Ep 93: Banning the Bible?

00:00Eglon came immediately to mind. You want to talk about violence? That's where the dude

00:05goes in. He's a large man. He's a fat. And he gets stabbed all the way to the hilt so

00:12that the dirt came out. I remember the first time I read that, I was like, that is awesome.

00:19Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan. And I'm Dan Beecher. And you're listening to the

00:27Data Overdogma podcast where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible

00:32and religion and combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan?

00:38Things are great. Things are good. You know, we survived the holiday season. Yes, most

00:44of us, which I think is a very good thing. Now we're just now it's coasting. But until

00:52the light comes back, it's just keep your head down and get yourself through it. Yeah,

00:58we've got the first few months of the year are always weird, especially January because

01:04now all of a sudden I'm like, ah, taxes. Don't say that. Don't make me think about that.

01:10But I'm also like, normally April, I'm like, I dread April, but this year, my book's coming

01:15out at the end of April. And so like, I, as 2024 was the busiest year of my entire life.

01:23And April of this April and May of this year are going to be busier than all of 2024. Oh,

01:28we're going to I imagine. So and I'm going to get caught up in it. So there we go. Yeah,

01:33that's going to it's going to be a lot of fun though. We're going to have a great time.

01:35Coming to a city near you. Yeah. Yeah. So so don't don't hesitate to reach out to us and

01:41let us know that you want us in your fair city and let us know maybe maybe even let us

01:46know a few venues that you think we could. Yeah. That wouldn't be too expensive and that

01:50would hold a hundred or two people. I had to. In fact, last night I was on a live and I

01:58had a few people say Philly. I haven't heard Philly yet. So I have not been to Philadelphia

02:05in a long, long time. It's a great city. So that that was a new one. But yeah, we're

02:11going to have to make plans for that shortly. In the meantime, however, we haven't booked

02:17anything. No, nothing. Nothing is booked. But in the meantime, we have a show to record.

02:22We do. We do as from what I understand. We're going to be doing two. I think really fun

02:28topics this week. Yeah. Both of them under the same category. We're calling these segments

02:35above the law. Yes. We're going to get legal. First, we're going to talk about what you

02:41have told me is called the covenant code, the covenant and you'll you'll explain that.

02:47And then we're going to talk about book Bannon, who's related to Steve Bannon. Yeah, I was

02:53going to say that's his brother, right? Yes. We're going to talk about banning books and

02:58the there are there are laws happening all over these United States. Yeah. We're going

03:05to talk about the book that this show is about might run afoul of some of those. And we'll

03:11get to that. Yeah. But first has run afoul. And at least one instance has in multiple

03:16licenses. We got to do this over again. Yeah. Yeah. So let's go. But let's start off with

03:29above the law. And here I picture like a freeze screen. I don't know if you've seen above

03:33the law, but like Steven Seagal throws somebody through a windshield of a car. And then it's

03:38like shows him like looking through the windshield and it's like a freeze screen is like above

03:44the law. And so that's what I get a lot of mental imagery in my head. Like every time

03:49I say covenant code for some reason I picture Samwise saying share the load that little

03:57slow motion close up of his mouth only he's going covenant code. I don't know why. Maybe

04:04I don't know. It might be because we watched all of the Lord of the Rings shows over the

04:10holidays with my 12 year old. Like you do. I just got her started on rings of power last

04:16night. And now I'm now I'm thinking Johnny Cash rings. Wow. Oh, I probably can't sing

04:21that. But this is a great view into Dan. It's a mess in there. But anyway, the covenant

04:28code is is a term that scholars use for us a more or less consistent collection of texts

04:36in Exodus. The broadest designation would cover Exodus chapter 20 verse 22. So right

04:43after the end of the 10 commandments, all the way through to chapter 23 verse 19. But

04:51a smaller designation more restricted look would be chapters chapter 21 verse one through

05:00chapter 22 verse 16. So there's there are two different scopes of of what this covers.

05:06And that's probably because scholars have different theories about how it came together

05:10as a collection. But in my opinion, in the opinion of a lot of scholars, this is the

05:16earliest legal material in all the Hebrew Bible. So like 10 commandments that came together

05:22over a few centuries and is probably because we've got the Sabbath in there. This is probably

05:30exilic in its final form. You're talking about Exodus 20. Yeah. Yeah. The first part

05:38of this 20. You're claiming. Hold on. Wait a minute. Let me just be clear about this.

05:43You're claiming that God did not give those laws to Moses on a rock and on Mount Sinai.

05:53That is what the data indicate. And you know, you can look in Exodus 24. I, this is one

05:58of the ones I love pointing people to. It's like, so Moses went up the mountain. Turns

06:03out Moses had to go off the mountain. So Moses went up the mountain. Anyway, then Moses went

06:07up the mountain. Like it's, it's a very choppy narrative. But right. So the covenant code

06:13is probably the earliest bit of legislation that we have in the Hebrew Bible and things

06:18in Leviticus, things in Deuteronomy, even some stuff in numbers. These are probably later

06:24renegotiations of what's in the covenant code. They're expanding on it. They're, they're

06:29changing some of it. And we're going to, we're going to talk a little bit about a few of

06:32those instances today. But, okay. But we're going to start, I think it would be a good

06:37idea. Did you find anything in chapter 20 that you wanted to look at or did you want

06:41to get into 21? I mean, most of, so most of chapter 20 is what we know as the 10 commandments

06:47and people can refer back to our episode about that. If they want to hear us talk about that.

06:52And then the very end, it just talks about sort of the, the altar and how you're supposed

06:57to make an altar and you're not supposed to chisel it. It's just a rock.

07:00Well, and I like, I like verse 23. You shall not make gods of silver alongside me nor shall

07:05you make for yourself gods of gold. It's like, well, we know you just told us that.

07:11You literally just got so mad at us about that. We got it. And that's, and that's the

07:16very first commandments from the 10 commandments, which just came 20, 20 verses earlier. So

07:23right. Exactly.

07:24You can tell there's a bit of a literary seam here. Yes. Yes. Indeed. Yeah. And that

07:29seemed continuous. I noticed because in the next chapter, there was a law, I don't remember

07:34what it was, but it was basically one of the one of the 10 commandments just being reiterated.

07:38Yeah. Yeah. In a different way. Yeah. So yeah, I think we can skip the altar stuff.

07:43Okay. People tend not to do altars much anymore. So we can, I think we can move past that.

