Ep 94: Getting to Gnow the Gnostics

00:00Screw dust covers says the man whose book is about to come out guaranteed with dust covers

00:07on it.

00:08That was not my choice.

00:11When you get Dan's book, the first thing you are required to do by Dan's own edict

00:15is burn the dust cover.

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

00:24And I'm Dan Beecher.

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

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

00:34about the same.

00:35How are things, Dan?

00:36Things are good.

00:37Things are good.

00:38We're good here.

00:39We got some fun heresy coming up.

00:41We got some we got some good stuff going on.

00:44It's the new year.

00:46It's it's hot boys winter.

00:50I don't know.

00:51I don't know.

00:52New year.

00:53New us.

00:54New year.

00:55New us.

00:56All of those things.

00:57I think we're going to have some fun with today's show.

01:01Our first segment is going to be a history's heresies because we like to get heretical

01:10up in here.

01:12That's going to be fun.

01:13We're going to talk about nosticism.

01:14And I'm excited about that.

01:15And then in the second half of the show, we are going to talk we're going to do a what

01:19is that about a thing that you have mentioned many times on this show and in your various

01:26other social media, Codex Sinaiticus, which sounds like probably it sounds like a disease

01:34question mark.

01:35I don't know.

01:36Yeah.

01:37Something like that.

01:38Or something you'd see a commercial on that says may result in anal bleeding or something

01:41like that.

01:42Do not take Codex Sinaiticus if you've experienced any.

01:46Yeah.

01:47Exactly.

01:48All right.

01:49Well, let's just launch in with history's heresies.

01:56All right.

01:57So I said it.

01:58We're talking about nosticism.

02:00I personally am a nostic.

02:04I am agnostic.

02:05Agnostic.

02:06Yes.

02:07Yes.

02:08Easy to get those two confused.

02:11But I would like to learn more about here's the thing for all of the things on the show.

02:16Usually when we decide on what we're going to talk about, I dive in and do a little bit

02:19of research to sort of figure out what the heck we're, you know, so that I have anything

02:24at all of value to offer to the conversation.

02:28But this time I actually opted out of doing too much.

02:31I wanted to do some, you know, surface stuff, but I figure I'm just going to be the guy learning

02:38with the rest of the audience on this one because it just seemed like that would be

02:40a useful thing.

02:41And I'll ask questions because I don't know anything about narcissism.

02:45Yeah.

02:46All right.

02:47Well, dive in.

02:48All right.

02:49Yeah.

02:50First off the, the word begins with a G, uh, gunosticism is, is what we're talking about,

02:55which comes from the Greek, uh, gnosis, which means knowledge.

02:59And so nosticism would seem on the surface to have something to do with knowledge.

03:04And really it's a kind of a blanket term that is used by scholars.

03:09And there's a debate regarding how accurate a term it is for a handful of different movements

03:15that we primarily see within early Christianity, but are, um, theorized to come from perhaps

03:22a pre-Christian Jewish movement, um, we're, we're actually not totally sure about that.

03:29But it is related to a philosophical movement known as, um, middle platinism, which is kind

03:38of where, uh, one way that platinism was, what's getting its kicks in the first and early

03:46second century CE is that a really, is that related to Plato?

03:51Is that what we're talking about?

03:52Yes.

03:53It would be related to Plato.

03:54So, so Plato was, uh, was all about the, the fleshly material world versus the spiritual

04:02divine, uh, and, and never the twin shall meet, these are two diametrically opposed categories.

04:10And this influenced the cosmology of, uh, perhaps some, some early Jewish folks who saw

04:18the material world as corrupt and evil and saw salvation and the goal of, of our, um, of

04:28what we're all doing here, uh, being related to overcoming the flesh and escaping the fleshly

04:34prisons of our bodies.

04:37And that was not done through, uh, you know, what, nor, you know, animal sacrifices.

04:42It's not done through, uh, penance.

04:46It's not done through, uh, payment.

04:48It's not done through all these things.

04:49It's done through accessing knowledge and specifically kind of secret knowledge about the,

04:57the hidden main God.

05:01And so yeah, you go back to like Plato's cave.

05:03You're familiar with this, the allegory of Plato's cave, where we're all just, you

05:08know, I'm not recalling this.

05:10Yes.

05:11I'm definitely 100% familiar with it, but for the other people, yes, yes, maybe it'd be

05:15a good idea to talk about it.

05:18So there was this, this idea that, um, it's called the allegory of, of Plato's cave where,

05:24uh, what we experience of reality can be compared to a shadow puppet show.

05:33Somebody is behind, we're all kind of chained up forced to watch this screen or this wall

05:39of a cave where, uh, somebody behind us has a light source and they're kind of putting

05:46on a puppet show and all we're seeing is the shadows dancing on the walls.

05:50We're not experiencing reality directly, we're seeing, um, this, um, kind of projection

05:57of reality.

05:58And what philosophy does is help you escape from the cave and actually directly engage

06:05with reality and experience it as it is rather than as these, uh, these puppet masters behind

06:13us are wanting us to experience it.

06:16And so the, but this is, um, this is related to the idea that the world is an illusion.

06:23And we're trapped in these bodies and we want to try to escape them so that we can return

06:29to the pleroma, uh, the fullness, our, our spirits can anyway, because the reality is

06:34that our, our selves are these divine sparks, these, um, spirits that are within us, uh,

06:42that want out and then all of the trappings of the flesh are literally that trappings

06:49of the flesh that keep us, uh, here.

06:52And so the idea is to, uh, through, uh, Jesus is, is supposed to be one of the offspring

06:59of one of the, uh, barbello is, is the name of, uh, of the first emanation of the main

07:06God and Jesus is the, the son of barbello according to one of these traditions and barbello is

07:11kind of androgynous.

07:13We're not sure if it's, uh, male or female, but in one of the traditions, that's kind

07:18of the root of all of this.

07:19And then we get Jesus as the son who is, has come to try to help, uh, the people who are

07:25interested in gaining this secret knowledge do so.

07:28So they can ultimately, uh, they realize their own divinity within them realize that the

07:33fleshly world is a prison and then try to gain the knowledge, the secret knowledge to,

07:39um, finally unlock the, the door and escape back to the world of the divine to the Pleroma.

07:47Okay.

07:48And, and, and that's like a, uh, 900,000 foot view of what we have been able to reconstruct

07:57because we don't have much directly from Gnostics.

08:02Overwhelmingly.

08:03Yeah.

