Ep 126: Hear, O Israel

00:00What's the song of songs all about?

00:03Songs.

00:04Oh, sex.

00:05No.

00:06There you go.

00:07The Hibity Dibity.

00:08So we're going to go to Song of Songs 6.9.

00:13And...

00:16Thank you for that.

00:17That was a gift to me.

00:21Hey, everybody.

00:25I'm Dan McClellan.

00:26And I'm Dan Beacher.

00:27And you're listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast.

00:30Where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion.

00:35And we combat the spread of misinformation in a couple of pleasing baritone voices.

00:40Isn't that correct, Dan?

00:42It's all good over here, baby.

00:46Yeah, baby.

00:48And I'm thinking of lines from, "I'm going to get you second now."

00:51Oh, okay.

00:52With Isaac Hayes.

00:54Neither of us have an Isaac Hayes voice.

00:57No, no.

00:58I'm not even going to cry.

00:59Well, today we got some fun show coming up.

01:03We have our first segment, our chapter and verse is...

01:08Maybe you should just be called a verse, not chapter and verse, because it is literally

01:14a verse which you have assured me we have enough to talk about just with a single verse.

01:21We could be talking about this for the rest of the existence of our podcast, this verse.

01:26This is the verse when it comes to the Hebrew Bible.

01:31Okay.

01:32And this is something that everybody knows about.

01:34But yeah, this is Deuteronomy 6.4.

01:38All right.

01:39Also the main part of the Shema.

01:41Shema.

01:42We're going to get Super Shema on this.

01:45Yes, you're going to Shema me now and believe me later.

01:50And then we're going to do a segment that we're now calling, even though that we've

01:55done other parts that should have been in this segment, but we're going to call it,

02:00is it canon?

02:02And we're going to be discussing what was it, the letter of Jeremiah.

02:08The letter of Jeremiah, yes.

02:11This quirky little letter that just seems like an epistle.

02:16Why does Jeremiah have letters and not an epistle?

02:19Well, you know what, I bet if you went back into the King James version, in fact, while

02:23we're chatting, I'm going to pull it up.

02:24I bet you it says the epistle of Jeremiah and on the table of contents.

02:28No, I'm not looking for a document that dates to 1611.

02:32Wait, are you saying that the King James had this?

02:35Because I thought this, this is apocryphal.

02:37This is a king James.

02:41The King James version had the apocrypha for over 200 years.

02:47Oh, that's right.

02:48That's right.

02:49I remember now.

02:50I remember now.

02:51I was about to be like, do we need to do a show on this?

02:53No, we've got it.

02:54You can't be held responsible for knowing all of the things that we've talked about

02:58I don't listen to the show.

02:58on the show.

03:02Little and a little, I don't either.

03:05But a little, a little behind the scenes, BTS, every week, not every week, most weeks,

03:14what happens is either the day before or the morning of recording the show, we text each

03:20other and go, what are we going to talk about?

03:23And frequently, the next response is, have we talked about this?

03:27Yeah.

03:28And we're like, I don't know, let's go look and somebody will sometimes make a database

03:34for us because I started a database where we started this, and then I did not keep it

03:39up.

03:40And now we have no way of searching it.

03:42We have no way of knowing what we've talked about.

03:45It's a mess.

03:46We have no way.

03:47Yes.

03:48We can, we can, we can search on our YouTube channel.

03:51Point of order.

03:52Yes.

03:53We call it Apocrypha in the table of contents of the 1611 King James version, Baruch with

03:59the epistle of Yeremia.

04:02Okay.

04:03All right.

04:04Yes.

04:05And that was right.

04:06And we'll talk about that because, because yeah, in some, in some things I read that it

04:09is the last chapter of Baruch.

04:12Yep.

04:13All right.

04:14Chapter six.

04:15Boom.

04:16All right.

04:17Well, let's, let's start our show.

04:18Let's do the, let's do the first thing first, and then we'll do the second thing second.

04:22I think that's a great idea.

04:23Awesome.

04:24Let's go on.

04:25Yeah.

04:26I'm just nodding, but you can't see that on the right.

04:27Yes.

04:28Yes.

04:29Verbal responses are required for an audio media.

04:32Yeah.

04:33I, I took to this like a fish to a bicycle and this, this medium just comes so naturally

04:37to me.

04:38It's, yeah.

04:39Yeah.

04:40No.

04:41I think you're a natural.

04:42I think you're, you're a pro at this point.

04:43We've done a hundred and some maybe we just knew who knows how many of these we've done.

04:46Anyway, I think, I think this is one 26.

04:48I don't know.

04:50Anywho.

04:50Let's do a chapter and verse and the chapter is Deuteronomy six.

04:59The verse is four.

05:00Should I just read it?

05:03Five is right out.

05:04Five is.

05:05Three.

05:06Shut that down.

05:07Actually, you know, before we read it, why don't you give me a little bit of like sort

05:11of like, like, situate me in yeah, the 30,000 foot view of yeah, in Deuteronomy.

05:18What are we looking at here?

05:19Why, what is this?

05:20Where?

05:21Where are we?

05:22Who's talking?

05:23Who's the dude, who's Aarona meaning?

05:27Yeah.

05:28Yeah.

05:29So Deuteronomy second laws, what this means.

05:32This is basically kind of a capitulation of, of everything that has gone on with Moses.

05:37He's like, gather around children and I'll tell you a tale of how you all kept screwing

05:42up and God kept punishing you and, and I was there the whole time.

05:47But Deuteronomy is the kind of recapitulation of the law that adds a bunch of stuff.

05:53It is very different from the laws that we have in Exodus and Leviticus and scattered

05:58around numbers and things like that.

06:00Right.

06:01And Deuteronomy six is important, particularly verse four, the, the book of Deuteronomy came

06:07together over the course of a long time centuries.

