands

46:03with greater impact than you said. Hey, there's this Russian word and, uh, and people like,

46:09I don't, I don't care about Russian. Well, I mean, what about Sanskrit? Ooh, I like Sanskrit.

46:14We do have different associations with different languages. I know that, uh, most, I mean,

46:20most native English speakers have an almost intuitive sense that the Anglo-Saxon words

46:27that we use, the words that have an Anglo-Saxon root are a little less fancy than the Latin

46:34eight words that, that we use. Like, you know, and one of the examples that I always use

46:39on this is just, uh, and this is just because of how sort of the court and aristocracy worked

46:47in England, uh, in, in the past, but you know, we use one set of words for animals that are

46:53in the field, cow, pig, horse, whatever. And then once they're on a plate in front of us,

47:01we use a whole other set of words that are from the French, which is both. And, uh, and

47:06you know, like beef, pork, all of those things are, you know, mutton. Why aren't we saying

47:12sheep when something's wing, you know, or, or cow, when to blaze. But I mean, even then

47:20it's just, it's just, you know, the French sounded fancier. And well, in this French,

47:26at that point, French was just sort of the language of the aristocracy. So they didn't,

47:30the aristocracy didn't bother themselves with animals when they were in the field. It only

47:35got to them when it was on their plate. But I just think I think that there is, but we

47:40still to this day, like French is the language of love and Italian is the language of passion.

47:46And like we have all of these associations. German is the language of anger. Yes. So it's

47:53like, yeah, I had to, I had to condition myself out of something. When I got into graduate

47:58school, I wanted to use all these like, like Latin and German words and stuff like that.

48:04And maybe what a fascinating vellton shoung. Uh, and, and people are like, what does that

48:09mean? Oh, it means worldview. Just say worldview that you idiot. And I had to, I had to like

48:15disabuse myself of that temptation to make myself sound fancier and more educated by

48:22using foreign words. Yeah. And you can make yourself sound more mystical and more, you

48:29know, if you start to employ these different words, including like the, you know, the correct

48:38pronunciation of the name of Jesus or whatever, even though they almost never like all of

48:45these different creators have a different correct pronunciation. Yeah. Of the name. Yeah.

48:52Some of them think it's like Joshua only with a Y and it's like you've just taken the English

48:57version of Joshua, which is also not exactly how the Hebrew name was pronounced and just

49:03replaced the J with a Y. Yeah. Or, or the Yeshua is probably the most common one, even

49:11though many scholars think that in first century CE, Galilee, the, the, uh, on the end, uh, which

49:18was an Ein, um, probably wouldn't have been pronounced. So it probably would have been

49:23something more like Yeshua or something like that. Yeah. You said, you sent me a video

49:28of one guy who, who says Yohusha? Yohusha. Yeah. I don't know where he gets that. That's

49:34a, that's a special one. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it, uh, a lot of people think that Yeshua, well

49:39Yeshua is related to the Hebrew name Yeshua, which means Adonai saves. Yeshua is a little

49:46shorter and the vowel at the beginning is a little different. So while it's related to

49:51that name, it's not exactly that name. Uh, and Yeshua could be a shortened form of Adonai

49:58saves or it could just be the word for salvation in Aramaic. So, um, I, I, it's not clear to

50:05me. And, uh, so I doubt it's clear to people who don't know anything about Hebrew or Aramaic.

50:11Even though they will insist that it is very clear to them. Um, but, uh, yeah, this,

50:18some folks think that the Tetragrammaton was actually pronounced Yohua, uh, or something like

50:26that. They don't want to understand the Vav as a consonant. They want to understand it as a vowel

50:31because again, they don't know the first thing about Hebrew, but they found somebody somewhere

50:38who said that and it's, you know, made the tuning fork in their loin's ring. Um, and so

50:45it's the gospel truth from now. Well, I mean, and you bring up the Tetragrammaton. I don't think

50:51we can not mention the breathing in breathing out. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thing with, with the, uh, YH

51:01WH, uh, the, the claim we've talked about this, I think on the show before, but this claim that

51:06literally the YH is a, is, is the sound of an inhale and the WH is the sound, which by the way,

51:15can we all just agree? That is not at all how inhale sounds. Like in order to make a YH sound,

51:22you actually have to exhale. You can't. Yeah, it's inhale of YH. Yeah. And it's voiced too. Yeah. Like

51:31if you say it unvoiced, then it's, it's, uh, not quite right. But yeah, you, you have to manipulate

51:38your tongue and the roof of your mouth and your lips in order to say both syllables. And so there,

51:44there are a few different variations I've heard on this. One is that it's the only

51:48name in the world that doesn't have you touching your lips together or touching your tongue to

51:53something. And, and so it's, it's special in that regard. The other is that, yeah, it's the,

51:59the sound of natural breathing. So the first thing you say when you're born and the last thing you

52:04say before you die is, you know, you have the name of God on your lips. Right. And it's just all pure

52:10and utter nonsense. Well, I mean, as a metaphor or as a, as a sort of, as a, as a figurative idea,

52:17it's a cool idea. It's beautiful. Yeah. And I think I can see how some people would would,

52:22that would make their relationship with God all that much more meaningful. Yeah. And again,

52:29as long as you're keeping that in your own household, phenomenal, blast off. But, or as long as you're

52:37presenting it as this is how I like to think about it because it, you know, it has meaning for me,

52:43but it's not really, you know, this is just a thought. It's just an interesting thing.