08:04Our information about Gnosticism primarily comes from the writings of Christian leaders

08:09who hated Gnostics.

08:10Okay.

08:12And so they, they quoted things and they, they talked about leaders and things like that.

08:16And they talked about their texts, but we didn't know much at all about them until, uh,

08:21we discovered the Nagamari codices, which are a bunch of texts that it appears somewhere

08:28around 400 CE, somebody out in the desert seems to have stuffed all these texts in some,

08:35some leather, um, folio things and buried them.

08:38And we didn't find them until, uh, about 75 or 80 years ago and, uh, and we, we found

08:45a bunch of texts that generally are categorized as Gnostic, including some that we have known

08:52about like the, the lost gospel of Thomas, for instance, uh, and there was also a gospel

08:57of Judas that was recently, not recently, gosh, probably what 20 years ago, almost, uh,

09:04the gospel of Judas was, uh, was discovered.

09:07That's another example of something that's generally identified as Gnostic.

09:12But we, there are a bunch of branches of Gnosticism.

09:14You have, uh, Valentinianism, you have, uh, the followers of facilities.

09:19You have the Sethian Gnosticism, uh, and there, there are a couple of later branches, mannequism.

09:26Have you ever heard of, uh, of mannequism?

09:29I've heard you say that word before.

09:31So that's, uh, it's generally considered a, a branch of Gnostic Christianity.

09:36It was, uh, started by, uh, a prophet named, uh, mannequism, or money, um, who was, uh,

09:46like Manny.

09:47I want to, I want to feel like he's the guy that like he's a prophet, but he also runs

09:51the corner store down the street, the little bodega, uh, and he was, uh, born in the early

09:59third century CE, uh, in, he's Iranian.

10:04So it's kind of, uh, taken a little bit from here, a little bit from there, a little Zoroastrianism,

10:09a little, uh, Christianity, a little Gnosticism, uh, but was, was kind of a, um, his was kind

10:15of a, uh, a conflation of a bunch of different movements and, and, uh, was propped up by

10:22some followers as the fulfillment and the, um, the, uh, you know, overcoming of all the

10:30different traditions, uh, I feel like that's that one of the key, one of the points that

10:35we need to remember in looking at any of these things is that the second you try to nail

10:41something down is like, here's the central philosophy of this.

10:44It forgets the fact that all of these things, Christianity, Judaism, all of these things

10:52modify wildly over time.

10:54It doesn't take long for something to go from one thing to another to another to another.

10:59Yeah.

11:00We see that all the time in modern history as well.

11:02Like it's very easy to look at modern Christianity and, you know, points to, well, the Catholic

11:08church believed this and then the Protestantism and then the this and the this and, but you

11:12know, in the space of a hundred years, things change fairly dramatically sometimes.

11:18Yeah.

11:19So, so yes, to say when I ask you, Hey, what's narcissism is like, if it's lasted any amount

11:25of time, it's not one thing.

11:27Yeah.

11:28It has to be able to adjust to, to circumstances and, and things like that.

11:34And so yeah, it, and it didn't last much.

11:37Those Gnostic movements died out by the around the end of the fourth beginning of the fifth

11:43century CE because this is, we have the edict of Thessalonica, I think in 380 CE.

11:50This is when not only did Christianity become the official religion of the Roman Empire,

11:55but they specified specifically Nicene Christianity.

11:59And so all of the, all of the other traditions became a really religious known grata in the

12:07Roman Empire.

12:08And that's why some more around 400 CE, some people went out in the desert and went bury

12:13that crap.

12:15And, and there, there's an argument to make that monasteries got their start in association

12:20with Gnosticism, that they were out in the deserts with their sacred texts, you know,

12:27doing whatever it is they, they wanted to do on their own, leaving everybody else alone,

12:32similar to, you know, like the Essenes at Qumran and things like that.

12:37And, and they may have been the ones who preserved some of the Gnostic texts because the, the

12:42Nagamadi codices were discovered near some monasteries in the desert in Egypt, which is

12:49precisely where you had all these people out there, try and, you know, just basically saying,

12:54don't hassle me, man, and, and getting hassled, and ultimately being brought under the arm

13:01of the Catholic church because of, mainly because of Athanasius of Alexandria.

13:07And, but we do have a branch that survives down to today, and we talked about them before

13:14on our channel, and they are the Mandians.

13:18Okay.

13:19So you'll recall we talked with James McGrath about his book on John the Baptist and the

13:24Mandians who, who may have been, there may or may not be a genetic link between the following

13:31of John the Baptist and the Mandian movement.

13:35They, I think traditionally they, they claim that they go all the way back to John the

13:41Baptist.

13:42People where they do not, mandaeism postures itself or is describable as a Gnostic movement.

13:52And so maybe not as, as bizarre and out there as some of the Gnosticism that's people who

14:00study the Patristic authors and the early church fathers would think of Gnosticism, but it is

14:08a Gnostic movement that has survived down to this day.

14:11I'm still not a hundred percent clear.

14:14Is the thing, are we still holding that, that the thing that makes something Gnostic

14:19in nature is that duality between material and immaterial world?

14:25Is that the main identifier or what?

14:29I think that's, that's one of the main identifiers.

14:31This is one of the reasons people debate things like the, the, the gospel of Mary.

14:36Is that Gnostic or, or is it not because it seems to be talking about all this, you know,

14:41you got to have the right knowledge and there's, there's mockery going on of, of people who

14:45don't have the right knowledge, but completely absent is any reference to a traditional Gnostic

14:52cosmology about the Yaltabout is the, is the JV squad deity that creates the natural world

15:00to try to imprison all these spirits and, and that's who Jesus is coming to save everybody

15:06from.

15:07And, and this is where Gnosticism runs into some, can run into some anti-Semitism.

15:12There are certainly movements that have emphasized this more than others, but when you look

15:18at the, the Hebrew Bible, you see, Adonai, the God of Israel is creating the material

15:24world and that makes Adonai the bad guy in some Gnostic perspectives.

15:31And so the, and the name they uses is Yaltabout.

15:36And so Jesus is coming to save his followers from Adonai, the God of Israel who's, who's

15:43out to make sure they stay imprisoned.

15:45So the, so getting back to the gospel with Mary, some people say, well, we can't really

15:49say it's Gnostic because there's nothing about that cosmology or no references to

15:53Yaltabout or anything like that.

15:55So for some people, that is diagnostic of Gnosticism.

