Ep 117: Is Allie Beth Stuckey a Sheep or a Goat?

00:00We're back to this new right-wing authoritarian talking point.

00:05Wait a minute, the problem is empathy because Jesus was big on being like, "Don't go too

00:11far.

00:12Love your neighbor, but don't go nuts."

00:14Don't be crazy about it.

00:17That's just irrational.

00:19Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

00:24And I'm Dan Beecher.

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

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

00:35about the same.

00:37How are things today, Dan?

00:38Things are great.

00:39Things are great.

00:40I'm very grateful that Aaron was able to show up last week and help us out.

00:45Yeah, I appreciate Aaron stepping in, coming in clutch there while I was out of town in

00:51Boston and New York.

00:54I'm walking here, as everyone traditionally says, when they're crossing the street in

01:01New York City.

01:02I assume that you hit a car that a car almost hit you and then you slammed the hood, as

01:07is the tradition.

01:08Yes, as, you know, when in Rome, as they say.

01:12Yeah.

01:13I'll ask you more about that.

01:14This is a little teaser.

01:15I'll ask you more about your trip, and we'll hear some fun tales in the patron's only content

01:22in the after party of this very episode.

01:25So maybe now would be a good time for people to sign up over on Patreon.

01:30Yeah.

01:31Get on, get in on that sweet, sweet, sweet, what it's been a, it's been two weeks since

01:36I've done a podcast.

01:37Yeah.

01:38Yeah.

01:39You're not getting on that sweet, sweet after party action.

01:41Yeah, ma'am.

01:42Oof.

01:43Okay.

01:44We'll get it.

01:45We'll get back into the swing of it someday.

01:47Yeah.

01:48It's a work progress.

01:49It won't be today.

01:50I'm looking forward to the show today.

01:52We've got a couple of things that we're talking about.

01:55At first, first, we're going to be taking issue.

01:58Look, the, I don't know if you, Dan, have been checking in with the news and all lately,

02:05but people have been talking a little bit about immigration, you and I have talked about

02:12it on the show several times, but we got it.

02:14We got a different angle, a different thing to talk about.

02:19We're going to launch from something that we saw from one Miss Alibeth Stucky, so that

02:25will be fun to chat about that.

02:28And then in the second half of the show, we've got an artifacts and fiction.

02:33And it's one that I haven't heard about, but it looks really interesting.

02:40Just some fun, some fun pieces of paper that were found in the middle of the river.

02:46Yes, on an island in the middle of a river, islands in the stream.

02:50Yeah.

02:51And that's what we are.

02:52This one has a name that everybody pronounces differently.

02:56Did you see me definitely avoiding trying to, trying to say the name of the island in the

03:01river?

03:02Because that's what I was trying to do.

03:05We will have to get to the name of that island when we get there.

03:07But the papayra that come there from are the real crux of what we're getting to and I'm

03:15excited to talk about it.

03:16But first, taking issue.

03:21So what are we taking issue with?

03:22We're taking issue with Alibeth Stucky, as I said, who made a video that irked and wrinkled

03:30you.

03:31irked and wrangled a handful of folks, myself among them, yes.

03:36Because there has been debate about immigration, about a lot of the cracking down on immigration,

03:46some of the Draconian measures that are being taken in order to slake this identity marker

03:53of brutalizing the foreigner, because that's what helps people maintain their grip on power.

04:03But we've had some folks who are large content creators on social media, on TikTok, on Instagram

04:09elsewhere, who have not traditionally waded into biblical debates, who in response to

04:17a lot of the folks who are rying the separating of families and the snatching people off the

04:24streets by unnamed masked somebody and shipping them off to gulags in other nations without

04:32due process, and people have begun to share passages from the Bible, including passages

04:39from Matthew 25.

04:42There's a parable there in Matthew 25 that is generally known as the parable of the sheep

04:49and the goats.

04:50Now, this is not our first, our first foray into into this parable counter with Matthew

04:5725.

04:58The parable of the talents immediately precedes this particular thing.

05:03And I want to just quickly, I was reading about this, and I'm going to take a little

05:08bit of issue with you categorizing this as a parable, because it actually doesn't fit

05:16that mold perfectly.

05:18It's generally just more of a, here's what's going to happen.

05:22It's a matter.

05:23It's a simile.

05:24More than anything.

05:25Okay.

05:26Do you know, do you understand the distinction that I'm making?

05:29Because it's literally just saying what's going to happen.

05:32Yeah.