06:12It probably began as we've talked before, during the reign of Josiah toward the, the

06:18latter portion of the seventh century BCE, because we, we have this discussion, second

06:23Kings chapter 22, somebody shows up at, and says King Josiah, we were, you know, doing

06:32our spring cleaning in the temple, we're renovating and we found the book of the law and, and Josiah

06:37says, bring it here and we'll read, you know, take it to the prophet Hilda and we'll read

06:42it.

06:43And, and lo and behold, it does all this stuff that serves my interests.

06:46And I will, you know, who would I close with the law that we just found that no, you can't

06:52see that happens to say a whole bunch of stuff that I really like.

06:58Can we look at it?

06:59No, you may not.

07:01And Deuteronomy six is understood by an awful lot of scholars who probably have been the

07:06beginning of the earliest layer.

07:08Oh.

07:09And then you have laws in chapter 12 and elsewhere that were other central chunks of the probably

07:17first layer of Deuteronomy.

07:19And so this is probably how the first version, more or less of Deuteronomy would have started

07:28out.

07:29And then we also have the Deuteronomistic history as another part of this project, which is kind

07:32of rewriting the history of Israel and Judah in order to give the book of Deuteronomy and

07:42softer landing in the literary milieu.

07:47For the elites, this is all going on on a very high level.

07:50You know, it's not like the people on the street are like, did you hear about the new

07:54edition of the law that was just published?

07:56And the new history just dropped and it's fire.

08:02They're locking the representatives in the chamber.

08:04They're not letting them out until they get this written.

08:09Oh, that joke is not going to make any sense when somebody listens to this in a year and

08:13a half.

08:14That's okay.

08:15Nobody's going to listen to this in a year and a half.

08:19But this is, so this is going on on a high level.

08:23This is propaganda.

08:25This is something that doesn't really, scholars are moving in the direction of the conclusion

08:30that these texts were not widely known and certainly not widely enforced until starting

08:38probably in the Hasmonean dynasty around the middle of the second century BCE.

08:44So Deuteronomy six, one starts now.

08:47This is the commandment.

08:48The statutes and the ordinances that Adonai, your God charged me to teach you to observe

08:54in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy.

08:56And you have all these little kind of like tongue in cheek.

09:01When you get to the place that Adonai will choose to place his name, wherever that might

09:07be, we don't know for sure.

09:09But wherever that might be rhymes with Jerusalem, like that you have all these references to

09:15the temple.

09:16And it's basically saying, you know, don't worship Adonai anywhere but the Jerusalem temple.

09:21You can't use any priesthood other than the Levitical priesthood.

09:25You know, it's one nation, one God, one king, one law, one man, one vote, all that kind

09:32of stuff.

09:33So, and then Deuteronomy six, four is the probably the most famous within Jewish traditions,

09:41Deuteronomy six, four is probably the most famous passage in the entire Hebrew Bible.

09:45One thing I want to get to is this whole chapter, it starts not with a word, but with

09:53a punctuation, which is a quotation mark.

09:56The whole thing is a quote, at least in in NRSVUE that I'm looking at.

10:03I assume that that means that we're trying to put this into Moses's mouth.

10:07Yes.

10:08This is Moses speaking.

10:09Okay.

10:10Yeah.

10:11So verse four is also in quotes because the whole, the whole darn things in quote, but

10:18it says, should I just read it?

10:20Well, hang on, just, just to further contextualize that this in Hebrew, like in Latin influenced

10:29cultures, we call this Deuteronomy in or in Greek as well.

10:33In Hebrew, it's vareem, which means words.

10:39And the book begins, la hade vareem asher debar moche.

10:44These are the words that Moses spoke.

10:46And so, yes, that's the narrative framework that then leads into quotation mark.

10:54And then you get Moses speaking in his best, now I forget the actor did that.

11:01Jesus.

11:02Yeah.

11:03Are you thinking of a Charlton Heston?

11:05Charlton Heston, yes.

11:06Yes, Charlton Heston, oh, Israel, yeah, so tell you what, I'll do.

11:16And I mentioned earlier, Deuteronomy six, four, six words in Hebrew, very short.

11:20And we're going to, we're going to cruise on past the first two in Hebrew.

11:23It's Shmai Surayel, Adonai, Elohainu, Adonai, Echad, boom, that's it.

11:29And then what is the translation from our beloved NRSVUE?

11:32NRSVUE has it here, oh, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.

11:39Ooh.

11:41And but they do have a, they do have a, you're, you've thrown a flag already.

11:46Ah, yes.

11:47Flag on the play.

11:48Yes.

11:49There is a footnote that says, or the Lord is our God, the Lord, the Lord is, the Lord

11:56our God is one, or the Lord are, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, or the Lord is our

12:03God, the Lord is one.

12:05Wow, that's a, it sounds like it's not definitive in the Hebrew.

12:13There's, yeah, I, I'm going to quibble with this translation, but this is a hotly debated

12:18or it has a history of being hotly debated.

12:21I think, I think the scholars for the most part have more or less settled on, on a way

12:29to understand this.

12:30But yeah, if we move past Shabbat Israel, which is just the imperative here, listen, just listen

12:36to me.

12:37Yeah.

12:38And Israel, oh, Israel is supposed to indicate the vocative, the oh means you.

12:44And so hey, you Israel, listen, look up here, listen.

12:49And then we've got Adonai Alohannu, Adonai Akkad, and we, it is using Adonai, the tetragrammaton,

12:55the divine name Yodhhevave, twice.

12:58And then we have these words that follow after Alohannu and Akkad.

13:04And the question is, are we, are we to understand these as verbless clauses, the, the null copula

13:12where it is?

13:13Yeah, you just said a whole bunch of words.

