Ep 95: Uh-Oh, Jericho

00:00The walls of Jericho came tumbling down a number of times long before any historical

00:06Joshua could have existed and that was because of battering rams and siege ramps and torches

00:12and not because of the arc of the covenant, the blast of a ram's horn and everybody yelling

00:18really loud.

00:19Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan and I'm Dan Beecher and you are listening to the

00:28Data Over Dogma podcast where we increase public access to the academic study of the

00:32Bible and religion and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same.

00:38How are things today, Dan?

00:40I'm doing better than you are.

00:42Yeah.

00:43That is not difficult to to do, but yes, you are doing better than me.

00:46I am trying to get over something wasn't COVID, but might have been the flu or something

00:50like that.

00:51I got.

00:52Yeah.

00:53I've been hammered.

00:54You're recording as long as we could to give you as much time to recover as possible

00:58and you're still, you're still not there yet, but not a hundred percent.

01:02Yeah.

01:03So if this short, if this show goes a little short or whatever, hopefully our, our kind

01:08listeners and viewers will cut us some slack.

01:12Yeah.

01:13If once we added out all the coughing fits, all right, it's down to 14 minutes or so.

01:18Give us a break.

01:19What happened?

01:20It said it was 60 minutes.

01:21What are we doing here?

01:22All right.

01:23Well, we got a fun show.

01:25I'm excited about what we're going to be talking about.

01:28The no, look, we've mentioned him on the show before.

01:32Some of our listeners may know that there was a guy named Noah in the Bible.

01:38This is King Noah.

01:39King Noah.

01:40The Book of Mormon, right?

01:41No.

01:42Who we're talking about.

01:43Yes.

01:44Exactly.

01:45We're going to what we're going to talk about the flood narrative.

01:49We're going to talk about the Noah stories.

01:51Yes.

01:52We say stories, not because it's multiple stories, stories sort of sequentially, but because

01:58there's multiple stories at the same time happening.

02:01And I think that's going to be fun.

02:02We'll call that one a Bible versus Bible segment.

02:06And then at the end of the show or our second segment, we're going to do a chapter and verse

02:11and we're going to talk about those famous fabled walls of Jericho, which went a tumbling

02:17down from, yeah, as quote, the great poet that Meredith Wilson was where I was going.

02:26Oh, man.

02:28Okay.

02:28Well, in the sense that's from the music man, the first, the first musical I was ever in.

02:34I played in the music man.

02:36You played who?

02:37Winthrop.

02:38Winthrop.

02:39I was, I was the kid.

02:40Yeah.

02:41Yeah.

02:42And the music man.

02:43Yeah.

02:44Okay.

02:45So, so you didn't get to sing.

02:46Oh, I didn't.

02:47That's, it's the, it's the most fun number in the show.

02:50Yeah.

02:51If for no other reason, then you get to repeat the word poopy all the time.

02:54Yeah.

02:55It's just nonsense word.

02:56I really enjoy trouble.

02:58That was my, that was the one that I really well, that was what I was quoting.

03:03Yeah.

03:04Just remember my friends that a handful of trumpet players, but what a fit, what a handful

03:08of trumpet players did to those famous fabled walls of Jericho.

03:12Those billiard parlor walls come a tumbling down.

03:15All right.

03:16Can we sing that?

03:17Or those, that's not public domain.

03:19Is it, I'll come at me Meredith Wilson will see out for so for whatever reason I was thinking

03:28swing low walls of Jericho, but, and then I'm thinking blazing saddles, swing low chariot.

03:36So that's yeah, a little bit.

03:39There you go.

03:40The nightmare that is my head Jericho apparently is frequently referenced in popular culture.

03:45Yes.

03:46My, my brother was once in a band called house fly army and they gave, they gave an album

03:52of theirs to somebody who went to serve in one of the armed forces and ended up in Serbia.

04:01And somehow their album ended up on the radio.

04:04And there was a week where they were number one in Serbia.

04:09And so they, they made t-shirts that said house fly army number one in Serbia.

04:13Or Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina, I believe is as it's known today, but their, their,

04:22their favorite song and probably the best song on that album was called Jericho.

04:25So there you go.

04:26I also think of that.

04:28So there you go.

04:29Yes.

04:30Number one in Serbia slash Bosnia slash Bosnia Herzegovina.

04:34All right.

04:35Good.

04:36Let's, but we've got a whole show show to do.

04:39So let's dive into Bible versus Bible.

04:44All right.

04:45This week, Bible versus Bible, it, we're not real, we're not looking at like a very specific

04:51contradiction.

04:52No, but like a series of, of like things that don't add up or don't line up.

04:59Yes.

05:00Right?

05:01Yes.

05:02A suite.

05:03But you might say we're going to look at a narrative that when you look at the details,

05:09it's like there are a lot of different things going on here.

05:12It seems like a bunch of narratives have been interstitched have been woven together and

05:20we're going to try to tease some of these apart.

05:23I, I, yeah, I think because I remember reading the story and be it and like there are multiple

05:30moments where it's like, it kind of jolts you because you thought you understood that

05:36it was one thing and then suddenly it's another thing and it gets, it just keeps sort of contradicting

05:43itself as it goes through.

05:45Yeah.

05:46And it's a, there's some, some repetitions, some couplets, some contradictions and some

05:53things that have led scholars over the years to, to scratch their heads furiously and

05:58to come up with conclusions that basically what we have are a bunch of originally independent

06:04traditions, some of which ran parallel to each other, some of which were entirely different

06:09and they were brought together and kind of woven together to create what we have now

06:14as the story of Noah and the flood.