07:49Though it seems to have been very important at the time. Yeah. How, how the altar is supposed

07:54to be made. Hune or unhune. What's your pleasure? God was like, definitely unhune. I'm an unhune

08:00guy. How don't you dare you? Yeah. If you, if you're you, you're out. All right. Let's

08:07move on to chapter 21. Let's talk about it starts with slavery. It does.

08:13And the law and Pete, you know, if you've been listening to the show or you've even read

08:17the Bible at all, you know that the law is not going to be about how slavery is bad.

08:22Right. Right. That was part, that was on the five commandments on the third tablet that

08:28Moses dropped. Right. God is like, I'm not doing this again. So unfortunately, slavery

08:35is evil, got blotted out next. Yeah. Instead, we have a whole bunch of laws about how like

08:43it's not even about how to treat your slaves. It's about what to do if things happen to

08:49your property. Yeah. And, and it starts with when you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall

08:55serve six years, but in the seventh, he shall go out a free person without debt. And basically,

09:02this is debt slavery. And so it's like, he serves six years, no matter what the debt

09:06is, it's wiped out. If he comes in single, he goes out single. If he comes in married,

09:11then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons

09:15or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her masters and he shall go out alone.

09:20So you can, you can breed enslaved folks. You get yourself a debt slave and then you get

09:29a female slave and then you can breed your own perpetual slaves. They stay hers or his.

09:36And then we have the, the particularly unfortunate part in verse seven. So male Hebrew debt slaves,

09:46they go out in the seventh year. But starting in verse seven, when a man sells his daughter

09:51as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. Yeah. So, and, and people are like,

09:58well, when, how often does that happen? This is really the only instance where a woman

10:03could be a debt slave because they don't really have much property of their own. They're not

10:08going to get into their own debt. This doesn't even sound like a debt slave because it's,

10:13it's a man selling his daughter. Well, to, to cover his debts, to cover his debt. Yeah.

10:19So this is, ooh, I can't, I can't pay this bill for, you know, re renovating the bathroom

10:25and he's like, well, you got that daughter over there. He's like, ooh, how about the younger

10:31one is? Yeah. And so according to Exodus 21, only male debt slaves go free in the seventh

10:39year. Female debt slaves are perpetual debt slaves. And, and the reason seems to be that

10:46they're basically concubines or sex slaves. That's the only reason you have a female debt

10:51slave. And verse eight says, if she does not please her master, who designated her for himself,

10:58then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people

11:02since he has dealt unfairly with her. And an interesting, it is very weird, but there

11:09are some things to note from this. So this is, there are some protections that are being

11:14offered here. So she's a perpetual debt slave as a concubine or a sex slave, but he's not

11:20allowed to sell her to a foreign people, which would suggest that he could sell her to other

11:29Israelites. Yeah. So she, she could enter the slave trade as a perpetual debt slave and

11:37then get sold to other folks. So it also suggests that there was a thriving like foreign slave

11:45trade. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like that was just, it's clear that this was very common in that

11:52era, in that, in, in that area. Yeah. And then we have a few more verses. And, and yeah,

11:59it makes it sound like everybody's in on this. This is just something that's, that's going

12:03on. If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as a daughter. Basically, if

12:08he's going to make her his concubine, he's got a treater as a wife. And if he's like,

12:13man, if he doesn't treat her appropriately, then then there are some protections offered

12:20to her, he can designate her for his son. He has to treat her like he would his own daughter.

12:27If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish the food clothing or marital

12:31rights of the first wife. In other words, he can't, you know, demote her if he takes

12:36on another wife. And if he doesn't do these three things, she goes out without debt, without

12:40payment of money. In other words, there is a circumstance where she is released and that's

12:45if her master doesn't treat her right. But she is still like, I mean, and women as property

12:54is kind of a theme that runs through this, even if they're not debt slaves, like women

13:00are, are kind of property. Yeah. Well, marriages, and we talked with Jennifer

13:07Bird about this, marriage is taking a woman. It's purchasing her sexual availability and

13:13her procreative capacities from another man, basically. Right. And we get to that. We get,

13:19I mean, because immediately after that, we start to get into some, well, immediately

13:26after that we've got violence and we should get into that. Yeah. Let's, so let's do that

13:30first. Okay. This is where we get, I think, and I think we talked about this when we,

13:38we discussed abortion a while back. And one of the, one of the relevant passages that we

13:44talked about is here, because there's a whole bunch of stuff about like striking slave owner,

13:52slave, when a straight slave owner strikes him, a slave male or female. Yeah. And I want

13:57to talk about those verses when, when we're, yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll get right back to

14:01that. Let's just do get into this, this moment where, uh, oddly, it's the weirdest thing.

14:09It's not if you, if you purposefully punch a pregnant woman, it's, if two people are fighting,

14:16they happen to be in a fight and a pregnant woman's walking past and gets like whacked

14:23and falls down. And she's fine, but she miscarries the baby, uh, then they have to pay, then

14:31you have to pay some money for it. But if she's not fine and she dies, then, uh, I for an

14:39eye tooth for a tooth, right hand, hand, hand, burn for burn. Yeah. Lex Taliana's or, um,

14:47allionic justice, uh, which is the retributive, um, justice due to the perpetrator, what

14:55was done to the victim, right, uh, which as we've talked about indicates that a fetus

15:00was not considered a full legal and moral person, but what's more treated as property.

15:06And there's an interesting thing there. Uh, it says there, uh, the very last clause of

15:12verse 22 and the NRSVUE says paying as much as the judge is determined. Um, in the KJV,

15:20it says, uh, the woman's husband will lay upon him and he shall pay as the judge is determined.

15:25Uh, elsewhere we have, he will pay what the court decides. And this is interesting because

15:33when it comes to the life of, of an enslaved person, there's a socially standardized value

15:39for these shekels. That's what it is. Enslaved person, 30 shekels, fetus court determines,

15:47which suggests that there's no socially standardized value, but the husband is probably the one

15:54who is making the determination. He's like, I'm going to need, I'm going to be needed

15:59at least 350. Um, and then the court is there to arbitrate to ensure that it is not exorbitant,

16:04most likely. Um, it's, it's not perfectly clear because the word there that they're using,

16:10uh, peleleem is, uh, a very rare word. And so, um, we're not exactly sure what's going

16:18on there, but that seems to be what that means is, Hey, this is, there's no standardized

16:22value. The husband's like, I was really looking forward to this one. So I'm going to need

16:26a little bit more. Um, but it is, yeah, it's a pretty, uh, it is a pretty harsh system.