15:59A lot of other scholars would say we can't really identify a necessary and sufficient

16:05feature of Gnosticism.

16:07And some scholars would argue that, anciently, there's nobody who would have said, oh, yeah,

16:11I'm a Gnostic.

16:12Right.

16:13Like it wasn't an identity that was, that had any currency back then, it's the, perhaps

16:22the closest analog that we could talk about is like paganism, because paganism just becomes

16:29kind of a catch all term for everything that's not us is paganism and it becomes a, a byword

16:36and, and this kind of thing.

16:38And then now we have neo-paganism where, where folks are trying to restore to the degree

16:44that they can, what was going on with some of the non-Christian European traditions that

16:52were, that were around before.

16:54So right.

16:55So it is pretty squishy, it is kind of egg to the wall, problematic, the categorization.

17:05Another interesting movement that I think some people have called like pseudo Gnostic

17:09is, is the Cathars, Catharism.

17:15And this is, this is not just somebody who can't pronounce Catholicism.

17:19This is a specific movement that starts up probably around the 12th century.

17:25It's a little fuzzy where it's coming from.

17:28Some people think that there is a, a movement called, um, Polishism, uh, that might come

17:35from the Byzantine Empire come through Armenia into Bulgaria and then further west end of

17:41Europe and become Catharism, uh, but they had a, uh, they seem to have incorporated some

17:47docetism into their, um, into their ideas about Jesus, in other words, he wasn't a docetism

17:54is, uh, is the idea that Jesus wasn't a flesh and blood human, uh, and that Jesus didn't

18:01actually die on the cross, but, um, was kind of like, peace out suckers and, and, um, and

18:07left either replaced him with someone else or it was just an illusion or something like

18:11that.

18:12And this is, and this is something that, um, Marcian is accused of, of promoting, uh, with

18:19his version of, of the scriptures, the, uh, the Pauling writings and his version of Luke.

18:24And, and so that may be why the first two chapters of Luke were added, uh, at some point

18:30later as a way to confront and, um, counteract Marcian's docetism.

18:35But we see that in, in Catharism where they, they're treating Jesus as, as not a flesh

18:40and blood human, um, and they had this, yeah, they, um, had a, a right, it was kind of like

18:51baptism.

18:52Only it was called, um, consolamentum.

18:56And this was, it's kind of an interesting, uh, thing.

18:59It was very similar to baptism in, in that you shook some holy water over someone's head,

19:05but you had to do a lot more of it.

19:07It was like a very thorough rinsing.

19:10So that, um, not just a sprinkling, but you had to get thoroughly wet.

19:14And this, and this is the idea that you're being super, super soaker treatment.

19:18Yeah.

19:19Yeah.

19:20Yeah.

19:21This is the, um, this is the supersize me version of, uh, of this where you're definitely, you

19:26know, you have been, um, consolamentum.

19:30But, um, the idea is that, uh, temporal pleasure is sinful because it is the trappings of the

19:37flesh.

19:38And once you have reached the point where you're like, I'm ready, I'm going to be, I'm going

19:44to, you know, um, do my best to completely, um, overcome all the trappings of the flesh.

19:49You would go through this process.

19:51And then afterwards you were supposed to be a pescatarian.

19:54So, um, no, uh, no meat, just the, uh, the fishies.

19:58You're supposed to be celibate, uh, and you dedicate the rest of your life to itinerant

20:03missionary work, traveling around, teaching Cathar doctrines.

20:08And evidently from what we've, we've been able to reconstruct of, uh, of this right,

20:15the overwhelming majority of the people who, who went through it.

20:18And after you went through it, you were called a parfate, um, not a parfait, but a parfait,

20:24which was related to the idea of being perfect.

20:26Um, and evidently the overwhelming majority of the Cathars who went through this process

20:31did so, um, right before they, they died.

20:35So this was like a deathbed thing.

20:37Sure.

20:38Cause it was like, like anything that requires of you that you give up all of your earthly

20:43pleasures and also like sex and all that sort of stuff, you kind of want to do that right

20:48before you die.

20:49Yeah.

20:50That is the best time by far.

20:51The guy who's like, well, I'm allergic to fish.

20:54So, uh, it's like, well, then let's do this on the way out the door.

20:59And, um, so that that seems to be, uh, what happened and, uh, and I don't know if that

21:05accelerated the process of, uh, of getting out the door, but, um, is the word.

21:11Catharism.

21:12Is that related to cathartic or to, um, do we know it has to do with, um, with purity.

21:22Oh, so, um, from Greek, um, and I imagine that cathartic probably has to do with

21:29cleansing.

21:30Um, because, yeah, that's got to come from the Greek.

21:35Let me just pull up, uh, yawned, etymological dictionary, um, cathartic.

21:42I highly recommend.

21:43From catharsis.

21:44You get yourself, uh, an expert in things, uh, so that you can just, when you get curious

21:49about a thing, you can just ask them and then they can, yeah, yeah, that, that comes from

21:53the Greek catharsis purging or cleansing from the stem, uh, katharine to purify purage from

21:59katharose pure clean of dirt clean spotless, open free shame or guilt purified.

22:04So, so yes, it is, uh, it is related to that.

22:11When did catharism, like what was the timeframe of that 12th to 14th century?

22:16So 1100s is when we first start seeing people thump in their chest and goes, I'm a, I'm a

22:22person, uh, and then we have very quickly the Albigensian crusade.

22:28They were actually like, uh, let's spin up a crusade against these dorks and, um, and

22:35pretty heavily, um, brutalize them.

22:39And then I do love the idea of, of, of the crusades as a hazing ritual.

22:45Hey, nerds, get over here, uh, but they, they were, I think they were viewed as, as trying

22:54to restore like one of the great ancient heresies.

22:58And so, um, they were like, uh, you know, we're going to leave the Turks to the Holy

23:03Land for a little bit, um, as we got some, got some nerds over here that need some, some

23:08noogies.

23:09Uh, and then they were part of the medieval inquisition and they were pretty much gone

23:13by, um, by 1400 and, and people were, they were, you know, towns would be, um, run through,

23:21they would hang people.

23:22They would burn them at the stake men, women, women, children, like, wow, they were really

23:27upset about the Cathars.

23:29Yeah, I guess.

23:31But they, they were also, um, non-trinitarian there, um, it's, it's a little fuzzy and

23:38probably because these movements tend to, there tends to be diachronic, as well as synchronic,

23:43um, variability and, and those are some two dollar words.