06:18But I actually want to, I actually want to go back before the flood and start in Genesis

06:18Okay.

06:234.

06:24And because we've, and we've talked about the primeval history.

06:29We had David Carr on a while ago, wonderful scholar who just published his own commentary

06:34on Genesis 1 through 11 talked about what's going on in the primeval history, how a lot

06:38of these are, a lot of these stories are etiologies, stories of origins, where things

06:44came from, why they are the way they are.

06:46So think you, you really got to think of Aesop's fables and, and these stories about, you know,

06:51why elephants have trunks and all that kind of stuff.

06:55And in here, it's like, or like, or like Greek mythology where it's like, where does lightning

07:01come from?

07:02Well, it comes from Zeus on the hill or whatever, right.

07:05And, and in chapter 4, you have toward the end, you have a, you've got a genealogy here

07:14and you've got Lamek took two wives, Atta was one and the other was Zilla and then Atta

07:18bore Jabal and this is verse 20, he was the ancestor of those who live intense and have

07:23livestock.

07:24Okay.

07:25So we're, we're talking about where certain groups of people that we know today, no, not

07:31we, we, not the, the, the dude wearing the X-Men t-shirt today, but the we of whoever

07:37the audience of Genesis 4 is, okay, oh, those people over there who live intense and have

07:43livestock, they descend from Jabal.

07:46His brother's name was Jubal and he was the answer, ancestor of all those who play the

07:51liar and pipe, Zilla bore Tubal Kane, who made all kinds of bronze and iron tools.

07:59And, and we saw him in, in the Noah movie, Aaron Oskis, Noah movie.

08:05The sister of Tubal Kane was Nama, but we've got these, these stories about where these

08:10groups of people came from, except they're all supposed to have been killed in a, this

08:18flood.

08:19Right.

08:20Right.

08:21They happened.

08:22And so there would be no connection between these people and the folks that dwell intense

08:27today.

08:28And I mean, it's also obviously a very weird thing to say everyone who plays music for one

08:36person and everyone who lives in a tent came from another person.

08:39It just, I mean, that's obviously just not how civilization works.

08:44Well, I think, and ethnicities were, were divided according to, um, features like this,

08:51I think, anciently, I think a lot of identity markers were, uh, were like that, where it

08:57was like the, the, you know, the, the nomadic peoples are, um, you know, they, they're this

09:03ethnic group over here. And, uh, and, and today, you know, you can have people who are, uh,

09:09somebody may not know a look of English may have spent their entire life, you know, growing

09:12up in San Francisco speaking, long, maybe a hundred percent American, um, like a ethnicity

09:19is a, is a very different, um, category today, but anciently.

09:22Okay.

09:23So sorry.

09:24So the idea is that like, oh, there's that, that nomadic tribe is the tent and livestock

09:31Novat nomadic tribe. And those guys over there, I don't know what we call them, but they play

09:36the liar and the pipe all the time. So that's, we'll just call them the liar and pipe people.

09:41Yeah. Yeah.

09:42That's the idea.

09:43Okay.

09:44I think the, these are the ways they characterize these, these ethnic groups, but they're supposed

09:48to descend from these people who ostensibly all died in the flood.

09:53Right.

09:54So, uh, it would have been smarter to put that, that particular, uh, bit of text after the

09:58flood.

09:59And so we have this, this indication that at least this part of this genealogy is not

10:04aware of a great worldwide flood. And, and another indication of this is the fact that

10:10this genealogy in Genesis four sounds an awful lot like the same genealogy in Genesis

10:16five that, uh, ends with Noah, um, and so because you've got, um, you've got Kane, she conceived

10:27in bore Enoch to Enoch was born, erod to erod was Mahoo Jael to Mahoo Jael was Methu Shael

10:35and then Lamek.

10:36Right.

10:37And then when you go to five, you've got, um, Seth, Enoch, Keenan, um, not, not of ivory

10:48Wayans, uh, fame, but, um, Keenan, Mahalo, uh, then Mahalo went to Jared and erod and

10:57Jared are spelled the same way in Hebrew.

11:03Okay.

11:04And then after, uh, Jared, you've got Enoch, wait a minute, we already had Enoch in the

11:08other one as well.

11:09Right.

11:10Right.

11:11And then after that, you have Methuselah, which is an awful, uh, very close to Methu

11:15Shael.

11:16Right.

11:17And so you've got, and then, um, Methuselah became the father of Lamek who's also in the

11:24Genesis for genealogy.

11:25So we've got two genealogies that line up in a bunch of ways, but these are entirely

11:30different, supposed to be entirely different stories, uh, which is indicative of two different

11:36traditions that have run parallel to each other to some degree.

11:40And then they're, they're being put on the same scroll one after the other.

11:45So, and also like a really good indication of how trustworthy, like if we assume that

11:52these, that these two gene, genealogies were supposed to be the same set of genealogies

11:59that just sort of evolved on their own as they were passed down probably orally from,

12:04you know, one, from, from one generation to the next in parallel.

12:10It shows us like how reliable that way of transmitting information actually was anciently

12:17and how like we maybe shouldn't count on them to be factually useful.

12:23Yeah.

12:24Oral transmission was, um, you know, pretty ripe for exploitation manipulation when it

12:31became necessary, when it wasn't necessary.

12:34Yeah.

12:35It could be, it could be incredibly accurate, but if someone is incentivized to change it,

12:40there's less stopping them, um, when it comes to oral transmission, then there is, uh, with

12:45textual transmission.

12:46So any, and all it takes is one sloppy historian and you've got, you've got something new.

12:52Yeah.

12:53And so we, we've got, uh, these two genealogies, one of them is like, and that leads to Noah.