13:14I'm going to explain.

13:15Okay.

13:16So is it an X is Y sentence?

13:19Because in Hebrew, you don't need the to be verb all the time.

13:22You can, in fact, you very rarely ever need it.

13:25So you can just put two things together and it can be understood as X is Y or is one thing

13:32just qualifying the Adonai.

13:36And this phrase, Adonai Alohannu, those exact words occur multiple times in the book of

13:40Deuteronomy, I think like 20-ish times, something like that.

13:45And every single time it is used the exact same way where Alohannu is in opposition to

13:52Adonai.

13:53So it is not a verbless clause.

13:55It is just saying, Adonai, that is to say, our God.

14:00Okay.

14:01So, so, Elohannu means our God.

14:04It is, it is the possessive plural first person of Elohim.

14:09Elohim, exactly.

14:11So, and this occurs a bunch of times and it always means the Lord our God.

14:17So it never is used in Deuteronomy, as near as near as we can tell, to mean Adonai is

14:23our God.

14:24So that translation, I'm going to argue not likely, not like that.

14:29So you like the translation to be Adonai our God.

14:35Correct.

14:36Yeah.

14:37But it's also kind of a casa's pendants or left dislocation, which is where you would.

14:44I had one of those.

14:45I had to go see it.

14:46My shoulder, it was, I had to go see a PT for a while.

14:50And the, and that's where you state the subject, but then you kind of start the sentence over.

14:58So if I go, Dave, he went and did this.

15:02What I've done is I've taken the subject of the sentence and I've just removed it and

15:06stuck it at the beginning of the sentence.

15:08And then I've restated it in the sentence.

15:10So it's kind of be, it would kind of be like saying, let me tell you something.

15:15Let me tell you something.

15:16Adonai our God, he is such and such, you're, you're kind of, you're punctuating.

15:23This is the subject.

15:24Right.

15:25And now I'm going to, now I'm going to carry on.

15:26And then we have Adonai Ahkad.

15:28And that could be Adonai alone, it could be Adonai is one.

15:37What was the, so the NRSVUE goes with Adonai alone.

15:44Or it is Adonai is one.

15:47I think most scholars these days are on the side of understanding this to mean Adonai

15:53is one, because the Lord alone is, to say the Lord our God, the Lord alone doesn't really

16:02make much sense.

16:03You would need to interpret the first phrase as a sentence.

16:07The Lord is our God in order for it to be the Lord alone.

16:11Right.

16:12So, so I think most scholars would say the Lord our God, M dash, the Lord is one or Adonai

16:20is one.

16:21Okay.

16:22And so this raises the question of what the hell does that mean?

16:26What does that mean?

16:27Right.

16:28Yeah.

16:29You haven't gotten me closer to understanding this.

16:30Yes.

16:31I'm still.

16:32Yes.

16:33Because a lot of people understand this as the quintessential declaration of monotheism.

16:38But it's not a question of how many gods there are.

16:40It appears to be a question of how many Adonai's there are.

16:44Right.

16:45Because when we're saying Adonai or the Lord, we're not just saying, Oh God, we are, we

16:51are.

16:52It is the tetragrammaton.

16:53It is his name.

16:54Yes.

16:55So it's like we're naming a very specific being a very specific entity.

16:59Right.

17:00And then using Elohainu is interesting.

17:01A lot of people don't don't look hard at this.

17:04But Elohainu, as you pointed out, is the the noun Elohim with a first common plural

17:11pro-nominal suffix or possessive suffix. So that presupposes the existence of other gods.

17:18Because it's saying, God, well, which one, our God, the one that pertains to us, not

17:26that one over there, not those over there, our God.

17:29So it's already presupposing the existence of other gods. And this is, you know, much

17:35like the first commandment, you shall have no other gods before me.

17:39The first commandment is not everything's cool because there are no other gods.

17:44First commandment is you shall have no other gods before me, which from the beginning presupposes

17:50there are other gods. And the same is true of Deuteronomy 6.4.

17:58So I don't think there's a good case to make for a monotheistic reading of this. And that

18:03shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has ever been, ever heard me speak before,

18:09because I'm kind of big on that one about no one in the Bible.

18:12Yeah, you should get in and edit the Wikipedia page about this from now because it's literally

18:18the first, the first paragraph says that it encapsulates the monotheistic essence of Judaism.

18:26Oh, well, and, and, you know, once it has been, it gets taken up in early Judaism and rabbinic

18:33Judaism and late antique and later Judaism. And that's what it, that's how it is, has

18:38traditionally been interpreted as that, that quintessence of the one godness or the oneness

18:46of God. I'm talking about the what it would have meant for the authors who originally wrote

18:52this out for the first edition of the book of Deuteronomy and signed edition.

18:58So the end, and there are, there's a wonderful book by a friend of mine. You met him too.

19:06When we were coming home from SBL last year in the airport in San Diego, you'll recall

19:11the, the tall British guys stop me and chat with it. That's Nathan McDonald. He wrote

19:15a wonderful book called Deuteronomy and the meaning of monotheism. And he's got a whole

19:19chapter reviewing where scholarship has been the critical scholarship, where it's been

19:24on Deuteronomy six, four, and, and reviewing what it most likely means. And I think he

19:30makes a compelling case. And one of the interesting things that he talks about is how throughout

19:35Deuteronomy, uh, the, the way the law is set out, the covenant that God makes with Israel,

19:43where Moses is like, so this happened, then this happened, then this happened. And this

19:46is all trying to show that God has made a covenant with you Israel. And this covenant

19:52is patterned after the vassal treaties of neo Assyrian emperors, folks like Ashurbani

20:00Paul, SR Haden. These were folks who are writing, um, vassal treaties and a vassal treaty is