16:34Yeah. The other theme that we're going to notice throughout all of this is the, is that this

16:44code gets into weird minutia that seems like so vanishingly rare. Yeah. Like how often are

16:52two guys, two people going to be fighting and this pregnant woman's going to walk by?

16:56Right. Like how, how, how often could that possibly have happened? Well, and this gets

17:01into, uh, the, the famous goring ox law and that's, that's in this, uh, in this chapter,

17:10but one of the things that, um, that it highlights is that the covenant code is not an original

17:16composition. There were not some, some Israelites who were like, you know what? I, I got an ideal

17:22let's write all this down. And it certainly did not descend ex nihilo from the heavens.

17:26Um, on, on a tablet or anything else. They're actually borrowing from Hammurabi's law. So

17:33these are, these laws are being adapted and adopted from Hammurabi's law. There's a great

17:39book that discusses all the evidence for this by a wonderful scholar named David Wright called

17:45inventing God's law. And, uh, he goes through and shows that you can start at the beginning

17:51of, of Exodus 21, the beginning of the covenant code go all the way through to the end and

17:55every law has a parallel in Hammurabi's law. And a lot of them are in the same order they

18:02appear in Hammurabi's law. And he even talks about the, they switched order here and goes

18:08into why like it's a, it's a phenomenal analysis, but this seems to be, um, an alteration of,

18:15uh, one of Hammurabi's, uh, laws, it was, uh, let's see. It was law 207, uh, 206, 207.

18:28There's men fighting. There's an injury. Uh, but there's also associated with that. What

18:33happens if, uh, 209 through two 14 is what happens if a man strikes a woman and causes

18:39a miscarriage, but like the, the penalties are different depending on the social status

18:45of the victim. Okay. So which is something that we're going to see in the covenant code

18:49as well. But there's the, there's the goring ox law. It's like, what happens if an ox

18:53get out, gets out and gores somebody, if it's never happened before, then the owner has

18:57this penalty, but if it's happened before and the owner's been warned, then it's life

19:01for life. But if the victim's family is like, we just want to find them, then they can find

19:06them and they save their life. And it's like we're, we're oxen just running rampant in

19:12the streets in these, uh, in these societies and Hammurabi's laws from a thousand years

19:16before the covenant code. I was going to ask you to sort of give us a day on, on, on all

19:21of that. Yeah. So Hammurabi's law is, is much earlier around, uh, uh, 1800 ish BCE. The

19:29covenant code is probably somewhere the earliest layers are probably eighth century, seven to

19:36eight hundred BCE. So just around a thousand years later. Um, and, and some of these are,

19:42are probably, uh, come from earlier time periods, but the version of the, these laws that we

19:48find in the covenant code, they were probably written down initially, uh, in the eighth

19:52century BCE or maybe the seventh century BCE. Um, and so it's not that these things were

19:59just, um, they had a weird society where it was like the only kind of injury a woman had

20:04was when she was, when two men were fighting and she got injured or there's the, the other

20:09one, uh, elsewhere where, uh, two men are fighting and one of their wives grabs one of

20:14them by the junk. Right. Then you got to cut her hand off. Yeah. Literally grabs the other

20:19guy's genitals to help him win. What, what are we talking about? Yeah. Well, and it's

20:26because these were not these laws were not like on the ground actual jurisprudence. There's

20:32a, there's a famous saying every stupid law exists because somebody did something stupid.

20:39Not necessarily. Uh, when it comes to these laws, this was actually probably, uh, originates

20:44in literary exercises and in rhetorical exercises, they're probably, and, and this is the case

20:51with Hammurabi for instance, like Hammurabi's law. It starts off, uh, you know, great king.

20:56He did all this. He, um, insured justice, uh, ensure that there was a justice for the orphan

21:02and the widow and the oppressed. And then you go look through all of Hammurabi's laws and

21:08it's like, nope, not a single law says anything about justice for the orphan or the widow.

21:15It's rhetorical. And you have, and those are just kind of your prototypical victims. They're

21:20the canaries in the coal mine of justice. Sure. The orphan in the widow. And so, um, is basically

21:26putting on display how just and ordered your leader is. They've thought of everything.

21:32Well, surely they haven't thought about what happens if an ox gets out and gores somebody

21:37and the owner has already been warned and they're like, no, we got that. That's in there

21:43too. Wait, wait, wait. What if your, my donkey falls in a ditch? Then what? Yeah. Yeah. And

21:49then you've got your, but wait, there's more. We also thought about what happens if the

21:53ox gores an enslaved person or the ox gores, the child of a citizen, like it is an attempt

22:00to, to show how ordered and just and righteous the sovereign is. And in, with Hammurabi's law,

22:07it's Hammurabi, who's the sovereign in the covenant code, it's God. Right. But it's,

22:12it's basically trying to show off that God has thought of everything even. Okay. And

22:17it's like, we're not going to actually go, uh, event by event through all the possible

22:21iterations of a given law, but we're going to, we're going to drill down to the bedrock

22:25of some weird stuff, just to make it seem like we've thought of everything.

22:30It would be nice if just at the beginning of all of this, there was some text that just

22:36said something along the lines of here's a smattering of representative laws. Yes.

22:43That we just as examples of things that might come up or whatever, because it makes it seem

22:48like the way that this is all worded makes it seem like here is the totality of our laws.

22:55Yeah. Things that are important to us are, yeah, slavery, violence, animals falling into

23:02holes, uh, and we're goring people. I keep mentioning that one because that's my favorite

23:07one. We'll get to it later. Well, um, you, you have all these opportunities to do this

23:12because like they, they start this off very similar ways multiple times, like Exodus 20,

23:18verse one, then God spoke all these words and then you get to the beginning of the covenant

23:22code. Uh, the, the Lord said to Moses, thus you shall say to the Israelites and then you

23:27get to chapter 21, verse one, these are the ordinances that you shall ship before them.

23:32Like they repeatedly are saying, here are our laws and, uh, and you know, that is one

23:38of the reasons that scholars are like, okay, it seems like they just stacked up a bunch

23:42of different collections. But yeah, you don't see including, but not limited to, um, they

23:49needed a lawyer to proof read this, uh, and be like, well, you're going to run into problems

23:53here. Um, and, and that's what like Deuteronomy is for because you get into Deuteronomy and,

23:59and they're actually repeating a lot of these laws and improving on them. So like, uh, you

24:04know, the, the male debt slave goes free on the seventh year. The female is, is perpetual.