23:47Diachronic means through time, synchronic means with time.

23:52So think of variation as we move through time and then variation at one time, but as we

23:57move through space.

23:58Yes.

23:59Um, and so, uh, some of them were adoptionists.

24:04So that Jesus was adopted by God at his baptism, uh, to, as the son of God and the, uh, others

24:13took a more modalist route where it was that there were, that Jesus was one of the modes

24:19of God and then you could, you know, you press a button and they spin and then bam, there's

24:23another one that's in front and then you press a button and they spin and then bam, there's

24:26the third one that's in front.

24:28And so the, um, but that was a heresy that was, uh, that was condemned by Nicaea as well.

24:36So these were, these were not, uh, the nice scenes were not friendly to these, no, I mean,

24:43it, the whole purpose of Nicaea was basically to, uh, to, to narrow things down so that

24:49we know who, who, who were okay with it.

24:52Who's in and who's out.

24:53Yeah.

24:54Well, and, and there's a, I've, I get a lot of pushback from folks who were like, no,

24:58this was about salvation.

24:59They, these people thought that you had to believe the right thing, um, to be saved,

25:04which, uh, is, um, you know, I, I see where they're coming from, but overwhelmingly this

25:11is about power and, and that's what Nicaea was because if, if there had been no Constantine,

25:19they would have continued to bicker about this because nobody would have had the authority

25:24to say, well, I got an army, uh, or I got a whole nation or empire and I'm going to exile

25:29you.

25:30No, it would have just been a bunch of cities, just kind of slap fighting each other for

25:35centuries.

25:36But once Constantine came in and said, all right, we're, uh, playing with the big boys,

25:41we need to get some unity here.

25:43Uh, so I'm giving you figured out, I'm giving you the authority to figure out, um, how to

25:49do this.

25:50And yes, I will, you know, exile the people.

25:52And, um, Constantine was actually pretty sympathetic toward the Arians for a while.

25:57In fact, there was an Aryan con, um, not an Aryan Constantine, an Aryan emperor, um, uh,

26:05in the, uh, fifth century, early fifth, early fifth, I think late fourth century, uh, CE.

26:11So the, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't a smooth transition, but ultimately, uh, the ones who,

26:17who had the crown were able to enforce their, their will and, and you know, the, the cathars

26:23started up, uh, in Southern France and, and the crown enforced their will, uh, with prejudice

26:30upon them to, uh, ensure that, uh, they didn't make it past 1400.

26:35Certainly weren't going to see, uh, Columbus, sail the ocean blue.

26:38Uh, so yeah, they, they never got to know that, uh, that the earth was round.

26:43Yes, because that's what Columbus figured out. That's what nobody knew it before then.

26:48Nobody figured that out before him.

26:51Um, interesting.

26:53Okay.

26:54Well, the, so this thread of Gnosticism, uh, it feels, it feels like it's in conflict

27:04with everything that I know about sort of Christianity.

27:09Did they, do you, do we think that the Gnostics?

27:14I mean, it doesn't even, it doesn't even seem related to what I know of Christianity.

27:18It's just seems, it seems so outside of it, but, but they did, they did honor or, or they,

27:26they liked the Christian ideals.

27:28They liked the person, the, uh, the character of Jesus, at least how they represented him

27:33in, in, in their literature, uh, because not all of the, the New Testament writings jived

27:39with, uh, with the Gnostics, which is why they came up with, with a lot of their own.

27:43And that's, that's the main, when people talk about non-canonical Christian literature,

27:47uh, like the Gnostics in the second century, they're the main purveyors of, of other texts.

27:53Uh, and so, so these, these gospels of, of, uh, who did you say, Judas and what were

28:00you, uh, yeah, and Thomas, uh, and Gospel of Mary, and, and they're a bunch of, of others,

28:06the apocryphon of John, and, and, um, you have a bunch of these.

28:12Okay.

28:13And, uh, so they're coming in the, in the second century.

28:18And yeah, it is, it does, what we understand of Christianity today, it seems like they

28:22stand diametrically opposed, but they're coming in at a time when not all of that is

28:28nailed down.

28:29Right.

28:30So it's a bunch of different Christians who are like, um, and, and, you know, I always

28:34go back to Talladega nights.

28:36I picture Jesus like with the, with big old wangs, like an eagle and, um, you know, they

28:41got a bunch of different people running around with a bunch of different ideas and, and one

28:45of those streams of tradition would ultimately take over and would be the one to, um, to

28:53characterize what Christianity was going to be, uh, ever after.

28:57Yeah.

28:58But in the time period when, when Gnosticism was popular, uh, it was just one of the other

29:04variations.

29:05Yeah.

29:06One of the competing philosophical ideas surrounding Jesus and his, his legacy.

29:11Yeah.

29:12And, and, you know, a lot of scholars reconstruct the earliest periods, even before Gnosticism,

29:16um, as, as pretty full of, of Pluriformity and even conflict where maybe James has got

29:22one thing going over here and Peter's got one thing going over here and Mary Magdalene

29:26has something going on over here and Paul's got something going on over here.

29:30And then maybe they didn't really like each other very much, which a lot of people theorize.

29:35This is why Mary Magdalene gets, uh, gets the shaft in a lot of ways regarding her own

29:40authority and perhaps at the hand of Peter or followers of Peter.

29:43And this is why Paul and James didn't seem to get along and so I think as time goes on,

29:49you go from greater Pluriformity to more consistency.

29:53And so we're looking back through the, a stack of a historical interpretive lenses that compels

30:02us to view Christianity a certain way when if we could get rid of all of them and go back

30:08to the first century, I don't think Christianity would be recognizable to anyone who is experiencing

30:13it today.

30:15I think that makes a lot of sense.

30:16Even just, you know, uh, the only analog that I have in my mind for that timeframe is sort,

30:23you know, I was raised in the, in the Latter-day Saint tradition, um, which you know well and

30:29just heard about you're aware of it.

30:33Yes.

30:34Yeah.

30:35I know of the tradition.

30:36You're familiar.

30:37Uh, but it's, um, but like there were so, and as I grew up in the Latter-day Saint,

30:43I didn't hear any of this, but there were so many moments where it fractured off.

30:49And there were so many like, um, diasporic, uh, uprisings and, and, and, and, uh, schisms

30:59and things where, you know, this guy had just had a different take, just strang guy.

31:05And so he took a bunch of followers and they all went and lived on an island.

31:08That literally happened.