12:57And guess what's going to happen with Noah?

12:59And the other is, uh, is like, yeah, these are all the people who were the ancestors of

13:03all these weirdos that we live around today.

13:05Right.

13:06Totally unaware of, of, uh, what's going on in Genesis six.

13:09And then we get to Genesis six and we've got those, those scamps, the banalohim, the

13:15children of God, uh, who, who, um, develop a bit of a fancy for, uh, the, the daughters

13:21of humanity and so they descend and, and, uh, take some of them as wives and, uh, have

13:28children that's, uh, may or may not be identified as the, the Nephilim, the, the warriors, the

13:33heroes of old, uh, and God is like, ooh boy, uh, does not like what's going on, uh, downstairs.

13:41And so decides he's, uh, says I will blot out from the earth, the humans I have created,

13:49people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air fry, I'm sorry

13:52that I have made them.

13:54And yes, the text quite literally and indisputably says that God regrets having made humanity

14:02is sorry that they see whatever our episode was that we talked about, God beings, uh,

14:08sorry.

14:09Yeah.

14:10So the, the no regrets, uh, dogma, that crowd, uh, I'm afraid you're not very interested

14:16in what the Bible actually says, uh, but, uh, and, and then, uh, enter Noah stage left.

14:22Uh, Noah is a man of the, uh, not quite a man of the cloth, but a man of the soil as we're

14:28going to find out.

14:29Yeah.

14:30Yeah.

14:31But we're not there yet.

14:32Uh, in chapter six, Noah is described as, um, a righteous man, blameless in his generation.

14:38And I want to bring this up because I want to correct a particularly heinous way that

14:44people have gone about interpreting this, uh, okay, blameless in his generation is, uh,

14:51the word could be interpreted to mean perfect.

14:54And people were like, well, only the Lord was perfect.

14:57So, um, they, they reject the, the identification of, of, um, Moses as blameless in his generation.

15:04No, you said no.

15:05Do I just say, why do I keep doing that?

15:07That's, this is not the first time I've, I've miss spoken and said Moses when I met Noah.

15:12Um, uh, so anyway, um, blameless in his generation, perfect in his generation is whatever.

15:18There are people out there who are like, ah, this is coming right after we have had the

15:23Nephilim, these fallen angels corrupt human bloodlines by having children.

15:30And so what it really means is that Noah is the only pure blood human left on earth.

15:38Everybody else is a mud blood.

15:41Everybody else has been corrupted with angel DNA.

15:44And this is, this is an attempt to try to rationalize why God would kill everyone else.

15:50Right. Women, children, babies, men, everyone in between, uh, and for whatever reason, save

15:56Noah.

15:57And so the, but if your solution is they were pure bloods, um, you have stumbled upon an

16:06awful solution, which leads to ideas about being pure of blood and other people not being

16:14pure of blood.

16:16So which is funny because if you believe in the Noah narrative, then everybody is descended

16:21from him.

16:22So we're all pure.

16:23Every, every, everyone on the earth is equal purity.

16:27Well, in the 19th century, there was actually, uh, there were actually some folks.

16:32It was certainly not the majority of white folks, but there were some folks who insisted

16:36that black folks were not descended from Noah that they were actually, yes, uh, their own

16:42Yeah. Um, we won't get into that story.

16:42boat.

16:46Maybe a, maybe another time we can talk about that, but, um, but yeah, uh, don't repeat

16:53that idiotic, uh, theory about what it means for Noah to be blameless in his generation.

16:59Basically Noah was doing everything right because the, the, the line that we draw between perfect

17:05and imperfect today wasn't really relevant to the audience for Genesis chapter six back

17:12in the middle of the first millennium BCE.

17:15So yeah, stop doing that because it's gross.

17:19So then, um, I want to get to, uh, the end of chapter six, God is like, all right, Noah,

17:24um, killing everybody, um, except for you.

17:27And I guess your wife and kids too, and, and their wives, cause you know, you got to repopulate

17:32the earth.

17:33So enjoy.

17:34Yeah.

17:35God says to Noah, uh, verse 19, and of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring

17:44two of every kind into the arc to keep them alive with you.

17:48They shall be male and female of the birds, according to their kinds and of the animals

17:52according to their kinds and of every creeping thing of the ground, according to its kind,

17:57two of every kind shall come into you to keep them alive and also take with you every kind

18:04of food that is eaten to store it up and it shall serve as food for you and for them.

18:08He did all that God commanded him.

18:08Noah did this.

18:11So how many animals did Noah bring on the arc to of every kind, no qualifications there,

18:19all the birds, all the animals, all the creeping things, every living kind of animal on the

18:25planet to right.

18:28And that's what we see, you know, when you, when you look at a depiction of it or whatever,

18:32and you see the, the two lions, both of them with the big mains, right, making the art

18:37inevitably, inevitably, if someone draws a cartoon of Noah, like hurting animals onto

18:42an arc, you're going to see two male lions.

18:45That's just a guarantee.

18:47That's, uh, that's required.

18:49That's just how it works.

18:51So it's like, well, they got to know other lions.

18:53And if we draw a female lion, they're not going to know it's a lion.

18:58Yeah.

19:01And then, and then we get to chapter 17, you know, uh, we screen goes dark suddenly, uh,

19:07we've got a new setting, then the Lord said to Noah, go into the arc, all are you and

19:12all your household for I've seen that you alone are righteous before me in this generation.

19:16Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and its mate and a pair of the animals

19:21that are not clean, the male and it's mate and seven pairs of the birds of the air also

19:26male and female to keep their kind alive on the face of all the earth for seven days.