24:09You get to Deuteronomy 15 and it's explicitly says male and female slaves go free in the

24:16seventh year. And what's more, you got to give them stuff when they leave you, they don't

24:22leave empty handed. You got to make sure they don't, uh, you know, we're going to prevent

24:26recidivism by saying you have to give them some pocket change on the way out the door

24:31so that they don't immediately go hold up a 7 11. Um, so Deuteronomy is like, oh, we,

24:37we did it better this time around. Um, but what was, there was one that I wanted to look

24:43at. Oh yeah. Uh, did you have something you want to do? No, no, I was just going to say

24:47that you, you wanted to go back to some of the violence, uh, earlier in, yeah, you know,

24:52me, I'm all about violence. Um, but, uh, exit is 21 16. I made a video about this recently.

24:58Whoever kidnaps a person, whether that person has been sold or is still held in possession,

25:02they shall be put to death. That's what the NRSVUE says. The Hebrew is literally, and

25:07the stealer of a man, if he sells him or is caught in his hand, shall be put to death.

25:17Um, and, and this is interesting, uh, because people who say, well, uh, the, the 10 commandments

25:24says do not steal. A lot of people says say that that is prohibiting kidnapping. Oh, interesting.

25:30Now the verbal root is the same, uh, but gone off, but, uh, here it's, it's stealing a man.

25:38So it's, it's more explicit, but again, they're repeating things. Uh, if that does mean kidnapping,

25:44but it says, each, uh, go there, each or go, uh, go now, go, nave, each, uh, that is a

25:51technical term throughout the covenant code. When they say each, they mean an adult male

25:55Israelite a citizen. Okay. Cause when they, when they, when they want to talk about kids,

26:00they'll talk about a son or a daughter of an each. When they want to talk about a woman,

26:05they will say an Esha, when they want to talk about a foreign person, they will say a nahar,

26:09when they want to talk about, uh, an enslaved person, they will say an evad, like they're

26:13very clear about who these laws apply to. And here it's about kidnapping specifically an

26:20adult male Israelite. And this is another instance where in Deuteronomy, they improved

26:24on it cause they, uh, maybe that's a little ambiguous. And so in Deuteronomy, it says

26:29anyone who steals one of their brethren, one of the sons of Israel. Uh, so they're, they're

26:35more explicit about that. Uh, and, and the ambiguity here is what leads some folks, uh,

26:42Frank Turic comes to mind other, uh, Christian apologists to say, no, no, the slave trade

26:48was prohibited because it says right here, you can't steal a person to sell them. And,

26:55uh, I, I hear that all the time about how, no, it actually in the very same chapter that

27:00it tells you, uh, what you can and can't do to your slave and how long slaves serve,

27:06it evidently entirely prohibits the slave trade. So right. Um, yeah, that's, that's a

27:11bad interpretation of that passage, but another example of something that we find in the covenant

27:15code and we find revised and Deuteronomy and that, you know, it's funny because that one

27:22kidnapping a person against their will holding him or, or, or selling him death penalty seems

27:28strong to me, but I get it, but that is sandwiched between two other verses that hold the death

27:34penalty. Yeah. One of them being whoever strikes father or mother shall be put to death. That

27:42seems a bit strong. I know several people who got in fights with their dads. It doesn't

27:46seem like, uh, I know several people wear that was like a sport for their dad. Yeah. Yeah.

27:53Uh, and then the other one, and this is this one kills me. Whoever curses father or mother

28:00shall be put to death. Yeah. I don't know what curses means in this case, but it just seems

28:05like death seems like a strong thing, no matter what. Yeah. They're, they're pretty

28:12trigger happy when it comes to, uh, the death penalty here, but these are, and again, this

28:17is a repetition of, uh, honor your father and your mother so that your days will be long

28:21in the land from the 10 commandments. Now it's like, let's get into the nitty gritty of this.

28:26You hit your parents. You die. You curse your parents. You die. Um, like it's pretty strict.

28:33Yeah. Although that's followed directly by when individuals quarreled that we've were

28:39off the father mother thing and one strikes another with a stone or a fist so that the

28:45injured party, though not dead is confined to bed, but recovers and walks around outside

28:50with the help of a staff. This is a very long way. Yeah. Like if then, one of those drill

28:56down to the bedrock one, right. Uh, then the assailant shall be free of liability except

29:02to pay for the loss of time and to arrange for full recovery. I did like, like you can't,

29:08you can't get in a fight with mom or dad, but boy, you could, you could hit a guy with

29:14a rock. And if he recovers, uh, you got to pay him for some time lost or whatever. Yeah.

29:19And then the one after that is like, Oh, what if it happens to an enslaved person? Yeah.

29:24So we're like, see, we thought of everything. And this is the one where, um, it says, when

29:28a slave owner strikes a male or female slave, again, they're very careful about this with

29:33a rod. Uh, and the slave dies immediately. The owner shall be punished. And, and it doesn't

29:40say death penalty. It just says punished. Yeah. And, uh, it's likely because if it is a debt

29:46slave, then it's probably an Israelite and they want to treat that crime more harshly

29:51than if it is a chattel enslaved person who was a foreigner, because I don't really care

29:56as much about the life of the foreigner. So they're kind of hedging their bets by just

30:00saying, yeah, there's a punishment. You know what to do. Um, and then the next verse says,

30:05but if the slave survives a day or two, there is no punishment for the slave is the owner's

30:10property. And this is a, this is a passage to get, that gets interpreted a couple of

30:14different ways because, uh, most scholars would say in the Hebrew, the idea here seems

30:19to be that if the slave lives for a couple of days and then dies, then he's free of punishment,

30:27uh, and it says for the slave is the owner's property. The idea being, Hey man, that's

30:32his property. He relies on that slave. If that slave dies, it probably wasn't intentional.

30:38Like if he beats him to death, that seems premeditated. It seems intentional. But if

30:43he's like, you know, this is, this is an instructional beating. Um, and then you got to be able to

30:48beat him. I don't know. Like what are you going to do? I mean, he doesn't listen, right?

30:52So, uh, but then it seems like it's accidental and it's punishment enough that he has lost

30:59his property. And so I was like, well, we've already deprived him of his property. So,

31:02um, you know, all good, um, no harm, no foul, but the other way to interpret that is to say

31:08if the slave, uh, recovers in a day or two, very similar to the previous passage, but the

31:14Hebrew is very different. It does not say if the slave recovers in a day or two. Uh, so

31:20yeah, again, rough times. Uh, uh, next we get, next we get to some, uh, some oxen stuff.

31:30We're talking about property. This is where we get the, uh, the ox goring a man or woman

31:35to death. You talked about, um, I love that one of the things that seven versus. Yeah.