20:06basically, uh, where a, a larger empire or nation state, a, a sovereign is beating up

20:15on a smaller one and says, we're going to enter into an agreement. And you're going,

20:21you know, you, here's where you have to imagine, uh, you know, some, uh, some henchmen walking

20:28into a, uh, a mom and pop shop in some, you know, in New York city going, it would be

20:33such a shame for something to happen to such a lovely little establishment and demanding

20:39payment in exchange for protection from me. Right. And what I would do to you, if you

20:46did not give me the payment. Um, and so the Assyrians were kind of the ones who invented

20:52or at least they might not have invented it, but they perfected the, uh, vassalage where,

20:59uh, and, and they wrote out these, uh, these treaties, which was basically like, here's

21:02the agreement and, and they framed it as love and fidelity and commitment. And you're going

21:10to love me and only me and no one else. And I'm going to make sure that I don't do anything

21:18horrible to you. Right. And so every now and then I might stop somebody else from doing

21:23something bad. Yeah. Yeah. And then you've also got to provide, uh, soldiers, you know,

21:28when I go out and conquest and you, when I go, um, you know, beat up on your little,

21:33your little brother state, you're going to say, and this day may never come. I call

21:38on you to do a favor for me. Yeah. And so, um, Deuteronomy is being is framed according

21:46to this idea of covenantal love. Right. And, um, and there are, uh, the apologists don't

21:54like that because that means Deuteronomy is coming from the seventh century at the earliest.

22:00Right. And it's supposed to be, you know, like 14th or 12th century. And so they'll say,

22:05well, it shares some similarities with some hit tight treaties from the second millennium

22:10B.C.B. So we're going to focus on those and not on the newest Syrian stuff. So they're

22:15not big fans of that. Right. But, uh, but one of the things that, uh, that Nate points out

22:24is there's, there's one other occurrence of this use of one where somebody is identified

22:29as one. Someone. So is one. And, and it's such a fascinating example. It's in the song of

22:35songs, uh, in, and it's an easy one to remember. What's the song of songs all about? Songs.

22:42Oh, sex. No, there you go. The Hippity Dippity. So we're going to go to song of songs six,

22:48nine. And thank you for that. That was a gift to me. This is not my joke. This I'd, this

23:00is real. So song six, nine. Um, and it says, my dove, my perfect one is one, a hot. And

23:10that's the feminine form of what we see in Deuteronomy six, four, which is the masculine

23:14form. And then it says, um, the, the NRSV, uh, UE says, the darling of her mother, flawless

23:23to her who bore her. And I'm not a big fan of, of that. But it says, it says she is one

23:28to her mother. Uh, the favorite she is to the one who bore her. And so we have two occurrences

23:36of this identification of the lovers, uh, dove and perfect one as one. And it does not

23:43mean this is the only woman out there. Right. No other women exist. And we know this because

23:48the previous verse says there are, uh, there are 60 queens and eight concubines and maidens

23:57without number. And then they go my, but my dove, my perfect one is one. And so the idea

24:05here is not, this is the only one that exists. The idea here is that this is the only one

24:10for me. Okay. This is the only one that matters. And so when we, and then we go to the next

24:15part, she is one to her mother. And so people will think, Oh, well, that means she's an

24:20only child, but then it calls her the favorites. Right. To the one who bore her, which, uh,

24:28a lot of scholars have pointed out, doesn't support the idea of an only child. Rather,

24:32this is the mother's favorite child. In other words, again, the only one for me of all the

24:38ones that are available. This is the one that matters to me. And so this would suggest

24:43in accordance with the context of Deuteronomy that is all about a covenant where God is

24:48saying, me and you, me and you, just me and you. And now you have to acknowledge that Adonai

24:55is one, meaning I'm the only God for you. Right. And you shall have no other gods, the,

25:03the first commandment. So I think Nate makes a wonderful case that, uh, that the idea here

25:09is not that Adonai is the only God that exists. The verse actually presupposes the opposite,

25:14that Adonai is one of many other gods, but Adonai is our God and Adonai is one to us.

25:20Right. Which is exactly what we have in like, uh, first Corinthians when Paul says, uh,

25:27there are many gods and many lords, but for us, there is one God. And, and so I, I think

25:34this is all interrelated. It is about an exclusive relationship, not some kind of exclusive,

25:40um, existence. And, and this would, this would fit with a lot of the rhetoric elsewhere in

25:47Deuteronomy and elsewhere in Deuter, Deuter, Deuter, Deuter, and the other literature from

25:54around this time period that frequently insists there is no other God beside me, not in the

26:02sense that no other gods exist, but in the sense that none other God, no, none other

26:07gods that no other gods matter to you. This is again, like it's, it, when you look at

26:12all the rhetoric that has been identified as monotheistic, when you situate it within

26:17its setting and its context, it all makes the most sense by far as rhetoric about how this

26:25is the only God that matters. All the other gods are meaningless in light of what we have,

26:31this thing that we have is special. Right. Especially in a, in a time and place where

26:39I assume nearby, uh, cultures have multiple gods. It becomes important to be, to be very

26:48clear, you don't have multiple gods. You don't get multiple gods. Don't go, don't go stray

26:54in your eye to other gods. You get one. This is, and this is it. Is that basically what

27:02we're talking about? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you get one. There's, uh, and, and, and

27:07this is really the whole, like this is the emphasis in the Bible that for so long people

27:13have suggested is monotheism. It's not, there's only one that exists. It's you get one. Right.

27:19I'm the one and that's how, that's how God is a jealous God. Right. What the heck does

27:24it mean to say God is a jealous God if there aren't any other possibilities? Right. It only,

27:30it's only meaningful if there are other possibilities. If you could cheat on him. Yeah. And so, and

27:37you know, the worshiping other gods is frequently represented as cheating on God, uh, in, uh,

27:44in Hosea in Isaiah and Jeremiah and everywhere. So, um, so yeah, Deuteronomy six, four is really

27:52about an exclusive relationship, uh, with God. I, I think that's the best argument out there.