31:10Uh, and you know, like there were, there were literally hundreds of people who considered

31:17themselves the rightful, uh, sort of lineage of Joseph Smith's work, uh, lot so many different

31:26and several of these, uh, offshoot variant versions of the Latter-day Saint movement,

31:33which, you know, so many people think of Mormonism as being a single thing, but there's been

31:38literally hundreds of Mormon religions.

31:43And that's just in the past 150, 150, you know, 80 years or whatever.

31:48Mm hmm.

31:49So it like, and, and you know, certainly nothing.

31:53So, so I just think that it's interesting to think of the, that first century, first

31:58and maybe second century CE as being that for Christianity of being just a time of, of

32:05like wild disagreement and, and, uh, and, and it wasn't certain and it wasn't easy and

32:11it wasn't things weren't obvious in any way.

32:14Yeah.

32:15And, and I imagine it was doubly hard because they were all having to do this while, while

32:19trying to, uh, scurry away from, uh, Roman powers who were, were, uh, persecuting and

32:28prosecuting them along the way.

32:30Yeah.

32:31Yeah.

32:32It must have been a trip indeed.

32:35Indeed.

32:36All right.

32:37Well, that, I think we're going to have to revisit Gnosticism, uh, at some point.

32:40We, we may have to bring up, we may have to like tuck into, uh, an actual Gnostic book

32:46and just, and just see what it's all about at some point and, and I've got a couple of

32:49friends who are, um, chomping at the bit to come on the show, uh, one of them, one of

32:54the leading authorities on Gnosticism, April DeConnick is, um, that I, uh, had dinner with

32:59that SBL, who's, uh, a wonderful scholar of early Christianity and Gnosticism.

33:04So love it.

33:05She's eager to come on and, and correct, uh, any and all, uh, and misinformation that

33:11I've spread that we've just, that we've just poured out in the, yeah.

33:15All right.

33:16Excellent.

33:17Uh, looking forward to that, um, well, let's move on, uh, to what is that?

33:24Did you ever watch the very first episode of Saturday Night Live?

33:29I don't think so now.

33:31There's, there's a skit where it's, they're just showing the stage and Bill Murray walks

33:37out in the middle of the stage and looks off in the distance and goes, what is that?

33:45[laughter]

33:47What is that?

33:48Oh, wait.

33:49No.

33:50What is that?

33:51And then like by the end of the skit, half the cast is out there going, look at that.

33:57What is that?

33:58Yeah.

33:59And, and then like they're all like, oh, oh, okay.

34:03And like that's the end of the skit.

34:04It was weird, but every time you think what is that, I, I think of the very first episode

34:10of Saturday Night Live.

34:11We'll have, we'll have Bill come on and do it for us.

34:14That would be excellent.

34:16Uh, all right.

34:17So today's, what is that?

34:18The thing that we're looking off into the middle distance at is the Codex cyanidecus,

34:25as you, exactly.

34:29As you came on, as you and I started talking before we launched into recording, I mentioned

34:36that I was just, I was busy looking up the, the definition of the word Codex even.

34:42[laughter]

34:43So, uh, maybe we should just start with that and then move on from there.

34:48[laughter]

34:49I know you love definitions.

34:51So that's what we're very excited about.

34:55Um, yeah, uh, it come, it's related to, uh, the Latin word for book.

35:01Yeah.

35:02So, um, yeah, manuscript volume.

35:04And anciently, this is interesting, anciently, you didn't keep your important books on codices.

35:09You, uh, you only kept like one page or just a few page documents that you didn't really

35:14need, uh, on codices, the important stuff you kept on scrolls.

35:19And there is a theory that Christianity innovated this shift towards thinking of the Codex as

35:27the transmitter of sacred literature.

35:31And so they were like those, uh, Jewish folks have their scrolls.

35:37We have our codices and, um, and cause nobody prior to the late first century CE was, was

35:44doing anything important with codices.

35:46And when we say that we're just talking about the form of multiple leaves of paper stacked

35:52together and bound on one side.

35:54Right.

35:55So that, so that you can, and, and one of the things this does is it makes it easier to

35:58go from one part of the text to another cause with a scroll, you got to sit there and

36:02go, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll back.

36:09And, uh, you know, you got to find what you're looking for with, uh, like, like the days

36:12of microfiche or something.

36:17Um, but, uh, with the codex, you can just flip over and it's also, it also takes up

36:22less space.

36:23Yeah.

36:24So the, the code number, the pages even so number, the pages, yeah, makes it that much

36:27easier.

36:28And in a lot of ways, Christian scriptures, the technology for the, the utility of Christian

36:37scriptures has been aimed at facilitating the public consumption of the text.

36:43Because if you look at all the, all the technological innovations, every steps seems to make it

36:49easier for someone who has the text to be able to find a specific part in the text quicker.

36:56Um, it's funny to think of the idea, think of a book as a new technology as like high

37:03tech. Yeah. But I mean, it kind of was, that makes sense that that would be, that that

37:08would be, uh, a really useful, handy dandy, new tool, 100%. And, uh, if only they had

37:18thought of versification, anciently, that was something that was, that was, uh, so the

37:22versification of the Hebrew Bible happened in the 1300s. There was a rabbi who was responsible

37:28for being like, I'm dividing them up. And then, uh, in 1551, we had, uh, Robertus

37:34Stefanos, um, who took the Texas Receptus and published in addition of the Texas Receptus

37:41with versification of the New Testament and then published his own edition of the Latin

37:45Vulgate with everything versified. And so that's what we're just talking about, like

37:50numbering out, uh, dividing the verse chapter and verses. Well, yeah, there, there had been

37:55chapter divisions for a while, but, but to divide sentences and, and sense units and

38:00things like that into individual verses. Yeah. That's when that happens. Is that the guy

38:03that I can complain to when I, when I'm confused, when it looks dumb where the verse, uh, break

38:10is because there's so many moments where I'm like, why is that the verse and not like

38:14shifted over four words and it makes so much more sense. Yeah. Yeah. That there are obviously

38:21some, some shortcomings to the way it was done, but it has, it has become so ingrained in the

38:25tradition that we cannot violate it, which is why we now have, and, and this is actually

38:31directly revolve relevant to relevant and relevant at the same time to Codex Sinaiticus,

38:37but we have over a dozen passages from the New Testament that we know are later additions

38:43to the manuscripts and not original to the text. And so we've taken them out, but guess

38:47what we haven't done. Change the versification. Right. We just skip over the verse. We just

38:54go 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, and we just leave 21 out of it because it's, it's so deeply

39:01ingrained in the tradition.