05:33And there's a, I think, you know, when, when you look at allegory versus simile versus

05:38parable versus metaphor, like they bleed into each other a little bit, but yeah, we can,

05:44we can, I can let that go.

05:47I'm not married.

05:48The identification.

05:49Look, I was just trying to keep in the theme of taking issues.

05:53So I took issue with that.

05:54We're fine.

05:55We're fine.

05:56Because, because yeah, what it has to say, at least on the surface, it, when I read it,

06:04it feels pretty straightforward.

06:06Well, you've got, you've got the, it's talking about the judgment of the nations and yes,

06:12in verse 31, we begin, when the son of man comes in his glory and all the angels with

06:16him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.

06:18All the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate people one from another

06:22as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, thus the title of the thing, the parable,

06:30the parable or non parable of the sheep and the goats and the sheep are on the right hand

06:35and the goats are on the left as the great poet once said, she'd go to be a great poet

06:40being Matthew 25 in this case.

06:44Well, I was going to say the, isn't it cake who sings sheep go to heaven, goats go to

06:51hell?

06:52I don't know.

06:53It is weird.

06:54Like the, the separation, yeah, clearly in that time, like sheep and goats, yeah, we're

07:00a big deal and sheep were good and a pair of goats were bad.

07:03Yeah.

07:04Why do you keep goats then?

07:07Anyway, um, and, and then we have the, the king who says, uh, something that is evidently

07:14a little more cryptic than a lot of people think, uh, the king will say to those that

07:18is right hand, come, you who are blessed by my father and Herod, the kingdom prepared

07:22for you from the foundation of the world for I was hungry and you gave me food.

07:27I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.

07:29I was a stranger and you welcomed me.

07:32And this word for stranger is sent us in Greek, which is where we get xenophobia.

07:38It means a foreigner, an alien, a stranger, somebody who comes from somewhere else that

07:44we don't know.

07:45I was naked.

07:46And you gave me clothing.

07:47I was sick and you took care of me.

07:49I was in prison and you visited me.

07:51And the righteous will answer him, Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you

07:56food or thirsty and gave you something to drink?

07:59And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing?

08:04And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?

08:07And the king will answer them.

08:08Truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters

08:13of mine, you did it to me.

08:17And then he says the opposite to the goats who are on the left.

08:21You didn't do this and therefore you are going to the bad place.

08:28You are very naughty goats.

08:31Yes.

08:33And what Ali Beth Stucky argues in response to a content creator who is reading this passage

08:42and says, wow, that sounds like Jesus is pretty liberal to me.

08:47And Ali Beth Stucky says, Tisk Tisk, the phrase, the least of these brothers and sisters of

08:55mine or the least of these my brethren, as I think how the King James version, yes, the

09:00least of these my brethren is how the King James version words it.

09:03It's masculine plural in Greek, but in mixed in mixed company, you would always default

09:10to the masculine. So this could be a mixed group.

09:15And Ali Beth Stucky says, no, no, this refers to persecuted Christians, not to all the poor

09:20of the world, not to all the persecuted of the world, only Christians who are persecuted

09:25for the name of Jesus.

09:27And lest you lest you listener at home think that Dan is somehow exaggerating. No, she's

09:34very, she very specifically says, no, not the poor of the world. Like she's, she's, she's

09:41explicit about this. So Dan, he who speaks the, the, the ancient Greek and can read it

09:49and all that sort of thing is who's right here? Is she, is she, what, what is she basing

09:55that on?

09:56Well, this is, this is interpretive. Like we can't look in the Greek doesn't hold up a

10:01sign and say, this is the correct interpretation. You've got to read it in context. And we have

10:08other passages where Jesus seems to talk about brothers and sisters as those who are followers

10:16of him. Okay.

10:18And so the interpretation that is traditional that goes back to early Christianity and was

10:26the most prominent interpretation all the way up until probably the last century or two

10:30has been that this does refer to Christians. And the other interpretation that has become

10:36more popular in the last century or two is that this refers to anybody and everybody

10:42out there in the world. So the, the more recent interpretation is the slightly more egalitarian,

10:52slightly less ethnocentric interpretation that a lot of people argue resonates more with

11:00things like the parable of the good Samaritan resonates more with the love your neighbor,

11:08resonates more with a lot of Jesus's other messaging related to how we're supposed to

11:13treat other people.