27:58Uh, I think it fits, uh, the situation. It fits this first layer of Deuteronomy. It fits

28:04what Josiah was trying to do. Now there, there is an interesting other reading that I really,

28:10that I, is my number two. This is my backup reading. Okay. Um, and this is because this

28:15is the first layer of Deuteronomy, this is going on when there were other cult sites

28:20besides the template Jerusalem. Now, Synachram had, had destroyed them a century before the

28:26kings before Josiah were probably rebuilding them, trying to reestablish this worship of

28:31Adonai and Ashara and things like that at these other cult sites. Another interpretation

28:36is mono yawism, which would be there is no Adonai of Taman and Adonai of Shomeron and

28:45Adonai of Jerusalem. There is only one Adonai. That is the Adonai of Jerusalem. In other

28:49words, it would be an attack against the worship being manifestations of Adonai at other locations.

28:57Oh, okay. Because you're only allowed to worship in the one location where Adonai will

29:03choose to place his name, which would be Jerusalem. So there's another interpretation that understands

29:09this to be saying you can't go to other temples to worship Adonai. Adonai is one and that one

29:17is in Jerusalem. Meaning the one is actually the address. It's one Jerusalem street. Yeah,

29:24one Jerusalem street in Jerusalem. Yeah, don't go anywhere else. A one A one A one. Well,

29:32I think that that is fascinating. I think we got to cut it off. We could go on for weeks

29:37could go on like weeks. I want to ask you why, why Jews who do the Shema prayer now cover

29:44their eyes, but we got to go on, we got to move on. I got to go on. So we're going to

29:49do that and and someone can explain the covering eyes thing in the comments of the YouTube channel

29:55or something. Anyway, I do think that this is actually a great transition point talking

30:01about physical locations of temples and or gods. So let's move on to, is it canon? And

30:14the canon, the the quasi canonical, the possibly canonical questionably canonical book that

30:23we're going to be talking about is the letter of Jeremiah. Right. And and this as we said

30:28before this was this sometimes has been just the the is the last book of the other questionably

30:38canonical of Baruch. Yes. So it's usually chapter six of Baruch in in the Latin certain

30:46Latin traditions and manuscripts. Okay. Yeah. But it is an intro. It's a very it's a one

30:52chapter deal. And but it's, you know, it's a longish chapter as by biblical chapters go.

30:59Yeah, 70 72, 72 versus ironically, that's six times 12. That's the number of elders that

31:08were supposed to have gone to Alexandria to go translate the Septuagint. Okay, certainly

31:15the versification is modern. No, the versification has me baffled frequently. And this in this

31:23chapter in this book specifically, the verse just starts in the middle of a sentence. Yeah,

31:29yeah, you just frequently that were they just counting a certain number of words and

31:34then just chunking a number there? Like verse five starts in the like literally verse four

31:42says so beware of becoming at all like the foreigners or of letting fear of these gods

31:48possess you. There is no punctuation. Verse five starts when you see the multitude before

31:54it like, come on, man, just I was an end stop. I was actually getting confused between the

32:00verse numbers and the the footnote markers because they were sometimes they occur in

32:07pretty close succession. Yeah. And so I was like, okay, one's the number one's a letter

32:12one's the number one's I can tell the difference between these two. But this this is a this

32:18is a letter it's in the form of a letter or an epistle if you're nasty. And this purports

32:24to be a letter from Jeremiah sent to those who were to be taken to Babylon as exiles by

32:30the king of the Babylonians. That would be Nebuchadnezzar. Yeah, to give them the message

32:37that God had commanded him. So this is thematically this is connected with Jeremiah. Obviously

32:44it was not written by Jeremiah. This scholar you scholars these days are coming around

32:54to the idea that this is probably originally composed in Greek and that it was probably

33:00composed perhaps in the late second, early first century BCE. So it's still before the

33:08New Testament, but and just to remind me when the exile happened when so the Babylonians,

33:19there are two main waves, 597 BCE and then 586 BCE and it's the 586 invasion that results

33:28in the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. I think some folks think that this is probably

33:33the 597 wave that this letter is supposed to be associated with. Okay. But yeah, this

33:40is purportedly Jeremiah writing to the exiles and this as you mentioned, this is sometimes

33:50connected to the end of the book of Baruch, which itself is sometimes connected to the

33:55end of Jeremiah. Oh, okay. But it also sometimes will be separated from Baruch by the book

34:04of lamentations. Oh, so so Jeremiah's got a lot of books attributed to him. He's got

34:12some reach. Yes, some of more and less dubiousness in terms of canonicity. But but it starts

34:21off as you would expect a letter to start off because of the sins that you have committed

34:26before God. You will be taken to Babylon as exiles by Nebuchadnezzar king of the Babylonians.

34:33Therefore, when you have come to Babylon, you will remain there for many years for a

34:36long time up to seven generations. After that, I will bring you away from there in peace.

34:46Wow. What an amazing prediction that ended up. Yeah, it's like this. It's seven generations

34:52from now won't matter to you, but seven generations from now. Yeah. Yeah. And is that about the

35:00length of the exile seven generations? That's a traditional way to measure it. Okay. So

35:05yeah, this is definitely written by someone much later on down the road. Just after the

35:09fact just, yeah, working that in. I do want to say it. I when I first read that that opening

35:17line because of the sins that you have committed before God, like explaining that the reason

35:24for the exile is is the sins of these people. I was like, why? Why is that the set up here?