39:04Well, and it makes sense. Like, you know, so many writings about the Bible up until now

39:15have direct references to chapter and verse. And then it's just like, if we change the

39:22versification for any reason, even if it's like, Oh, this would be a much smarter division

39:29into a much better verse. You just mess up. Yeah. You're messing up hundreds of years

39:36of, of writings and et cetera.

39:38They'd go back to the fourth century CE that's, that takes us back to the production of,

39:46of Codex Sinaiticus. We don't know exactly when to date it, but it's probably somewhere

39:51close to the middle of the fourth century CE to the end of the fourth century CE. So

39:57I'm going to say Q two through Q four, the fourth century CE, somewhere in there, somebody

40:04I'm just going to plop it at 350. We're just going to call 350. All right. Well, if we

40:08need something, if we need a line, if we're going to draw a line in the sand here, it's

40:12going to be a 350 CE. And it is, it is a manuscript across hundreds of, of pages that has the

40:22text written in four columns. It is a magiscule. It is one of the great unseals as they're

40:28known. And I have no idea what that means.

40:31I have always hated the word unseal. It's literally UNC, I-A-L. The Sinaiticus is unseal

40:41one. Okay. And, and this is a reference to the fact that it is a, it is written in magiscule.

40:49Magiscule means all capital letters. Oh, okay. And it is written in a, a form they call a

40:57continuous form, meaning there are no breaks between words. No spaces. No spaces. Oh my

41:05gosh. That is infuriating. And additionally, additionally, line breaks occur in the middle

41:13of words. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. You just, you, you're right until you run out of space

41:18and then you just take the next letter and just keep going. Yeah. And they, they develop

41:22some, some shorthand for, uh, to like squeeze stuff in, like if a, if a word ended in an

41:28end and you got to the end of the line, but you couldn't put the, the new on the end there.

41:34What you did was you just wrote a little bar, a little horizontal line that started around

41:38the middle of the letter before and just jutted out a little bit into the margin. Okay. And

41:43that indicated this word has an end on the end of it. I, I just pulled up a, a copy of

41:50the image of the text. Oh my gosh. It's impossible. It's in four columns, four columns. It's column

41:58nerd. And then it's, and then it's like just letters. So, it's so many letters, so many

42:08letters. Um, and there's a, and there have been a bunch of, um, there are a bunch of

42:14correctors, uh, later hands that have come through to revise things. Uh, I think they,

42:21they've identified somewhere between five and seven, I think different corrective hands.

42:26Uh, and you got stuff written in the margins. Yeah. You got, um, symbols occurring here and

42:31there. Uh, they use a lot of what is called nomenessakra. This was a practice within early

42:36Christianity where, um, certain words and mainly the names and titles of deity, uh, they're

42:45abbreviated, where you take anywhere from, um, to, to maybe sometimes five or six letters

42:54from a longer word. And so you'll take like the first letter in the last word letter of

42:59Jesus. And so instead of writing out, yay, so you would have Yoda Sigma. And then there

43:04would be a line over the top of it. Um, and that, and that would indicate, you know,

43:11I'm, I'm talking about the, you know who. So, um, but they would use that for, uh, for

43:15Jesus, for Christ, for God, for son, for man, heaven, uh, David Jerusalem mother, father,

43:24savior spirit. Um, that's a lot of them. There, there are a lot of abbreviations. Yeah. Um,

43:31and there are a bunch of fascinating things about Codex Sinaiticus. It is in Greek. So

43:37it contains the New Testament in Greek as well as the Septuagint or the ancient Greek

43:42translation of the Hebrew Bible, including the books of the Apocrypha. So, um, and it

43:49also has two New Testament texts that are no longer in the canon, the epistle of Barnabas

43:55and the shepherd of Hermes, which are both probably, uh, early, second century compositions,

44:01but they're in there as well. Um, and there are a lot of, this is the earliest copy of

44:09the full New Testament that exists. And the earliest copy of the full Bible that exists

44:16as a single document. So, um, so this is phenomenally important. But if you, um, take

44:24your, your, your handy, uh, Bible, whichever one you have today or probably whichever one

44:30you have today and you start comparing it to Codex Sinaiticus, you're going to find a

44:34lot of differences. For instance, you're not going to find the last 12 verses of Mark or

44:42your version of Mark is going to end at 16 verse eight, which is where, um, everybody

44:50is terrified. And, and verses nine through 20 are, um, you know, they go tell everybody

44:56and, um, you know, Jesus, uh, appears to some of them and they, uh, they go to Galilee and

45:02blah, blah. And you have your post resurrection appearance and stuff like that. That's not

45:06in Sinaiticus. Oh, okay. Those, those dozen plus usually about 16 passages that most modern

45:13translations of the New Testament omit, those are not in Sinaiticus. Uh, the story of the

45:19woman taking an adultery from the end of John chapter seven in the beginning of John chapter

45:23eight, just not in Sinaiticus. Uh, one of the, one of the passages that is, uh, that many

45:31modern translations of the New Testament omit is, uh, the first one canonically, if you start

45:36Matthew and you go through the first time where you actually skip a verse where you go,

45:40what the heck I go from 2022. Um, that's, um, Matthew 17 21 is omitted. It's not in Sinaiticus.

45:50The text just blazes on through perfectly happy without noticing, but you have somebody who

45:56wrote a little like divider mark, you know, the line with the dot above and below somebody

46:03wrote something in there and then put a little, another one in the margins. And then up at

46:07the top of the manuscript, you have in a later hand, so in the centuries after the original

46:13transcription of this manuscript, somebody went in there and wrote what is now verse

46:1721 up in the margins. Oh, weird. And it seems to have been taken probably from a passage

46:23in Mark, the idea being they're like, Hey, it's the same story, but they lost, they didn't

46:28repeat this one detail that I really like. So I'm just a useful detail. What is it? What

46:34is it? It talks about fasting and this is, uh, this kind doesn't come out except by much

46:40fasting and prayer. Mm. So the, this is when the disciples have been sent out and they've

46:44been deputized, uh, with, with Jesus's agency and they come back and they go, we, we couldn't

46:50cast deep, the demons out of this one guy and he goes, ah, yeah, I know this guy. Um,

46:55we're, you know, and, and in, in Mark, uh, chapter eight, he says this kind doesn't come

47:00out except with, uh, fasting, um, and what is written in the margin is this kind doesn't

47:06come out, except by much fasting and prayer. And that's what you now have at Matthew 17 21.