19:30I will send rain on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights and every living thing that I've

19:34made, I will blot out from the face of the ground.

19:36And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him.

19:39Yeah.

19:40Suddenly the story changes, right.

19:43That's more than two pair one.

19:45Yeah.

19:46Yeah.

19:47It's 14 of all the clean kinds of animals and then two of all the unclean kinds of animals.

19:53What does clean mean in this case, edible, like, like within the Levitical law or something?

19:58Yeah.

19:59Yeah.

20:00And the idea seems to be appropriate for sacrifice, but appropriate for eating as well.

20:09But what we seem to have here are two different sets of instructions.

20:12One side of instruction is concerned about ritual purity and sacrificial actions and

20:19things like that.

20:21And then the other set of instructions does not seem to care.

20:24Right.

20:25And one of the things that happens is as soon as they get off the boat, they offer sacrifices.

20:32Right.

20:33And so you got to have, you got to have animals as a sacrifice because they're, they're not

20:37on there long enough for most of the animals that can be sacrificed to have been busy enough

20:44to do the thing.

20:47Most of it's probably going to be spent vomiting from the sea sickness because these are land

20:52animals and did you, you remember water world, don't you?

20:58Oh my gosh.

20:59Water world.

21:00Sorry to bring that up again.

21:02It's an incredible show and everybody should watch it, but not because it's good.

21:05Yeah.

21:06Some of us had to live through the whole, it actually being released in the theaters finally

21:11and then actually going to see it.

21:12But the part where he gets on the dry land and it's kind of like, I'm right, right.

21:17That I always think about that part when I think about no one and I'm getting off the

21:21arc.

21:22Have you ever spent like enough time on the sea that when you get back on the land, like

21:28the next, there's several hours of the land just being wobbly.

21:32I have not.

21:33I, I try to avoid as much as possible spending time on the sea.

21:38I think the, the apart from taking boats here and there and between little islands in the,

21:43uh, in the middle of nowhere in the Pacific, which, you know, is, is some time.

21:48I think the, I took a ferry from, uh, from the main island of Malta out to, um, gozo,

21:55one of the smaller islands and that was probably the, uh, the most time I spent on the sea.

22:02Um, and we didn't get to do our, our crews.

22:05So I didn't spend, right, but I, I get off a treadmill and I'm kind of like, whoa, and

22:12you know, it takes me a while to get recalibrated.

22:16So we've, we've got these two different sets of commandments regarding how many animals

22:20to bring on, uh, the arc, which indicates again, two different stories were going on.

22:27And, and both, both of these things end with, and Noah did everything that God commanded

22:31him and scholars have noted this for a long time.

22:35Uh, in fact, the, the first scholars to say, Hey, it looks like there are multiple sources.

22:40Uh, John Astruk, a French scholar from the 17th century, um, I think was the first to

22:48say I bet Moses had multiple different sources that he wove together to create what we have

22:56now.

22:57And he was a theologian.

22:58He was a faithful Christian.

22:59It's not like he, you know, he wasn't, uh, one of these, uh, uh, not even, it wasn't

23:03a proto-Marxist, uh, coming into, um, to try to, to try ruin everybody's faith.

23:11Yeah.

23:12Um, and so like scholars have noticed this for a long, long time, but, uh, these days,

23:18most scholars divided up into at least two different stories about the flood, each with

23:23its own beginning, middle and end.

23:26And, and you still have pretty, um, internally coherent and comprehensive stories.

23:33When you disentangle the different narratives and the, how many animals to bring on board

23:38is just one of the, what are called couplets and, uh, couplet is, is, um, where you have

23:44two different or the same story told twice, either in quick succession or nearby and they,

23:51um, but they're told slightly differently.

23:52Right.

23:53So another one, another one would be, um, somebody going to spend time at, uh, in a city

24:00and going in and telling their wife, tell everybody I'm your sister.

24:04And then the leader of the city getting the hots for the sister and then God punishing

24:09the city and then the guy having to go, okay, she's not really my sister.

24:15She's my wife.

24:16That happens twice in the book of Genesis, um, and very different times, like they're

24:22not one after the other, but that's an example of a literary couplet.

24:26Um, and so we've looked at texts that we know came together incrementally over long periods

24:33of time and, um, these are, this is one of the things that is present frequently when

24:40people are putting texts together from, um, earlier sources.

24:46So couplets, um, there's one example of that.

24:49Okay.

24:51And then, uh, so we've got, so we've, we've got either 14 or two of all the animals we're

24:57getting, we're gathering them on the boat.

25:00Mm hmm.

25:01Uh, all right.

25:02What's next?

25:03Sorry.

25:04I'm jumping the gun here.

25:05Uh, we've got, we've got a few different accounts of, uh, of how long whatever was going

25:10on went on because, uh, in the hundredth year of Noah's life, second month on the 17th

25:15day of the month on that day, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth and the windows

25:20of the heavens were open.

25:21The rain fell on the earth 40 days and 40 nights.

25:25So we got, I'm just going to, I'm just going to jump back.

25:29You're sick.

25:30So it's fine.

25:31I think you said in the hundredth year and it's the sixth.

25:33Oh, 600.

25:34Excuse me.

25:35Yes.

25:36Uh, 600th year.

25:37I was about to say.

25:38I thought it was 600th.

25:39Um, yeah, I, uh, I skipped over that.

25:42Um, so then we have, uh, uh, the rain stopped, the waters, uh, chapter eight, the fountains

25:49of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed and rain from the heavens was

25:52a strain and the waters gradually receded from the earth.

25:54At the end of 150 days, the waters had abated and in the seventh month on the 17th day of

26:00the month, the arch came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.