31:40It's, it's way more intense than like it's five verses. I think. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's

31:48if we're going by pure word count, yeah, this is by far the most important thing in all of

31:53Hebrew law, like absolutely just like forget about it. Yeah. That shall not kill not a

32:01big deal, but let's talk about oxen for a minute. And even with the, uh, uh, with the

32:06kidnapping, it's like, don't kidnap a man. And here it's like, well, what the ox could

32:11might gore a man if the ox gores a woman, if the ox cores a child, if the ox gores an enslaved

32:16person, but with kidnapping, it's like we really only care about the man. So we're not worried

32:21about the others. Very inconsistent in the scope of their, uh, legislation here. By the way, uh,

32:28in case anyone's wondering if the ox gores a male or female slave, the owner shall pay to the

32:33slave owner 30 shekels of silver and the ox shall be stoned. They're going to stone the ox. I just,

32:41that's a spectacle. I, I hope never to see. I'll say that. Well, if you go to Leviticus chapters

32:4818 and chapter 20, we have our prohibitions on bestiality and, uh, they're the, uh, the human

32:55participant as well as the animal are, uh, are both, uh, required to, uh, to be killed. So, yeah,

33:04you, you, it's, it's quite a spectacle to see, uh, you know, somebody pulls a donkey out into the

33:10town square. What happened? Uh, it was, you know, some bestiality. So, so we're going to kill the

33:16donkey. Yeah. That's what the law says. That's what we're seeing. Uh, uh, verse 33 talks about,

33:22this is the one that I keep referencing because I love it. If someone leaves a pit open or digs a

33:28pit and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it, uh, the owner of the pit shall

33:34make restitution, giving money to its owner, but keeping the dead animals. So you get something out

33:39of it. What are you going to do with a dead donkey? People are digging donkey traps, apparently,

33:45as well as happening all the time. It's like, what if somebody's kid, uh,

33:48falls into it? Like it doesn't say anything about that. They can't help. Look, if the kids

33:53so dumb, they fall in a pit that's on them. It shouldn't have been standing there. Um,

33:58let's get to Exodus 22 really quickly. Um, because now we have laws of restitution.

34:05Yes, uh, which are all about like very, various scenarios that might, that probably won't, but

34:12might happen. Yes. Very detailed and oddly specific scenarios, including, but not limited to,

34:20if your field is grazed over, uh, and you let your livestock loose to graze in someone else's

34:27field, uh, what to do. Yeah. If fire breaks out in a field, what to do, uh, when someone's,

34:35you know, if they, like the, like, if someone, if you keep your, if you let your neighbor take

34:44care of your, your money or goods for safekeeping and then it's stolen, how often could that have

34:52been coming up? Like how many people are doing? Although it's actually a good deal. So like,

34:58I think everybody probably should have just let, uh, their neighbors hold the,

35:02everybody just trade goods and hold on to it for your neighbor because then, uh, if the thief, uh,

35:08is caught, they have to pay double. Yeah. I don't know why that doesn't apply if the stuff,

35:13like, is it, if the thief steals it from your house, they just have to pay it back. But if it's

35:21from your neighbor's house, they have to pay double. Is that what I'm getting? I just, it's very

35:25confusing. Well, and this is an interesting set of passages too because we have a bit of an ordeal

35:30as the, uh, to resolve this because, um, so it's, you're letting somebody borrow something and they're

35:39like, you're like, Hey, uh, can I have my lawnmower back? And they're like, Oh, sorry. It got stolen.

35:45And, um, like what? And, uh, in verse eight, it says, if the thief is not caught, in other words,

35:52you don't have, uh, evidence of this, the owner of the house shall be brought before God.

35:57Now the word here is Elohim, which can be the singular God, but can also be God's, um,

36:04to determine whether or not the owner had laid hands on the neighbor's goods. And most scholars

36:10would say this is an ordeal. You're basically trotting them before the divine image and say,

36:15yeah, tell it to God's face. And you've got to be able to say, I swear according to all the things

36:22that, uh, I didn't take this, that the idea being, hopefully they'll be too scared to lie to God.

36:28And so if they can, if they can swear the oath before God and, you know, lightning does not

36:34strike them where they stand, then they must be telling the truth. Um, but it says in, in verse

36:39nine in the English, and this is verse eight, uh, in the Hebrew, uh, NRSVUE. In any case of

36:45disputed ownership involving ox donkey sheep clothing or any other loss of which one party says,

36:50this is mine. The case of both parties shall come before Elohim. The one whom Elohim condemns

36:57shall pay double to the other. Here's the interesting part. The verb condemns there. That is, uh, of

37:02which Elohim is the subject is plural. It says the gods condemn. Okay. The one whom the gods condemn

37:12shall pay double to the other. Uh, and we, we actually have something very similar in the previous

37:17chapter in Exodus 21 about another ordeal that somebody has to do before Elohim. And so I think

37:23it's interesting that this, uh, is again, earliest legislation in all the Hebrew Bible,

37:28we have indications that they are doing ordeals before almost certainly, uh, images of multiple

37:37deities, not just, which is another reason to believe that like this is separate from Exodus 20

37:44and the idea of thou shalt have no other god. Yes. Yes. Separate earlier and earlier. Yeah.

37:51So the end of this chapter has the, I think the, the clearest indication we're dealing with an

37:58incredibly early, um, set of laws here. Uh, which is what, which is what, uh, the child sacrifice

38:06required. Okay. Right. Shall we, shall we hop to that or? Yes. Let's hop. Okay.

38:11Uh, we're running out of time here. So yeah, hop, hop away. We have talked about it before.

38:16Yeah. Uh, but the tyranny of that darn clock. Okay. So, um, this is in English. This is usually

38:23versus 28 and 29 in Hebrew, or no, this is usually versus 29 and 30 in Hebrew. It's verse 28 and verse

38:3129 and RSVUE. You shall not delay to make offerings from the fullness of your harvest and from the

38:36outflow of your presses. The firstborn of your sons, you shall give to me. You shall do the same

38:42with your oxen and with your sheep. Seven days, it shall remain with its mother on the eighth day.

38:48You shall give it to me. And so the question is, what does this mean? Give it to me. Yeah. Um, uh,

38:59okay, I, um, I got a not quote song lyrics. Ah, because there was a disturbed song that, uh,

39:06that I thought would have gotten really well right there. Um, anyway, the, because whatever

39:12the giving is going on here, it's the same giving that is supposed to happen with the oxen and the

39:17sheep who have to be, um, who are left for seven days with the mother before being taken away and,

39:25and something is done with them. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, yeah. This before we talked about this, uh,

39:32either you give your firstborn into priesthood and then also you have to give your sheep and your

39:39oxen into priesthood. Yes. The animal priesthood, the animal priesthood, or it's that other thing.