47:11But every time somebody stumbles upon this, they're immediately like fasting is the most

47:16important thing in the world and the devil doesn't want you to know about it. So they

47:20took it out of the Bible and, you know, like it's still in Mark eight in all of the Bible.

47:26So it's not the devil didn't do that good a job if it's what, what, uh, Jan devil was

47:32trying to do. But, um, yeah, it's, it's not because the devil is trying to stop people

47:38from fasting. Uh, it's just because that wasn't originally in the gospel of Matthew and somebody

47:43later on added it. So then, and there are a bunch of examples like that where Sinaiticus,

47:49uh, just doesn't have those things. And we're assuming that that's because those things

47:54were later additions. Is that why we assume that Sinaiticus doesn't have those? Most

48:00of them. Now there, there are places where Sinaiticus omits things that most scholars

48:04today would say that was probably an accident. And there are a number of reasons for this.

48:08Uh, with instances like Matthew 17 21, we don't have it in, um, in a few manuscripts,

48:17the earliest manuscripts, and there's not a good reason why it would fall out. There's

48:22not a good reason why, uh, like usually when Scrabs accidentally omit stuff, we can see

48:27why usually it's because they stopped at a word and they're like, okay, I stopped at

48:32that word and they, they move over to the text and they write what they're going to write

48:36and then they come back and they're like, all right, where's that word? Okay. There it

48:39is. And sometimes there's another occurrence of that word nearby and you accidentally go

48:44to that one and that either means you repeat stuff or you skip stuff. Right. And so, uh,

48:51reading stuff is called photography, skipping stuff is called haplography. Uh, and so there

48:55are a bunch of, not a bunch, but there are some instances where scholars are like, ah,

48:59that's what happened. That's why it's been omitted from this manuscript. And, and in

49:04cases like this, that doesn't account for how it could have fallen out. Uh, sometimes

49:09things are taken out because of ideological problems. Somebody doesn't like something.

49:12That's an explanation for why something might come out. There's not really a good explanation

49:17for why this would come out. We do have a good explanation for why it would be added in. And

49:22so scholars are like, okay, everybody agrees. It's more likely that this was added in than

49:28it was taken out. And so every time you have one of those text critical questions, you basically

49:34go through that process of figuring out what's most likely here. Is there some reason this

49:39could have fallen out? Is there some reason this would have been added in? What do all

49:43the other manuscripts say? And, um, you come together and you agree on something. And so,

49:48yes, if there's one thing that we know Bible scholars do is that they come together and

49:53they agree. We're very good at it. Uh, we had a lot of practice. Um, but there are, and

49:59that's, and so there are these normally 16 or so passages that the overwhelming majority

50:05of Bible scholars are in agreement. These are probably not original to the text and we're

50:11so sure that we're just going to leave it out. Yeah. And, and, you know, it gets left

50:15and most translations will, will relegate it to a footnote where it'll say some ancient

50:19authorities include this and then they'll quote it, or they'll say some later manuscripts

50:24include this and then they'll quote it. Um, or if they, if it's too important, like the

50:29ending of Mark or like the story of the woman taken in adultery, they'll leave it in the

50:34main body of text, but they'll put some double brackets around it. Yeah, I don't know though.

50:40I saw a tick talker in a cowboy hat who was pretty convinced that it was the devil that

50:45took it out and that's what you can't trust in modern translations. Yeah. He's the one

50:51who thinks that CERN is, um, he's trying to open a portal to hell. Yeah. And, and cannot

50:57be what's, what's funny about all these people is I want to see if they're still doing this

51:02in 50 years when not a single prediction of theirs ever came true. Yeah. It is, it will

51:13not be the end of the world in 50 years, but, but they're like, guess what? CERN is going

51:18to start at the end of the world. It happened in April 8th. And, um, yeah, it didn't happen.

51:22Yeah. Well, like the world, the world might end anyway. And then what? Then then we'll

51:28be like, yeah, but not because of your thing. Uh, I, it is like of all the, of all the grifts

51:37to, to make money off of batting zero is, um, like good night. Well, the, the nice thing

51:46about making predictions on the internet is that you don't have to revisit them. You just

51:51make more of them and then move on to the next ones. You don't, you don't, if they don't come

51:58true, you don't have to cop to that. You can just, uh, you can just move on. Yeah. Yeah.

52:03We have short memories in, in, uh, in that industry. Yeah. Um, so I want to get back to

52:09cyanide, because in part, because we have not discussed why it's called, like we discussed

52:14what I call that, but not what, not why it's called cyanidicus. Um, it's called cyanidicus

52:23because the first time the, the wider world of scholarship became aware of it was when

52:28a bunch of the leaves, um, and you know, it would be nice if it always was kept as a single

52:35volume within two, uh, you know, bound very neatly and cleanly and, uh, with a nice little

52:41drawing on the cover and screw the dust covers, screw dust covers. Um, but says the man whose

52:48book is about to come out guaranteed with dust covers on it. Oh, yeah. That was not

52:52my choice. I was like, what about when you get Dan's book, the first thing you are required

53:01to do by Dan zone edict is burn the dust cover. Not burn it. That could probably, uh, release

53:08some harmful gases of some kind or another or maybe not. I don't know what kind of chemicals

53:11are going in there, but, um, but no, I've, I've never liked dust covers, but, um, and

53:16yeah, they were like, we don't care. Um, so in case you're wondering how publishers respond

53:20to, uh, to certain, um, idiosyncrasies of authors, they don't care, uh, well, at least

53:27with your first book anyway, right. Um, so, uh, there's a, there's long been a monastery

53:32at the top of the traditional site of Mount Sinai called St. Catherine's monastery. And

53:38you say traditional because we don't actually know. Oh, yeah. There. Yeah. Yeah. No, we

53:42don't. We have no idea. The sign, meaning, meaning the sign I referred to in the book

53:48of Exodus is the place that we don't really know where. Yeah. Poor ebb, Sinai, whatever

53:52you want to call it. Um, it's the traditional location in the Sinai peninsula. Uh, like

53:59there's, there's no reason to think that's the actual location. Uh, but there's a, there's

54:05a monastery up there. And, um, my old doctoral supervisor, um, I don't know if she still

54:12does it, but for a time she would lead a, uh, a tour that would start in Cairo and you

54:17would ride camels across the Sinai peninsula and then hike up to St. Catherine's monastery

54:24at the top of Mount quote, Sinai unquote. And, um, and then she would, uh, talk about artwork

54:29and artifacts and architecture and stuff of St. Catherine's monastery, which I think would

54:34just be so much fun, but I digress. Um, 1844. You have a guy named Tischendorf, uh, who

54:42is, um, there in St. Catherine's monastery and, uh, notices some among the, uh, the piles

54:50of stuff, uh, as like, Hey, what's, uh, it's not over there. And, uh, notices some Greek

54:57and rates through it. And it's like, this, this looks like the Septuagint. And he was

55:04like, can I, uh, can I have this? And they were like, why do you want it? No reason. And

55:09they were like, uh, we kind of feel like this is important now. So you can take 43 pages.