35:36Why is it was that really necessary? Why is it you guys suck? And so you get to have

35:41to put up with this, but it becomes clearer as we move into the rest of the book. Yeah,

35:48because because we definitely can't because there's a danger that if it's not because

35:55of our sins, then then that means that our God couldn't have protected us from this.

36:01So somehow this is a punishment rather than our God not protecting us.

36:07This is the classic rationalization for being conquered, right, or being invaded is and you

36:16see it in the mission description. The oldest alphabetic narrative text that we have ever

36:21found has Masha explaining that the Amride dynasty was able to was able to basically subjugate

36:31Moab because Kemosh was angry with his land. And and so this is, you know, within your nation's

36:39worldview, you've got to protect that worldview if your identity is going to carry on. And

36:44so if you get defeated, you got to come up with a reason why God allowed you to be defeated

36:49because, you know, we got to go for it. Yeah.

36:56Adelante. Yeah, we got smoked by the God next door. Doesn't do good things for the power

37:06structures. And so you've got to come up with a reason that got allowed it to happen. And

37:10this is all over the rationalizations for the exile. Right. And so, you know, it's oh,

37:16you sinned. God was angry. And you know, it happens when temples are destroyed and when

37:20invading forces carry off your divine image, they'll be like the God abandoned the image

37:28and didn't care what happened to it. And so he allowed it to be carried off. Everybody's

37:34got an excuse. And right. And and the excuse never hurts the person who has screwed has

37:42failed. Just like right now, the excuses always protect the one responsible for all

37:49the trouble and all the problems because he is monumentally incompetent. It's always

37:56like, well, it's not his fault. It's everybody else for not recognizing how awesome he is.

38:03So but yeah, this is a this is a meeting that could have been an email. And you know what,

38:08I think I think the email could have been versus three through five, because that is

38:14the thesis statement. Yeah, that is just unpacked in a redundant way over the next 67 verses.

38:24You ain't kidding, man. It is it rehash. It retreads the same ground a lot. Yeah. So three

38:32through five is just now in Babylon, you will see gods made of silver and gold and wood

38:37that people carry on their shoulders and that caused the nations to fear. So beware of becoming

38:42at all like the foreigners or of letting fear of these gods possess you when you see the

38:46multitude before and behind them, worshipping them, but say in your heart, it is you, oh,

38:51Lord, whom we must worship for my angel is with you. And he is watching over your lives.

38:58Fiend that could have been the end of the letter. That's the whole thing because literally it's

39:06it gets infuriating. I'll be honest with you. It's painting a picture and it is getting

39:12a little muddy. Well, it's painting a picture and then repainting the same picture over that

39:17picture and then doing it again and again. And the thrust of it really is just, hey,

39:25you guys are going to see a bunch of other gods. Don't worry. They're not real. And

39:32that is that is the entirety of the thing over and over and over again. And you're going

39:37to hear about wood, silver and gold, like 30 times. Yeah. It is it is always repeated

39:43that these are just these are the the works of human hands, wood plated with silver and

39:48gold. And they can't and and I love there. There's a lot of there's a there's a note in

39:55the SBL study Bible that points out there are a lot of references to women associated

40:00with ritual work. And and it's it may be highlighting just how involved in ritual and worship and

40:09cults women were in the ancient world. And I and I think there's a there's a debate to

40:16be had about to the degree to which this is intended to be a contrast with Judah Heights

40:22worship practices versus versus perhaps this reflects the fact that women were integrated

40:29into Judah height worship practices as well prior to everything becoming patriarchalized.

40:37But there are some interesting things in here and they they love to make fun of the other

40:43priests. I've got to because because they're like they they sell this stuff and they use

40:47the money to go visit sex workers. Oh my gosh. It is it is just nonstop like complete slander

40:55of the other priests. Yeah. They cut their hair. They got their they shave their beards.

41:00They they steal the clothes off of them off of their gods and give them to their kids.

41:06Yeah, they you likewise their wives preserve some of the meat with salt but give none to

41:12the poor helpless sacrifices to them may even be touched by women during their periods or

41:18after giving birth. Yeah. So yes, the horror, but it is they're they don't like the gods.

41:28They obviously don't like the priests the cult personnel, the officials who are involved

41:32in right in curating them and their worship. And so yes, they become they are adulterers,

41:38their wives are gross. They are they're visiting the the sex workers. They're they're doing

41:44all the bad stuff. They're not giving anything to the poor or the needy. And because you

41:50know, it's all wood plated with silver and gold. Can I ask you quite like what? So one

41:58of the things that this brought up for me is because you mentioned or just earlier as

42:04we were talking about this segment, you mentioned that thing, you know, the idea of like, oh,

42:09they took our they took our divine image, our, you know, whatever statue or whatever

42:16and and carded it away. Well, it's okay because God left that. Did the Judah heights or whoever

42:24it was that wrote this? Did they have imagery that was meant to contain their God because

42:32it does it 100% because here's why that's like that's crazy making because he keeps making

42:42all of these arguments about why the Babylonian gods, you shouldn't you don't have to worry

42:47about them at all. They're just made out of wood. If they fall down, somebody has to pick

42:52them up. If they do this, you know, if they get dust on them from the table, what are

42:57you talking about here? Yeah, they're they're gone, but somebody somebody has to wipe the

43:03dirt off of the gold so that you can see that it's cold. Yeah. So so this is coming in a

43:08period when because the exile was when they really chose to use idols divine images as

43:18the wedge issue. Okay. And and I in my book, I don't know as divine images, I talk about

43:24this, how there seems to be a renegotiation of divine presencing. What kind of material

43:32media are we going to use in order to manifest God's presence? And because they're there,

43:40the temple in Jerusalem would have had divine images. We have a Judah height temple preserved

43:45at a rod that had a divine image in it that had it's still there. You can go look at it.