26:04The waters continued to abate until the 10th month, uh, in the 10th month on the first

26:08day of the month, the tops of mountains appeared.

26:11And then it says at the end of 40 days, Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made

26:15and sent out the raven and it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the

26:19earth.

26:21So we've got long periods of time, 150 days, the waters abated, but then we go back to

26:2940.

26:30Yeah.

26:31So like the stories, I get rain for 40 days and 40 nights and it stopped raining and then

26:34Noah let the bird out.

26:36Right.

26:37And then we've also got, but we've also got, Hey, the, you know, there were another like

26:40110 days or maybe a 150 days where the boat was just kind of a drift, but it wasn't raining

26:46anymore and the waters are just slowly abating.

26:51And scholars have pointed this out as well for a long time.

26:54When you look at the, um, the chronology, it doesn't all add up.

26:58Something is, is, uh, wrong here with the chronology and then you've got sending out

27:04a dove and sending out a, uh, what it's a raven, right?

27:09And then it says in the 600 first year in the first month on the first day of the month,

27:15the waters are dried up from the earth.

27:17Um, and again, this is, this is considered evidence by scholars that we've got multiple

27:22different stories here that are being combined.

27:24Um, right.

27:25So it's unclear exactly, um, what the original story was, if there was an original story,

27:32uh, but we wouldn't, I mean, isn't it, it seems likely that it was original stories,

27:38right?

27:39And I certainly we've talked about how the Epic of Gilgamesh has a flood story, uh,

27:46there were lots of flood stories floating around.

27:48Yeah.

27:49Absolutely.

27:50And this was probably, it was probably at least inspired by like the central and northern

27:56hill countries of, uh, Israel, like flooding is not a problem there.

28:02Uh, it is the plains of Mesopotamia, where, uh, the annual floods are critical for their

28:10agriculture and where when the floods don't come or when the floods are erratic or get

28:17too high that it can be phenomenally destructive to their agriculture and their infrastructure.

28:22And the same is true of Egypt.

28:24That's where flooding is a problem.

28:26When you're living at the tops of mountains, flooding is less frequently something that

28:31keeps you up at night.

28:33And so, you know, just like tornadoes, if they're like, there was this great tornado

28:37and it took everybody, um, it's like maybe that originates in Kansas and not in the tops

28:43of the mountains.

28:44But, um, so most likely this is borrowed from, uh, Mesopotamia and probably when folks were

28:54in Mesopotamia or on at least under the thumb of Mesopotamia and were influenced by their

28:59literature, so they're probably taking from the traditions that are in circulation in

29:04the middle of the verse millennium BCE, uh, traditions about, uh, devastating floods.

29:10And it becomes the flood of the whole earth.

29:15And, uh, and then we get this, this weird story.

29:17We've talked about it before at the end of, uh, of chapter nine where, uh, if verse 20

29:23starts out, Noah, a man of the soil was the first to plant a vineyard.

29:28And I'm, I'm going to have to cut you off there and say that I don't care what translator

29:33says what, uh, and husband is what I want and well, and you know why it has Ann, right?

29:42Because it, well, Hs weren't pronounced, right?

29:45Yeah, right.

29:46Right.

29:47It was an husband man.

29:48And husband, right.

29:49And this is a funny, uh, so for other members of the, of the LDS faith, something funny about

29:56the fact that we use a, um, the Blaney version of the King James version is it still has

30:01Ann, uh, Ann help meet, uh, Eve is Ann help me.

30:07What's funny is, uh, when Joseph Smith was, was working on his translation of the Bible

30:12and, and creating the, uh, uh, the book of Moses and the book of Abraham and all this

30:16kind of stuff, he was using an updated edition of the King James version that changed that.

30:22And it said a help meet and a husband men.

30:26So he was like, now we're, we're not going to do the old stuff.

30:28We're going to, we're going to bring in the updated stuff.

30:30And this was actually an American edition of the King James version.

30:34And, uh, and we have since been like, nah, we're going to go back to the old stuff.

30:40So, um, if you look in like the, the book of Abraham and stuff, it says a help meet.

30:44And then you go to our official translation of the Bible into English, the King James

30:48version.

30:49And it's like an help meet governor.

30:51I love it because we're like, nah, we don't want to, Joseph Smith was up in the night.

30:56We're going to be like fancier and, uh, and more and more weirder.

31:00Yeah.

31:02So he was a man of the soil anyway, I was the first to find a venue and this thing.

31:06That seems like a mean way to call him dirty.

31:09There's a man in the soil.

31:11But doesn't this sound like the way you would begin this story though?

31:14Yeah.

31:15It's like, it's imagine, you know, you've just watched, uh, an hour and 15 minutes of

31:20the Noah movie.

31:21And then it's like you, you have a new scene and it's like, no, there was this dude named

31:26Noah and he was a man of the soil.

31:28Wait, wait a minute.

31:29What's happening?

31:30We know this guy.

31:31Yeah.

31:32Um, he drank some of the wine and became drunk and he lay uncovered in his tent and

31:36higgley, pigly.

31:37We know the, um, that story and we've discussed this story at length before, but the point

31:42we want to make here is that, um, it certainly seems like this is another story that was in

31:48circulation independently of the flood narrative that was, that was like, Hey, this is, this

31:54is the origin of that delicious drink that we all like.

31:59Uh, and so the, which, which gets us back to Genesis four.

32:03It's like so and so was the, you know, they're the origin of the people who dwell in tents.

32:08And so they're the origin of the people who wear, you know, pleated slacks and they're

32:13the, these are the origins of the people who, who wear flat front pants and, uh, the origins

32:18of the cargo shorts and, and then we've got, and then there was his dude Noah and he was

32:22a man of the soil and he planted a vineyard.