52:49I think, I think since the, the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment, I think an

52:53awful lot of people have, have been, I think they've become convinced that phenomenology for

53:02phenomenology's sake is inadequate, that everything must be true, factually true or else it

53:09isn't worthy. And so I, cause I, you know what, I think if you go and sing hymns and things like that,

53:16and you're just experiencing that, you know, communal effervescence as, as some scholars used to talk

53:24about the concept of religion just to experience it, just to, to have that phenomenological experience.

53:30Great. I think, I don't think there's anything wrong with enjoying communalism, enjoying religion,

53:36enjoying ritual because it does have those phenomenological experiences associated with it, but,

53:44but they want it to be real because otherwise it, it doesn't tack the right bases. Yeah, yeah,

53:50it's just, it's just fake. And it's like, hey, there, you know, there are some, what's a, what's a

53:56tactful way to put this? There are an awful lot of people who experience certain fake

54:01sensations that are a very important part of their lives.

54:06But does that mean it is any less real and experience? Yeah, I don't think so. Yeah. And it's fine also

54:18to say like, you know, if you're, if you're looking, you know, a lot of people have spent

54:23many, many hours scouring through a scripture to try and figure out deeper meaning stuff and

54:31try and figure out codes that God's using to speak to them or whatever God's name written in our DNA

54:38is one of them. Yeah. And in the, in the building blocks of the universe, there's another guy who

54:44goes off about how the, the fundamental molecules of the universe all talk about God being inside

54:52our bodies and stuff like this. And yeah, it's weird. I mean, you know, it, as long as you recognize

55:00that you can do literally exactly the same tricks in, you know, and with a law, with a law and, and

55:09the Quran or with the Bhagavad Gita, like you can do all the same tricks and have just as,

55:15just as effective of interesting things. You just have to put that effort in and you can overlay

55:22all of this, the same types of things with Krishna or whatever. So it's fun. So again, like,

55:30if it means something to you, knock yourself out, have a good time with it, but don't start spreading

55:37it around like it, like it's real, like it's like, you know, in the capital R sense of the word.

55:43Yeah, I think there are an awful lot of folks who, who do have that tuning fork off and, and their

55:48loins and then want to share it. And that's a natural feeling. But they want to share it as if

55:54it's real, as if these are actual facts. And it's overwhelmingly, and as far as I can see,

56:01it's only ever people who don't actually know these languages and don't know how they work,

56:06don't know their history. And so that can be, that can be harmful misinformation. And we have not

56:12tapped into a tiny fraction of a single percent of what mysticism in early Christianity and early

56:19Christian early Judaism is in this segment. But yeah, I think within mysticism, I think there are an

56:29awful lot of people who recognize it for what it is and who enjoy it for what it is. And I think

56:34that's great. But for folks who are just trying to chase clout or money on social media by spreading

56:39these these falsehoods because they know they're going to be able to exploit other people's thirst

56:45for more significance, more meaning. I think that's incredibly harmful. And particularly the,

56:53like the finance bros who sit behind their big desks with their cigars in their mouth and wax,

57:03you know, philological about the name Jesus. Well, and not only that, like mock openly mock

57:10people who use the traditional Jesus instead of, yeah, like you're just, you're not only

57:16are you saying it wrong, you're an idiot. And you're also like evil probably. And there's a

57:20probably a demon in you now. And yeah, there's this whole sense of how much better I am than you

57:28because I say it my way instead of your way. Yeah. It's funny to me. I mean, I think I think the real

57:35kicker to me on that is really your God is so petty that if you don't say his name exactly as he

57:46wants you to say it, he's going to punish you or you're you're not going to get the same blessings.

57:53You're calling on him. You want him to be part of your life or whatever. You're doing the same

57:58actions, but a mispronunciation he's going to he your God is so petty that a mispronunciation is

58:05going to going to stymie the whole process. Really? Yeah. And the in all of these the folks who are

58:12asserting this never have a clue what the actual pronunciation probably looks. And this is just

58:20something that we are just not so much speculating, but there are a variety of options and we don't

58:26know which one was closest to how someone in Nazareth would have pronounced that name in the

58:32in the early first century CE. So it's all a guessing game anyway. And these people don't have a

58:38firmer grasp on it than any of the people they're talking to. Right. Then the people who actually

58:42have put their poured their lives into studying that one thing and yeah, don't have any real estate

58:49holdings to speak of at all. Sorry. Yeah. So social media mysticism. Maybe that's a good way to

58:55refer to or or exploitative. I don't know. A lot of this strikes me as just in an attempt to chase

59:04clout and money. And it can be phenomenally harmful. I couldn't agree more. Namaste to you, Dan,

59:11on that point. I thank you. And you friends.

59:19If you guys would like to have access to an early and ad-free version of every episode

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59:47you can reach us at contact@dataoverdogmapod.com. And thanks for joining us. We'll talk to you again

59:54next week. Bye everybody. Data over dogma is a member of the airwave media podcast network.

60:04It is a production of data over dogma media LLC copyright 2024. All rights reserved.