43:50It's a standing stone. It looks like a headstone from a cemetery. And that would have been the

43:57thing that housed the divine presence, the divine agency and was all of this just jealousy

44:06because they had better looking gods. Well, the the larger empires around them definitely

44:12had more goods, more money, more experts, a bigger market. So they had like a lot more

44:21anthropomorphic statuary and things like that. And there was a lot more silver and gold where

44:25we think that the ancient Israelites and Judah heights were mainly working in like clay and

44:32stone. So these Babylonian gods were definitely anthropomorphic because it describes they have

44:38a tongue, but it was blah, blah, they have eyes, but they can't see like it. Like this

44:43is definitely a human figure frequently, not exclusively. There were divine images that

44:51were not anthropomorphic. And there's a wonderful book that was edited by Barbara Porter called

44:58What is a God that was all about Mesopotamian divine imagery and and deity and what it meant

45:06to be a God. It seems like in ancient Israel, it was primarily standing stones or miniature

45:15statuary that was like in the shape of a bull or maybe like a horse or maybe a human or something

45:22like that. In fact, the one of the other temples that was more recently discovered at Telmotsa,

45:28they found incorporated into the one of the walls, a broken probably standing stone that

45:36has two little legs in a in a smiting pose that were probably so so probably there was

45:43a standing stone that was an image that depicted either ball or out on either storm deity in

45:50a smiting pose. And at some point, it was broken and the stones were just reused architecturally.

45:56Why? Yeah, but but what I argue in the book is that the realization that the divine images

46:04are vulnerable, that they can be destroyed. And you know, the fact of that happening in

46:11586 BCE led to a renegotiation where they're like, we need to find a better way to do this.

46:20And my my thesis is that it moves to text. And this is why you have texts in Deuteronomy

46:28and in Joshua, where they're supposed to set up standing stones and write the text of the

46:34law on the standing stone, which is the divine image. And then they worship because the standing

46:42stone with the law on it has facilitated the presence of the deity. And so the law then

46:47becomes kind of the locus of divine agency. Right. But I, I, we could also look in what's

46:56called the arc narrative in Samuel. What happens when the Philistines come up to battle against

47:00the Israelites and the Israelites go, we got our arc. The Philistines take the arc. They

47:06abscond with the divine image. And what do they do? They go put it in their temple right

47:11next to their divine image of day gone. Now the Philistines wouldn't have been worshiping

47:17day gone anywhere near this period. But then they get in a divine image battle. And, and

47:24the arc of the covenant wins the first morning they come in and they see that day gone has

47:29has fallen over the second morning they come in and day guns head and hands are cut off.

47:34Oh, wow. And so the arc of the covenant is the Yauistic divine image that, you know, just

47:43dominates the other divine images. It's, it's kind of, it's kind of your celebrity death

47:49match going on in the temple at night when nobody can see two and animate objects. Right,

47:55right. But, but that's the exact same thing. That is what divine images do. And so, so

48:03when you ask that question, did they have divine images that might have gotten carted

48:06off it? We have stories about their divine image being carted off by the Philistines.

48:11And, and then the it has to make its way back to, to Israel. You know, and it gives them

48:17all, it gives them all hemorrhoids. The, the Philistines are, I'm pretty sure it actually

48:22melts their faces if they try to open it. I saw a whole, a documentary called something

48:27called writers in the last time with a very handsome leading man, right? So that's actually

48:36based on an interpretation of the arc narrative because the arc gets the Philistines are like,

48:42this is too much for us. We're putting it on a cart with some cows. We're slapping them

48:48on the rump and we're just sending, sending the arc pack in. And it makes its way. And,

48:54and the, the cows just march the arc right up to Beit Shemesh, a city. And they just

49:01stop. And they're like, oh, it's the arc of the covenant. And, and it says that somebody

49:08ordered these cows. And it says they look, the, the text is corrupt. We don't know exactly

49:15what it originally said, but the, how it's traditionally interpreted the, the people of

49:20that community looked into the arc and either 50 or 70 of them or like 50,000 of them were

49:31killed. Oh, wow. And it wasn't 50,000 because there wouldn't have been 50,000 people living

49:36in that entire settlement. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, but that's one of the, that's the story

49:41from which we get the, the face melter story. We have not done the arc on the show. We have

49:49we not? I don't think we've done the arc. Oh gosh. Have we done, you guys need to tell

49:54us have we done the arc? Because we're not good at that. We have made it clear. We don't

49:57know what we're doing here. And it is very easy for us to lose the plot. But yeah, if

50:02we haven't frequently, frequently we'll say something in passing and then like six months

50:06down the road, we're like, I think we did an episode on that did it in one episode. Yeah.

50:11So I don't think we've done the arc. I think we should do it. I think you just ruined one

50:15of the best punchlines from that episode, but that's fine. The whole, the whole cows and

50:21the people losing their faces thing that we'll get, we'll get back to it. Anyway, don't let

50:25us forget to do this, you guys. Yeah. But the letter of Jeremiah is kind of your classical

50:31idol polemic, which starts with Jeremiah with Deuteros, Isaiah and others who are, who are

50:37basically just saying those aren't real gods, you, you dumb dums, those are just idols

50:43of stone and wood and gold. And they can either eat nor drink nor breathe nor see nor speak

50:49nor hear nor any of that kind of stuff. And, but this is, and here's the thing to point

50:53out, this is a very crafty little piece of polemic because they know that the, the wood

51:02and the gold is not the God itself. They know that's just the channel that transmits the

51:09agency because they've been doing the same thing. It did the same thing with the arc.

51:13They do the same thing with standing stones. They did the same freaking thing with the

51:16Nehushtan when Moses puts the serpent, the bronze serpent on the staff, exact same logic.