32:24And so he's, uh, we've got another etiology for viticulture.

32:29This is where we get, uh, the folks who grow wine and, um, make or grow grapes and make

32:35wine and stuff like that.

32:37And then we get this weird story where Canaan who's not even supposed to be there yet, um,

32:42gets cursed because of, uh, whatever, uh, yeah.

32:46Because of the most weirdly, uh, conceived story of all time.

32:51Yeah.

32:52Yeah.

32:53So it's, it's a bizarre collection of stories, but it is precisely that is a collection of

32:58stories and it has been woven, I was going to say competently, but maybe not so competently.

33:06I mean, if they're trying to hide their stitches, they're not doing a great job of it.

33:11Um, you see an awful lot of seams in here.

33:14You can tell that, that these things were, were probably part of another story.

33:18So I think and many scholars would agree that initially Noah was really just the, the first

33:25viticulturist and that the, the flood story was added later and it was like, well, just

33:32put it after the, the tubal cane stuff.

33:34But before the, uh, the table of nations and, and, um, him getting drunk and something weird

33:39going on in his tent stuff and, uh, and, and so the flood is, is an interjection into

33:45what was probably initially just a very brief story about this dude who, um, is a, is a

33:51good, uh, a good warning story about why you shouldn't get too drunk.

33:55Yeah.

33:56And, and also don't, yeah, and be and husband if you can, uh, yeah, all right.

34:04I like that.

34:06And Noah, by the way, Noah means, uh, it means rest.

34:10And so, um, and you know, the story there at the end has Noah resting, uh, it was, and,

34:16um, but a lot of people, uh, will try to read the, uh, the, Noah's name into the story

34:24of the flood is like, it makes much better sense as, as, uh, the, a name associated with

34:30the first viticulturist, uh, than it does with the flood narrative provides very little,

34:35that seems restful.

34:36There's almost nothing, uh, that feels like, Oh, like, you know, he's a guy who by hand

34:44with maybe the help of his sons built the most enormous boat that has ever been built

34:50up until that point.

34:52There's nothing restful about it.

34:53And he did it as a 600 year old man.

34:55It's a, it's not a restful story or, or a historical one.

35:01Right.

35:02Right.

35:03All right.

35:04He's the, uh, the guy who's like, I need to lay down.

35:06Yeah.

35:07That's, that's our, our viticulturist.

35:09Yeah.

35:10There you go.

35:11All right.

35:12Well, uh, from there, let's, let's, uh, take a journey into our chapter and verse and

35:21this time, uh, we're heading to, we're, we've, we've finally made it, uh, we've emerged

35:25from the Pentateuch, uh, into Joshua.

35:29Mm hmm.

35:30So it seems like what we have is, uh, we're following the story of the Exodus.

35:36We're following the story of Moses.

35:37Moses has gone now.

35:39Uh, Joshua has taken over, uh, as, as the leader and, and they're on a rampage.

35:49Yes.

35:50Uh, so, so guide us through like, what, what are we doing here?

35:55It's, you know, these guys, these, these people just came out of Egypt.

35:58They were just freed.

35:59They are, uh, you know, they've been wandering in the desert for 40 years or whatever it

36:06is.

36:08Yeah.

36:08Yeah.

36:10And now it's time for them to just start destroying people.

36:13So, so Moses was, was told he wasn't going to be allowed to enter the Promised Land.

36:17The best he got was he got to see the Promised Land from across the valley.

36:21And so Joshua is really the story of the generation that gets to enter the Promised Land because

36:27he and, and, uh, Caleb were supposed to be the only ones who gave the, the honest, honest

36:33reports, uh, when they were sent as spies.

36:37And so the old generation has all died off and this is the new generation that has arisen.

36:43And, um, but the, the problem is people already occupy the Promised Land.

36:47Yeah.

36:48That seems like a problem.

36:49Yeah.

36:50Um, instead of just saying, Hey, can we come a little over here?

36:54You got some space and, uh, they're, they want to run them out and cause it's like they

36:58got, they already got the buildings built.

37:01Why would we want to take the time to build more buildings?

37:03I mean, they've got buildings.

37:05They've got, they've got a big wall.

37:07The walls won't end up being used later on.

37:10Yeah.

37:11We're going to, we don't need those.

37:12Um, and so they, uh, they have to engage in this conquest and there's, uh, the conquest

37:19narrative is, is among the most disturbing.

37:22I mean, it starts back with, with Moses and, um, you know, Ammonites and, and everything

37:27that they've, uh, and, and they weren't collecting Ammonite fossils.

37:31They were, um, uh, genociding the Ammonite people, trying and then keeping their, uh,

37:39the women as, uh, as sex slaves or as concubines.

37:43So pretty awful, awful stuff.

37:45And then Joshua and judges is like, and, and here's how they routed everybody.

37:50And it's really, it's human sacrifice because what they have to do is purge the land of

37:56these people who are not worthy to be there.

37:59And so they engage in what is called karim, which is a word that, that, um, it's translated

38:05a variety of different ways devoted to destruction is one way to, to think of it.

38:09But basically it's that, uh, you've got to destroy all of this stuff so that it is devoted

38:15to God.

38:16You are not keeping any of it for yourselves, whether, um, whether animals or property

38:22or, uh, people, everything gets destroyed and it, and by so doing by sacrificing everything,

38:31the land is purged of the evil that is the people of Canaan.

38:36So it's human sacrifice.

38:38Um, dogs and cats living together.

38:41Yeah.

38:42Mass hysteria, mass hysteria, indeed.