11:15But I think based on the use of references to my brothers and my brothers and sisters

11:21and things like that from elsewhere in the gospels and including the gospel of Matthew,

11:26I think there's probably a good case to make that this is a reference to the followers

11:31of Jesus because this is about the final judgment. This is about the people who are

11:37going to inherit the kingdom of God. And so I, I think that this non parable or what have

11:44you, uh, may be saying, Hey, if you're a follower of Jesus, you've got to be treating everybody.

11:52The way you would treat Jesus. Yeah. I mean, I, there's brother and can I just hang up

11:58on the, on the brother sister thing just for a minute? Cause isn't there, what's the passage

12:02where, where someone asks Jesus, who is my brother or, or like, who is my neighbor? Oh,

12:08okay. So that's a different word. Okay. Yes. That's the, the lawyer wanting to prove himself

12:13as, yeah, well, who is my neighbor? Um, because he wants to restrict the scope of his responsibility

12:21to care for others. And I think that that's probably what's going on with this rather

12:27callous response to the interpretation of Matthew 25 as, as a manifestation of a rather

12:35liberal outlook. Yeah. So even though I think that there's a good case to make that this

12:41passage is probably referring to Christians. I don't think that let's Ali Beth Stuckey

12:47off the hook for two reasons. Okay. And the first reason has to do with the fact that

12:53she's drawing an even smaller circle. She's not just saying Christians. She's saying

12:59persecuted Christians and she seems to be making it about Christians who are persecuted because

13:05they're Christians. Right. And that would be a very small circle indeed. Yeah. Well,

13:12what's ironic is she probably includes herself in that. But, but no, yeah, you know, all

13:18the people in the White House, half the people in Congress, these are the persecuted, the

13:23lowly of the world. Right. I got bad news for her because if you live in the United

13:28States of America, you are not a persecuted Christian. Yeah. And, and so, and particularly

13:35not for being a Christian. Right. So that is a very small circle indeed. But I think

13:41there's a reason that she's trying to draw the circle that small. And the reason is that

13:47when we consider what this is about, this is about the Trump administration violating

13:54the constitutional and the human rights of not just undocumented immigrants, but asylum

13:59seekers, legal immigrants, and even US citizens, denying them due process, violating their

14:04rights, brutalizing them, stoking chaos and fear, terrorizing people to try to terrorize

14:13them into submission to this fascist agenda. The people on the receiving end of this are

14:20overwhelmingly Christians. Hmm. There have been lots of studies going on on the religious

14:28identities of migrating groups around the world, because you have trends where where people

14:35are leaving one country and entering other countries and that kind of stuff. And a lot

14:39of this research, when it's looking at who's coming into the United States and who's being

14:45targeted, who is at risk of deportation under Trump's policies, the estimates place them

14:51at about 75 to 85% Christians. Yeah. In fact, one group, which is like, and I would have

14:59to look up the combination of groups that produce this report, like it's not liberals.

15:07It's like a council of Catholic bishops, right? And a evangelical group and all this, they

15:13came up with a report and they said that one in 12 Christians in the United States, you

15:20just look at everybody in the United States, you whittle it down to the Christians. One

15:24in 12 Christians is at risk of deportation because of Trump's policies. Wow. Like almost

15:3110% of the Christians in the United States are at risk of deportation because of what

15:38Trump is doing. So if these are not the stranger, if these are not the Xenos, if these are not

15:44the ones in prison, that this non parable is telling you, if you want to be on the right

15:52hand, you better go visit them. You better welcome them. You better give them clothing.

15:58You better give them food. You better give them something to drink. If you're taking

16:03that seriously, then these are those folks. Right. That is who is being targeted right

16:10now. Even if you're even if you're if you're going with the interpretation that this only

16:15means Christians, right? You're still you're still in trouble. You still like that's not

16:20where you want to be. Yeah. And and I think I don't know if if Stucky realizes this and

16:26then is intentionally trying to say, Oh, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna interpret it as Christians

16:32who are persecuted Christians because they're Christians because that would then allow her

16:36to paint the line outside. They paint all those folks outside of that circle. We're not persecuting

16:42you because of your Christianity, persecuting you because of the color of your skin and

16:48the nation that you came from. But right. Or your or your persecution in your in your

16:53other country, you know, in back in Venezuela or whatever, doesn't count because it wasn't

16:58persecution because you're Christian, right? Because of X, Y and Z factors in that country.

17:05Right. And therefore, we don't have to shelter you and we don't have to treat you like like,

17:10you know, we don't have to be kind to you. Yeah, this is a you are not my neighbor, right?