51:24Right. So they know that saying that piece of stone or that wood covered in gold isn't

51:30a real God. They know that's not what they believe. Right. They're basically saying those

51:35guys are idiots with their idols. It's idol worship over there. When we do it, it's actually

51:40fine. It's real. Yeah. We do it. But those guys, what are they even doing? I don't know

51:47what they're doing. And yeah, it's, so you've got to divert the, they were doing all the

51:55same stuff in the pre-exilic period, then you begin to diverge in the exilic period.

52:00And they, they have to kind of misrepresent the logic of divine images of idols and that

52:08misrepresentation becomes the truth for them and for almost everybody ever since. Because

52:16the, you know, that it works for Paul. Paul says the same thing and I know there's nothing

52:21in the world. And, but then he also kind of gives away the game when he's like, but you

52:25know, when they, when they worship that, they're actually worshiping these demons. So, so he

52:30knows there's, there are divine forces and agencies that are associated. Yeah, he ascribes

52:37power to it. But then he's like, yeah, don't worry about it. But then, yeah, it's still

52:41looking, you can push it over. It's a poke it in the eye. It can't feel it. Don't worry

52:45about it. Don't do that to ours though. Yeah, I think that's really interesting. Can I ask

52:50one just sort of dumb side question that's that it just kind of I'm trying to imagine

52:57this in the middle of this, of this book, of this chapter chapter, yes, which is the book.

53:07There is a little side note just sort of we're continuing to make fun of how dumb the way

53:13the Babylonians worship is. And we, this is around verse 40. They, it says they have no

53:22sense. And it says verse 41 and the women with cords around them sit along the passageways,

53:29burning brand for instance, when one of them is led off by one of the passers by and is

53:34taken to bed by him, she derides the woman next to her because she was not as attractive

53:40as herself. And her cord was not broken. Do they, do they have prostitutes with that are

53:51that were like bound in rope? And then it. That's a we've addressed the idea of cultic

54:00sex work recently. We don't have good evidence for it. This is another example of a kind

54:06of obscure reference to something that some people think could be cultic sex work, but

54:13we don't really have a good idea of what's going on here.

54:18I mean, it seems very much to be an accusation of cultic sex work. Well, it might, it might

54:24not even be cultic. It might just be regular, regular old sex work. Yeah, I'm just more,

54:30I'm more fascinated by this cord thing. I need to know how the cords work. You cut someone's

54:35cord. And then you're like, you come with me. Let me just cut this. It's kind of like,

54:43it's kind of like the beads at Mardi Gras. Maybe you just got to have it. You just got

54:47to break the string or whatever. They're all behind some cords. I'm sorry. I found that

54:53fascinating. But yeah, I mean, there's I don't think we have any background that we can fill

54:59in on that. I think that's just something that, you know, we're like, well, that's weird.

55:03And we have to move on. But it does feel like it is sort of in the context of pooping on

55:10their temple and saying that it's that they're sort of cultic practices are bad. So it makes

55:18sense to me that even if, you know, whether that's evidence that cult, you know, again,

55:24this is, this is a smear campaign. So we don't know how much of it is based on any kind of

55:30truth about the Babylonians. But it does seem to me to be an accusation that they that there

55:37were sex workers. And this is also coming from someone who never lived to see a Babylonian

55:44in their entire life, written centuries after they were gone. And so this is probably going

55:50to reflect. And the point here is probably to suggest, hey, when you see this going on

55:55in Greco-Roman culture, here's how you should think about it. So I imagine that it probably

56:02has more to do with Greco-Roman culture. And there's a note here in the SBL study Bible,

56:08according to Herodotus, histories one 199, it was the obligation of every Babylonian woman

56:14once in her lifetime to sit in the temple precinct of Aphrodite or Easter until selected

56:20for sexual intercourse by a stranger, presumably as part of the fertility rights associated

56:26with the goddess. And you're supposed to see also Straybo's geography. Herodotus makes

56:33no mention of the burning brand, which may have been a form of grain offering, or perhaps

56:38an aphrodisiac. I have been around brand muffins that have become burnt, didn't work. If that's

56:47what that's for. Were you tied up with a cord at the time?

56:53That might have been what I was missing. And so Herodotus also didn't have a great understanding

57:02of what was going on in Babylon and historians don't really take much of that incredibly seriously,

57:11because we have no evidence for these fertility rights associated with cultic sex. That's something

57:20we don't really think went on. But you know, the author of the letter of Jeremiah was probably

57:26just going off of what they were finding in Herodotus and elsewhere.

57:31All right. Well, there you go. Don't be afraid of Babylonian gods.

57:36Well, and I think I think it would be instructive to just tie it off by reading the very end.

57:42Like a scarecrow in a cucumber bed that guards nothing. So are there gods of wood overlaid

57:47with gold and silver in the same way there gods of wood overlaid with gold and silver.

57:52Did we mention that overlay with gold and silver? Are like a thorn bush in a garden on

57:57which every bird perches or like a corpse thrown out in the darkness from the purple.

58:05From the purple and linen that rot upon them, you will know that they are not gods and they

58:10will finally be consumed themselves and be a reproach in the land. Better therefore is

58:16someone upright who has no idols. Such a person will be far above reproach. Love, Jeremiah.

58:26And kindest regards. XO, XO. I always sign off emails with hyphen, D.A.N. and I do it

58:38really fast. And the M is right next to the N on my keyboard and I am dead serious. I

58:44have probably sent more than a dozen emails where I accidentally signed off. Damn. Damn.

58:50Yeah, D.A.N. and hyphen D.A.N. and some of those were actually like formal emails. So

58:56I'm like, Oh crap. Thank you so much for your kind words and blah, blah, blah, damn. All

59:07right. Well, that's it for this week's show. Thank you guys so much for joining us. If

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