38:45And so, um, it's awful.

38:48It's horrific and it didn't happen.

38:50Like, um, a lot of people are, uh, get rightfully upset about, uh, about this rhetoric and it's

38:56not historical.

38:57It didn't happen.

39:03So Jericho is, is kind of the, uh, the main event for this, the, the start of their, uh,

39:09routing of the people of Canaan.

39:12Do we think there was an actual historical Jericho?

39:14Is this a real place?

39:16I have been to the historical Jericho.

39:18Yes.

39:19Um, in fact, uh, I don't like I'm dumb for asking.

39:22I don't know that Jericho is the, uh, the oldest, more or less continually inhabited,

39:28uh, city on earth.

39:31So, um, if you go there, there's a sign that says, uh, world's oldest city or world's first

39:35city or something like that.

39:37Oh, okay.

39:38And, and so it's, it's kind of a tell.

39:40It's a big hill that sticks up, uh, around the, uh, the geography around it.

39:46It's next to some cliffs and mountains and things like that, but it's on a relatively

39:51flat land in, uh, the Jordan River Valley and it's just northwest of, uh, the northern end

39:57of the Dead Sea.

39:58So if you're like in Qumran and you head out of Qumran, you turned left, you head north,

40:04and then you've got a road that goes west and that takes you up over the hills to get

40:08into Jerusalem or if you can turn right and, uh, you head up to Jericho.

40:15So it's in the west bank, it is a Palestinian, uh, territory right now, some lovely restaurants

40:22there, some lovely, um, souvenir and tourist shops there.

40:26And then you can go to the tell, which is where Jericho is and they've been excavating

40:29it for many years.

40:30All right.

40:31Well, put a pin in that because I, you're going to have to explain something to me at

40:34the end of this story that, uh, so okay, now, now let's, let's go back, uh, they, you know,

40:43they arrive at Jericho.

40:44Yeah.

40:45And, uh, and we, we'll, we'll skip the, the spies that they sent in and the sex worker

40:54who protects them, Rahab.

40:58They do the whole thing where they, uh, where they, the Lord tells them how to take the

41:03city.

41:04Yeah.

41:05And it involves marching around the city, uh, once a day, until the final day where they

41:14do it seven times, right?

41:15Seven times around the city, they blow their horns and then, uh, and then scream.

41:24And all the people will shout.

41:25Yeah.

41:26And then, and that shouting and horn blowing is sufficient to crumble the, uh, the walls,

41:36the city walls.

41:38And then they just go in and, uh, kill everybody.

41:42Yeah.

41:43And they're, they're marching, um, they're marching the arc of the covenant, right, uh,

41:49around the city.

41:51And yeah, the, the walls, uh, come a tumbling down and that allows, um, you to get into

41:56the city.

41:57Cause that was your defense.

41:58Anciently was your city, you built the city up on a hill and you built walls around it.

42:02And that just made it all that much more difficult to get up over the walls and to get into

42:06the city to access the people that you would like to unalive.

42:11Um, and so, uh, you know, you had seed ramps that would be built up.

42:15You would, uh, fire arrows at them.

42:17You would, uh, you know, stop up their wells and, and their springs to try to, um, you

42:23know, starve them out and stuff, uh, and, and God's solution is just, what if I just make

42:27the walls fall down?

42:28Right.

42:29And, uh, it's an elaborate, uh, methodology, um, but, but apparently that was, I'll tell

42:38you what it would, uh, it would feel weird and intimidating for people in a city, in a

42:44walled city to have this group of people just every day they march around your, your, uh,

42:51your city and blow their horns and whatever that would feel weird.

42:56It would be a little off putting.

42:58Yeah.

42:59Uh, it's one way to, uh, to put it and, uh, and what's interesting is these, um, these

43:05are case mate walls, uh, which means that, or from the story, it sounds like that.

43:13Right.

43:14There's a part where, where Rahab is actually, um, she's got a ribbon tied around, or, uh,

43:20tied to the window or something like that is, um, which means that her window or her house

43:26would have had to have been built into the, the city wall.

43:30And that's the case with, um, and that's frequently the case, particularly with case mate walls

43:34and casemate walls are where you've got, um, like two walls and there's, you know, several

43:40feet to several yards of space between them and then they're filled in with rubble or

43:46something like that to make them, um, thicker, um, yeah.

43:52And it is, uh, yeah, it's just supposed to fall down.

43:57And there's a, there's a theory that the reason that they came up with the story is because

44:01Jericho was around, uh, it would not have been there.

44:06We have no indication that it was a walled city or that those walls came a tumbling down

44:13anywhere near what's where the historical Joshua would have had to have been located.

44:18Okay.

44:19We have indications that this was a fortified city earlier in the Bronze Age and that there

44:26were destruction levels associated with some of those earlier fortified cities.

44:31But basically the last time Jericho had significant walls and we have evidence that those walls

44:37were destroyed, at least in part, you, you didn't go down and destroy all the walls.

44:42You just destroyed enough of the wall to get through.

44:44Yeah.

44:45So it wasn't like, keep knocking it down.

44:46All right.

44:47Now go around the other side.

44:48Now we got a clip.

44:49You got one where you guys are in trouble when we finished demolishing this wall.

44:53Yeah.

44:54Yeah.

44:55It was usually just, there was one or two spots where there, you would find a big hole in

44:58the wall.

44:59Unless they managed to set fire to everything and other parts crumbled.

45:03But that, the, the most significant and the latest destruction layer from that time period

45:10dates to about 1550 BCE, which is long before any historical Moses could have been born.

45:18So it's, it clearly has nothing to do with, uh, with any historical Joshua that came through.