39:45And that seems pretty freaky, pretty freaky and also pretty correct, uh, in terms of, uh,

39:52how we interpret this passage. And I think one of the, one of the clearest giveaways of this is

39:56in the story of Abraham, in the story of the Passover, in the other legislation we have

40:05in Exodus 13 and in Exodus 34 and elsewhere, there is always child sacrifice that is required,

40:14but then superseded by another law to redeem the intended sacrifice with some other animal.

40:23And so like, if you're putting together laws and you're like, hey, what if we had them sacrifice

40:31their children? It's like, and somebody was like, mmm, better yet, what if we didn't have them

40:36sacrifice their children? But we started off by saying they had to and then swooped in with, uh,

40:43just kidding with your sight. You're going to redeem them. Yeah. Like there's no reason for the

40:48psych unless the thing is there to begin with. Yeah. You don't start from a, the position of,

40:54look, we don't want to sacrifice children, but I think we should say we do and then turn the tables

41:00on them. Um, I don't like it. I don't like any of it. Yeah. So, so this is probably a part of this

41:07incredibly old legislation, the earliest legislation we have that got adopted by Israel and later

41:15legislation. Again, they're, they're already modifying it. We know they're modifying it.

41:19And their modification here is, oh, uh, let's, let's put a psych in there. Uh, gotcha suckas,

41:28turns out all you have to do, you got to redeem them. They're intended for sacrifice, but we're

41:34going to require you redeem them. So, um, and I, I was on a, uh, I recorded a discussion with Heath

41:42Durell and Kip Davis a bit ago. Uh, Heath Durell published, uh, about six years ago, a book called

41:48Child Sacrifice in Ancient Israel that talks about this. So, um, so if you're interested in a far more

41:55boring discussion, uh, go check out Kip Davis's down in the, in the, get all the way into the

42:01weeds with it. Yes. Yes. All right. Cool. Um, let's, is there, is there anything more that we need to,

42:09that we should be covering in this covenant code? I mean, we could go on and on for clearly for hours

42:14about it. Yeah. You, you have next, you get into, uh, kind of justice for all stuff and, and not, uh,

42:19but, but they are, um, including the base line for that. That might be a little too, uh,

42:26deep a cut, but, um, but, uh, you have a false reports and lawsuits and stuff like that. They,

42:33they come in chapter 23, but which might be a part of a later layer. So, and those false reports,

42:38things again, like we already have the, uh, the 10 commandments, just a few chapters earlier about,

42:44you know, that shall not bear false witness. And yet, up it pops again. So, yeah. So, and, uh, yeah,

42:50the, the, the Jason newstead joke was about how his base, uh, audio was, uh, basically muted, uh,

42:57in the, uh, Metallica's in justice for all album, uh, because they were upset about, uh, about the

43:04death of their original basis, but that's neither here nor there. That has no, I'm so glad you went

43:09there. I'm so desperately glad you went there. Um, let's move on to our next above the law.

43:21And this one, uh, is not about ancient laws based on Hammurabi and, uh, various codes,

43:28but, uh, they will claim a lot of these lawmakers that they're based on

43:33older, ancient, more important law. Namely, a lot of them are citing the Bible when they

43:39start to come up with, uh, reasons for their laws. We're talking about

43:44the spate of, uh, of new book banning laws that are sweeping the country here in these United States.

43:53Yeah. Um, including in our own fair state of Utah, it's, it's something to be very, very not

44:01proud of. I'm, I am horrified by what's happening. Yeah. In, in, in America right now.

44:08And, and you know, if, if the power of these legislators was not limited to the schools,

44:14that they would be reaching into the homes as well. Like, yes, the, uh, we're not, uh, at too far a

44:20distance from, uh, uh, 1984 where you got to find a corner of your house where the video cameras

44:28don't get to you so that you can read the, uh, the contraband literature, but luckily they're,

44:35they're limited to the things that the state is sponsoring. And right now, however, that is the

44:40public education of our children. Yeah. Such as it is. And for however long that ends up lasting,

44:47we'll see. Yeah. Uh, it's all going to be privatized. Uh, it's going to be the musket

44:53education, um, before too long. Yeah. Where everybody will be taught how to code and then

45:00kick to the curb if they're not performing. Right. And well, they'll be taught how to code

45:05and, uh, and the Bible. Yeah. Uh, but here's the, but one of the sort of funny things that has

45:12happened in all of this, uh, as, as they sort of try to limit the, uh, the, the knowledge and breadth

45:24of, of the human, of humanity's education that children get is that in so doing, as was the case

45:32with, uh, in Texas, House Bill 900 passed, uh, and this has happened in many places. I'm just using

45:40this as an example. It happened here in Utah too. Um, but in Texas, this, this House Bill 900

45:47passed, which is meant to prevent, uh, kids from seeing scary content. Um, yeah, specifically,

45:56yeah. Uh, any, any kind of smart, any kind of, uh, sexual anything. Yeah. Which led, uh, one

46:04superintendent to take the Bible off the shelves of, uh, of all of the schools. Yes. Uh, to which then

46:14the, uh, the, the state representative of Texas who, who, uh, sponsored the bill wrote a scathing

46:22letter to that superintendent saying, I don't know how you could possibly have interpreted it

46:28such that the Bible would run afoul of these, uh, indecency laws or whatever, but put it back on,

46:36which then he, the, the superintendent did. Yeah. So here's the question. And I've looked at lots of

46:42their bills from Tennessee and bills from Iowa. There's bills all over the place. Um,

46:49and I wanted to see if this book, if the Bible actually runs afoul of these things, the Tennessee

46:56bill was, I, I looked up and then they had a section that was about definitions. So, uh, the

47:02Tennessee bill talks about, uh, excess violence. Um, and they define that as, uh, the depiction of

47:11acts of violence in such a graphic or bloody manner as to exceed common limits of custom and

47:18candor or in such a manner that it is apparent that the predominant appeal of the material is

47:24portrayal of violence. Hmm. I feel like there's a lot of violence in the Bible. Like, I, I, I can

47:35remember, I mean, even just, you know, there's, there's, there's wars in which violence is,

47:43are there, is there like explicit violence, uh, through a, because I tried to remember there's,

47:51oh, there's what's her name? Stabbing the head of the dude. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

47:56In the driving it through until the, until the, the spike hit the ground on the other side.