55:21And, um, he goes off with, uh, 43 pages, which contained, uh, first chronicles, Jeremiah,

55:27Nehemiah and Esther. And he ends up coming back to me. Like, so you got any more than,

55:33uh, the manuscript pages. He's got a, he's, he's rubbing his hands. Yeah, twirling his,

55:42his mustache. Um, and, uh, over time, they, um, gather the majority of, of this Codex

55:54from St. Catherine's monastery. And some of it has made its way to, um, to other places.

56:00Uh, but they gather most of it, uh, together and, uh, are like, holy crap, this is big

56:06time. Uh, and realize this is a very, very early text. And here, here's the interesting

56:12thing. They found, they find this Codex and based on paleography, which means the, um,

56:17the letters, how the letters are written. Yeah. That, that's kind of like pottery where

56:22it is so, uh, precise, but also changes so much that you can frequently date it, um,

56:31with a relatively high degree of accuracy by comparing it to other, um, known texts.

56:38So, um, they're like, this is like fourth century. And, uh, somebody was like, Hey,

56:44y'all remember when you CBS, uh, was, uh, got a request from the emperor Constantine

56:52to create 50 copies of the Bible for use in Constantinople. And, uh, it said they should

57:00be, uh, of three or four columns each and they should be on vellum and all this stuff.

57:05And if you look through the description that Constantine repeats of the request that he

57:10got from the emperor Constantine to create these copies of, of the scriptures, it sounds

57:15an awful lot like Sinaiticus as well as another very important fourth century manuscript known

57:20as Vaticanus. Vaticanus is three columns. Sinaiticus is four columns. And so I, I think

57:26if I recall, Tischendorf was like, we found one of Constantine's 50 Bibles. And, um,

57:33I think probably the majority of scholars these days, uh, are like, uh, sit down. No,

57:39we didn't. Uh, but there, there are some scholars who, who still argue that, uh, which

57:45would mean they would date to, uh, somewhere in, uh, the three thirties CE, okay, which

57:50is possible. That is Q two of, uh, of the fourth century. So it's certainly possible.

57:57But a little ways before the actual date of 350, yes, which I already gave January the

58:04first of 350. They did it real quick because they want to do. Yeah. They're like, we don't

58:10want this to, to, um, cross over into another day. They're like, Oh, a new Codex just dropped

58:16it's January 1st. Hey, it's your boy. You CBS. Welcome back to my YouTube channel. Um,

58:28and so Codex Sinaiticus is one of the most important, uh, Bible manuscripts on earth.

58:36And I stumbled across it in the British museum. No, no, British, British library. Yeah. No,

58:42it's in the British library. Yeah. It was a British library. I was there. Um, oh gosh,

58:46I don't even remember how long ago it was. Was it two years? It was in October of a recent

58:52year. I don't know. Um, but anyway, I was there with my family and we're like, we're

58:57going to go to the British library and they're like, Oh my God. But they went and, um, as

59:02you walk in, you come up these stairs and you know, you got stairs going in all different

59:08directions and everything. And on the left, it was like the book and it was an exhibition

59:14on the book as a technology. And it's a very cool exhibition. It's, it's a, it's one, one

59:23ish big room with a couple of, of, uh, little rooms that split off from it. But it starts

59:30with like the earliest books, um, from societies all around the world. Uh, they've got, you

59:36know, the, the first edition of Shakespeare's complete works and, um, they've got, um, you

59:43know, the, the piece of paper that, uh, Paul McCartney wrote, uh, yesterday on and, and

59:49they've got, they got the Magna Carta. Um, often one of these other rooms. Sure. Sure.

59:55Why not? I was like, uh, yawn. Let me see some bibles and, uh, as, as one might expect.

60:04And so I, I was just kind of trolling through looking at all these, uh, Bibles, uh, admiring

60:11them as, uh, as is my won't. And then I was like, Hey, that looks familiar. Holy crap.

60:16It's Codex Sinaiticus. And then I looked right next to it and it was Codex Alexandrinus and

60:23I was like, Oh, and went to tell my family who could not have cared any less if I had

60:31no, they're like, can we now walk two blocks and see platform nine and three quarters a

60:35concross station, please? Well, they, they weren't excited about nine and three quarters

60:39because, uh, they were like, uh, it's always so crowded. I don't know what the last time

60:44you were there was there was a time when it was just that little, um, that little cart

60:48thing embedded in the, in the brick. Now there's like, yeah, yo, you were just there.

60:54I've never, I've never been to there. Oh, you've never been. Okay. Well, I just know

60:56anyway, you used to be able to just walk up to it and be like, Hey, take my picture. And

61:02now it's roped off and you have to wait in line. It's like an hour line sometimes that

61:07you have to wait in. However, they have built an entire Harry Potter store into the platform

61:17next to it. And so my kids were all about that. Um, which is a very cool store. So, but

61:25again, I digress, um, the, uh, and it was incredible to be able to see it up close.

61:31And it was incredible how like faded it is. And I was like, I can barely make out some

61:36of these, some of these letters parts of the manuscript are very, very faded. But, um,

61:41it was, it was an experience. It was a spiritual experience for me to suddenly be like, I am

61:48a foot away from one of the single most important manuscripts of the Bible that has ever existed.

61:55Um, so, so yeah, if you find yourself near platform, nine and three quarters, um, that

62:01means you have found yourself near the British library and a lot of very cool stuff, including,

62:06well, again, I don't know how long the exhibition might not be there anymore, but, uh, Sinaiticus

62:12is in the British library. Nice. Check it out. Yes. All right. Well, that's it for today's

62:18show, folks. Thank you so much. If you would like to become a part of making the show possible

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