45:23But the story could have been told because they were aware of the fact that there were

45:30these big walls that had fallen down, um, in Jericho.

45:33So that, that might account for what's going on there, but, uh, there's the archaeological

45:39data do not line up with the biblical account.

45:42So, um, there are certainly folks who will be like, no, no, the new, the new Italian archaeological

45:48report says that there was a wall that they discovered in, and, uh, there may have been

45:56a wall associated with a very small settlement at Jericho in the 14th or the 13th centuries

46:01BCE, but there's no evidence of any destruction associated with that wall at any point.

46:07So, uh, so the archaeological data is no, uh, is not going to come to the salvation of

46:12this story.

46:13Uh, the walls of Jericho came tumbling down a number of times long before any historical

46:18Joshua could have existed.

46:20And that was because of, uh, battering rams and siege ramps and torches and not because

46:26of the arc of the covenant, the blast of a Rams horn and everybody yelling really loud.

46:31Right.

46:32And that is, that is the thing that actually does it.

46:35Isn't it?

46:36It's the, it's the yelling.

46:37Yeah.

46:38That, that actually takes down, uh, the walls, um, and then you shall shout.

46:42Yeah.

46:43Yeah.

46:44Uh, and then, uh, in verse 21 of Joshua, what is this, or Joshua six, uh, verse 21, they,

46:54then they devoted to destruction by the edge of the sword, all in the city, both men and

46:59women, young and old, oxen and sheep, uh, oxen sheep and donkeys.

47:05Mm hmm.

47:07That's not very nice.

47:08No, that's, that, that, that idea of harem where, um, everything is supposed to be destroyed

47:14as a, it's a, it's a bit of costly signaling and saying we're not, um, we're just want

47:18to show you all, we're not doing this so that we can take all this for ourselves.

47:21We're doing this cause God told us.

47:23And so we're going to destroy all the goods that we would be expected to take as, um,

47:28to signal to you that we're serious about this.

47:30This is God said so they burned down the city and everything in it.

47:35Only the silver and gold and the vessels of bronze and iron, they put into the treasury

47:40of the house of the Lord.

47:41So that's a, that's, that's just for, that's just for the priests to use, I guess, right.

47:48And uh, and everything else there, they're not supposed to have any, any booty.

47:52And we've talked about the story in the next chapter, uh, of, of what's his name and yeah.

48:00And his wife took, took a little bit of something.

48:03Ah, yes.

48:04Uh, and the, the end of chapter six says Joshua then pronounced this oath saying cursed before

48:09Adonai be anyone who tries to build this city Jericho at the cost of his first born, he

48:15shall lay its foundation.

48:16And at the cost of his youngest, you shall set up its gates.

48:19So the Lord was with Joshua and his fame was in all the land, which is, is suggestive

48:24to me of the composition of this story in a time period when it was like, look, the walls

48:28have were falling down and the city was never rebuilt.

48:32And so when I read that, this is me pulling the pin from earlier.

48:36When I read that part, I thought it meant you're not supposed to rebuild this city ever.

48:43And if you try to, then you're going to, your first born's going to, going to die and blah,

48:49blah, blah.

48:50But obviously you've been to it.

48:53So someone rebuilt it.

48:55Uh, well, is it, wasn't that supposed to be a bad thing?

48:59Well, I've been to the ruins, uh, but yeah, there were people who settled around the,

49:06the ancient tell, uh, there, there were certainly, there were certainly people who occupied Jericho,

49:12uh, the, the actual tell, the hill itself fall, you know, after the, uh, the 14th and 13th

49:19centuries BCE.

49:21So if, if we were to take this story seriously, they, Joshua was, it was ignored more likely

49:28what's going on is in a later period when it was maybe abandoned again, uh, they were

49:33looking at the city and we're like, oh, it's so old and it's got walls to fell down.

49:37Oh, okay.

49:38And, and I bet it's been like that since Joshua.

49:41So we'll just tell the story like, uh, like he cursed anybody who, uh, who tried to rebuild

49:47it.

49:48Uh, but, but the city of Jericho now is, is quite large and none of it is actually located

49:53on the tell.

49:54The tell was just an archaeological site.

49:56So, so now Jericho spreads out, uh, significantly around the tell.

50:01Okay.

50:02So it was, um, it was cursing anyone who builds on the hill that if you go, if you

50:07go next to it, how close can my property line get?

50:11All right.

50:12I'm putting a stick.

50:13Where's the curse line?

50:14Where is the, where does the curse end?

50:17Yeah.

50:18Does it have to go up the hill or is it, um, and, and the whole reason Jericho was a city

50:23and, and was so important was because there's a, there's a natural spring right next to it.

50:28Um, and still go in today.

50:31So, um, okay, there was a, uh, a constant source of water in a desert land right next

50:36to a dead sea.

50:39I can see how a spring, uh, a natural spring would be exactly where you put a city in

50:48this.

50:49Yes.

50:50That works.

50:51It is, it is the foundation.

50:52In fact, of the promised land, uh, apparently, all right, well, there you go.

50:57Uh, we, we have Jericho.

51:00We have a tumbling down the walls come tumbling down.

51:03Uh, I think that's very interesting.

51:06I don't know what to make of it all other than, uh, just, yeah, interesting story that

51:14doesn't really, I mean, I don't know what we learn from it in terms of it being, uh,

51:19useful to modern readers other than, uh, just a story about, about, about a bunch of mass

51:28murder.

51:30All right.

51:31Yeah.

51:32There's, there's definitely genocide definitely features heavily, uh, in the story.

51:36Yeah.

51:36All right.

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