48:01Yeah. There's, well, there's tons of violence in, uh, in the Bible. You have, you have all kinds.

48:08There's sword play. There's people being burned to death. There's people having their heads chopped

48:13off. There's, uh, people being run through. You have, uh, Saul has his, uh, armor bearer,

48:19uh, kill him. And then David has the armor bearer killed for killing Saul. It's all on the quest.

48:25There's, uh, you have, oh gosh, all kinds of, uh, of violence. Uh, David cutting, uh, Goliath's head

48:35off, uh, which is what, it's funny. The David hits him with a stone and it kills him. And then

48:41David cuts his head off, which kills him. Right. Um, so I, maybe giants have double lives, uh,

48:47of some kind, but you got, you got what's his name with the sack of four skins? Oh, yeah. He had

48:52to go collect. Yeah. You have Samson killing, uh, bunch of, uh, Philistines with the jawbone

48:58of an ass. Oh yeah. That was like a thousand dudes, right? It was, it was an awful lot of dudes. Yeah.

49:03All right. Well, uh, the main violence check violence check and double check. Yeah. It's,

49:11it's a very violent book. Um, and, and, and a lot of people, and here's one thing I want to be clear on.

49:16It's not just Hebrew Bible stuff, like the dichotomy of the violent God of the Old Testament versus the

49:21loving God of the New Testament is anti-Semitic and also entirely false because you have a mix of

49:28different representations in both. And in the book of Revelation, you have a deity who, uh,

49:35threatens to sexually assaults. Uh, folks, you have somebody talking about bathing their sword

49:42in the blood of their enemies. You have, you know, blood running up to, uh, people's ankles and,

49:48and things like that. Like there's an awful lot of violence in at least the book of Revelation.

49:54I don't know. I still don't know why people thought that would be a good book to include.

50:00Yeah, I wonder about that too. Um, but the real, I think, I think, so I think the violence,

50:07I think that is a good reason not to have kids read this book. I think, I think violence is far

50:12worse for children than sex. Like depictions of violence is going to be far more impactful on

50:19a child's mind than sex is, but these legislators are far more worried about sex. So let's talk

50:28about that. Well, they've got, they've got, uh, some, uh, deviant sexualities that they're

50:35trying to police here, which is the main problem. Right. Uh, so let's, yeah, that's true because

50:42most of this legislation, even, even if it doesn't mention it at all, most of this legislation is

50:48about policing. Yeah. Yeah. Like LGBTQ plus things. They just, they just don't want to be seen as

50:57that. So they call it community standards or whatever. Anyway, uh, this Tennessee, uh, bill has,

51:05lists, uh, has a phrase called harmful to minors and they very generously, uh, defined that for us.

51:13Harmful to minors means that quality, uh, means that quality of any description or representation

51:22in whatever form of nudity. So I, I assume that that means described nudity or, or visual nudity.

51:30Um, sexual excitement, sexual conduct, excess violence or sadomasochistic abuse

51:37when the matter of performance A would be found by the blah, blah, blah, blah.

51:42Anyway, um, there's a lot of sex in the Bible. Yes. Yes. Uh, can you give us some examples of,

51:49of what might, uh, what might run afoul of, of this? Well, are we, are we including, um, incest

51:56in here? Because I think that's the right thing to include. Okay. Cause I know some, some of the

52:01legislation explicitly calls that out. Yes, it does. And, uh, but yeah, we've got in Genesis,

52:07you've got, uh, the case of, uh, we're going to skip over Noah cause I really don't think that

52:13sexual in nature. It just talks about the fact that Noah was nude. There's nudity. That's nudity,

52:18though. Uh, but, uh, in, uh, Genesis 19, you have a lot escapes to the hills with his two daughters

52:27who seem to imagine that they're the only humans left on earth after the destruction of Sodom and

52:33Gamora and the cities of the planes. So they seem to take it upon themselves to try to repopulate

52:39the earth by getting their father drunk and engaging in coitus to impregnate themselves,

52:46resulting in the people of Moab and the people of Ammon. And this is basically

52:51a way to say, ah, you guys suck. You were, uh, the product of incest. Right. So, so they're

52:58describing incest in, in not incredible detail, but being quite explicit about, uh, what's happening

53:04here. Uh, and yeah, you have a description of, of, of Onan who can forget Onan poor.

53:10Onan's great. Yeah. Onan, uh, who, uh, it says, and there's a, we think of it as a euphemism,

53:18but it's not really a euphemism. The, uh, in intercourse frequently in the Bible is framed as the man

53:28going into the woman. Yeah, which is not a euphemism. Um, but, um, the, I think it's Genesis 38 talking

53:36about Onan says every time he would go into, um, his wife, he would spill his seed on the ground.

53:45So we've got some coitus interruptus going on, uh, which then required somebody either, uh, like,

53:52you know, kick some dust over that or, or I don't know what they're doing there, but, uh, there is

53:57pretty explicit, uh, sexuality going on there. Uh, we've got a bunch of other, uh,

54:04yes. Oh, I, I was just thinking of the book of judges, uh, but egglawn came immediately to mind.

54:09You want to talk about violence? That's where the dude goes in. Uh, he's, he's a, a large man. He's

54:16a fat and, uh, he gets stabbed all the way to the hilt so that the dirt came out. Uh, like,

54:23I remember the first time I read that, I was like, that is awesome. But, um, but yeah, that,

54:30that's pretty graphic. Uh, well, we have Ezekiel 23, uh, is a, there's a passage that an awful

54:36lot of people really enjoy. Oh, what is the other one? I'm going to have to look up another one. Um,

54:41cause it, there's a passage that talks about two people they're named, but they're metaphors for,

54:47um, unrighteous Israelites and it talks about how they love to go down to Egypt where the men

54:55fondle their, their, um, youthful nipples. Um, and, but here in, uh, Ezekiel 23, uh,

55:02God is, is condemning probably Jerusalem. It's always Jerusalem yet. She increased her

55:08prostitution's remembering the days of her youth when she prostituted her,

55:11prostituted herself in the land of Egypt and lusted after her paramores there whose

55:17members were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of stallions. Only,

55:23I wanted to see what the Hebrew was. Emissions there, uh, is a word, um, uh,

55:29zirma, uh, which seems to mean phallus rod branch phallus. So it's, it's, at least in Hebrew,

55:40it pretty explicitly is saying, uh, their phalluses are like the phalluses of stallions. So, um, oh,

55:49effect that's, oh, it's the very next verse. Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth when

55:54the Egyptians fondled your bosom and caressed your young breasts. But I don't know how you can

55:59get more explicit than that. I mean, that's pretty explicit. Yeah. Uh, anyway, I, I think,

56:07I think we can say, say out of that, Dan, right? Well, no, I'm just saying we can safely say,

56:13this runs afoul of these laws. Like this is, we haven't even gotten to the song of songs.

56:19Right. Right. That is all about it. Uh, I know, I noted that in, uh, in the Iowa law,

56:27which went into effect, uh, in 2023, it says, uh, no sexual acts can be depicted

56:35in, in any book from, for all of K through 12, that's kindergarten five year olds through 12th grade

56:42for seniors in high school, 17 year olds, sometimes 18 year olds in some places.

56:47Right. So they can't, so, so we were protecting them all the way up to 12th grade, uh, from sexual

56:54acts, except for religious texts, because they thought, wait, we, we see them coming. We're going

57:02to make sure that I will say, but that exception is a dangerous one considering the fact that the

57:08Kamasutra for crying out loud could very easily be considered a religious text. I think whatever,

57:15whatever state it says that is, somebody needs to be able to put a Kamasutra in the library.

57:20Absolutely, man. If you're in Iowa and you want to mess around with some people,

57:23just demand that the Kamasutra be in the, uh, yeah, maybe don't do it in a, in an elementary

57:28school, but get that thing into a high school. Yeah. Definitely do a high school there. I mean,

57:32I, I, you remember, you remember field of dreams, right? Uh huh. Like there's a, there's a part, uh,

57:38where they're at a PTA meeting, uh, remember, they're like in the gym and he's just, you know,

57:44he's, he's like, uh, close encounters of the third kind guy. He's just playing with his mashed potatoes

57:49in his head. And his wife is like freaking out at these people who are like, it's pornography.

57:55And like these fights have been going on for the longest time. And it's, it's so depressing that

58:04we've gotten to the point where, where they're like, oh, we, we want to keep this stuff away from

58:08kids. Hey man, your holy book says that stuff. Okay. We want to keep this stuff away from kids,

58:13but we're making exception for, for our holy book. Well, it has to be all holy books.

58:17Okay. We're going to keep this away from kids, but we're going to write in an exception.

58:20We're going to do a little carve out for, um, any holy books. Um, but really we just mean the

58:26Bible because that's all we care about. And, um, the, the ignorance, the historical ignorance,

58:34the, uh, just the, the malice of trying to shape, uh, public education so that everybody will end up

58:46being a Christian nationalist. Right. Just infuriating. And, and it always backfires. It always goes

58:55wrong. And, and also, I, and I think part of the, the reason I wanted to talk about this is that

59:02the fact that the Bible is so clearly so explicitly runs afoul of these laws. And yet they want to

59:10insist that the Bible be in these schools proves the hypocrisy of their position. Yeah. And not

59:16only that, they, they insist that the Bible will, um, that we need to require the Bible be taught

59:22in all classes. Right. Because that will result in a more moral people. It's like, well, no, it'll

59:29result in people who think slavery is okay. And that women are property. Right. And it will result in,

59:35um, a lot of, you know, a lot more, uh, insurrections at the Capitol. Uh, but it's not going to result

59:44in this moral people telling a story about how it's okay to be, you know, for a high school kid

59:50who's worried, uh, you know, isn't sure what's going on sexually, a book that makes them feel

59:56okay in their own body. That's going to help the morality of this country infinitely more

60:04than say, and hey, read the story about owning. You've got to read this. Um, like that's, that's,

60:09yeah, I mean, there are a lot of nonsense for lack of whatever. Yeah. What you're talking

60:13about is like, there are books that are like literally written for teenagers at their level.

60:18It's not safe. Their lives to help them with their own burgeoning, uh, to help them understand

60:24what's going on in their own bodies. And these people are worried about, are banning those books.

60:31And, uh, you know, because they say the word gay in them and you know, half of these bills are

60:37nicknamed that don't say gay bills. But so the re, you know, things that would give them real

60:42life, uh, knowledge that would be helpful and useful to them, uh, are banned. And then this book,

60:49which is like, it's a valuable book. And it's a book that I think I like, I'll be, I'll be honest,

60:56I don't think it's appropriate at all to give to children. But like late teens, they, yeah,

61:03let them, let them start looking at this book. I think that it's, I think that the Bible is an

61:07important book. And I think there's no reason why they shouldn't. Yeah. But, uh, if, if we're talking

61:13about what's actually appropriate and good for children, um, especially, yeah, before high school,

61:20this book is not okay. Yeah. And, and what's unfortunate is, is we mentioned it earlier,

61:29but I think the driving, um, impetus here is they want to be able to control whether or not you're

61:37allowed to, um, say that it's okay to be gay in, in public spaces. That's what frequently this is

61:44all coming down to. And, and increasingly, it's okay to be trans and trans people exist. Basically,

61:52they don't want anyone who is growing up thinking they might be gay or trans or something like that,

61:58being told that's okay. They want to be able to, um, to beat into them, uh, or at least compel,

62:07condition them, uh, to think that it's not okay and that they need to change.

62:13And on a wider level, they're actually looking to provide cover for bigotry. They're looking to

62:18provide cover, not just against LGBTQ people, but like these same book bands also have cover for,

62:25all these reasons why, and then, you know, it's not explicit in them, but then you look at which

62:30books actually get banned and like Tony Morrison suddenly disappears from all of the book shelves.

62:36And you know, it like all of these black and, and, and people of color authors are suddenly

62:42disappearing and, and oh, they would, they would relitigate Brown v Board of Education

62:47yesterday. Oh, you know, if they could, like this is the, and it's the exact same argument.

62:53Parents ought to have control over public education. That, that was the argument, uh,

62:57against desegregation. It was like, no, no, no, parents have to have control. And that is what

63:03gave rise to, uh, private education. And, uh, you had your, uh, your desegregation or your

63:10segregation academies, which turned into private school and, and then charter schools and stuff like

63:15that. And why does it always come back to white supremacy, Dan? Why does it always come back to

63:21white supremacy? And that, that's where we're at. That's where we're at. Uh, and trying to divorce,

63:28Christian nationalism from white supremacy is a fool's errand that you will never be able to

63:33achieve. So gosh, there you go. Um, uh, please, if you have any white supremacy or Christian

63:40nationalist in you, um, don't hell up anymore. And, uh, and, uh, you know, go, go get this book

63:49band, I guess. I don't know. Uh, I guess that's it for the show. Thanks everybody for, for paying

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