17:16Kind of reading of this passage. But when we look at verses 35 and 36, I was hungry,

17:21I was thirsty, I was a stranger, I was naked, I was sick, I was in prison. Like, this is

17:28not people who are persecuted because they are Christians. These are just people who

17:31are fallen on hard times for whatever reason, because it is about a variety of different

17:39socio economic problems, sickness, thirst, hunger, being a foreigner, being in prison.

17:48These are not signs of somebody who's been persecuted specifically because they're Christian.

17:53So I don't buy that reading. I think that is a particularly callous reading that is doing

18:01precisely what Jesus repeatedly said in the New Testament. Stop doing that, which is precisely

18:08trying to justify yourself by saying, Yeah, well, who's my neighbor? Yeah, exactly. Yeah,

18:14it does seem like, you know, we talk about the context, it seems like the fact like the

18:19greater context of Jesus's message, like even if he's using different words neighbor versus

18:26brother, whatever, it does seem like every time he talks about a foreigner, every time

18:33he talks about a stranger in need, he's very clear. You've, you open the door, you help

18:39this person. Yeah, like, is, but I think that you are being disingenuous to accuse Ali

18:46Beth Stuckey of being of being somehow mean, you're talking, you're saying that the author

18:54of the book, toxic empathy is somehow not being kind to other people in the world. How

19:01dare you, sir? Yes. We're back to this, this new right wing authoritarian talking point.

19:10Wait a minute. The problem is empathy because Jesus was big on being like, Oh, don't go

19:15too far. Yeah, yeah, reel it back. You guys, you were, you were, you went way over the overboard

19:22with kindness and, and, and caring of other people. Just tell that back a lot. Love your

19:28neighbor, but don't go nuts. Don't be crazy about it. Don't be nuts. That's just irrational.

19:40And here is the, the other part of this argument that I think is bafflingly stupid. Um, because

19:47the, what you're, what the, the argument is, is, hey, it's great to do these things, but

19:52not at the expense of law and order or peace. God is a, a God of, um, of order and of peace

20:01and all this kind of stuff. And, but, but what baffles me and, and it's always like, but

20:07that doesn't justify, uh, you know, getting rid of border laws and open borders and illegal

20:13immigration. And what baffles me is that nobody's argue, as far as I can tell, maybe

20:21there are some folks out there. In fact, I'm sure there are some folks out there, but

20:25as far as I can tell, the person that she's responding to in that video, the overwhelming

20:29majority of the folks that I have seen comment on this on social media are not saying get

20:36rid of all immigration laws, get rid of all enforcement of immigration laws. Let everybody

20:42in, don't you dare kick anyone out, irrespective of what crimes they commit. I don't see anybody

20:48saying that. What I see people saying is we can enforce these laws, which by the way,

20:54are not very, um, there's not a ton at stake, like, right, if you overstay a visa, that's

21:01not even a criminal offense. That's a civil offense. That's like a parking ticket. If

21:06you cross the border without documentation and you're not seeking asylum, like if you're

21:11seeking asylum, you can get into the country any way you want. Whether you, yeah, or you're

21:17rather you're supposed to be able to, you should be able to just according to US law,

21:21right, you are allowed to, which, which is a point I will come back around to. Um, but

21:27you can show up anywhere at a border crossing crossing the border somewhere else. If you

21:31are seeking asylum, it is legal to do that. But even if you do cross the border without

21:36documentation and, and climb over Trump's fence, like six year olds can do, um, that's

21:44a criminal offense, but it's a misdemeanor. Right. Like the notion that we should be

21:50snatching people off the street, hurling them into vans and sending them to the gulag

21:55for a misdemeanor is pretty Machiavellian. It's, it's like the, the least violent crime

22:02available. It's just literally like walking, like it is the crime of climbing over here,

22:09and you're not supposed to be here. Um, where not only is it, not only is it not a violent

22:14crime, but like, you know, they, they love to talk about criminals. These are criminals.

22:19Yeah. Other than the crime of actually crossing the border without documentation, we know

22:27it. Like we have like, uh, data on this. We know that actually the immigrant population

22:33is far less criminally minded and commits far less crime than native born people. Yeah.

22:40We want these people in our country. We're safer. We're doing better with them here.

22:47Yeah. And, and so people are not saying let's get rid of the laws we're advocating for lawlessness.

22:53No, that we can enforce all of these laws without breaking up families without brutalizing

22:59people without trying to terrorize them so that they will stop trying to get into the

23:05country. That's the concern. When people are quoting scripture, people are quoting Leviticus

23:1019 33 and 34 or quoting the, the, whatever of the sheep and the goats. It's not because

23:17they're advocating for lawlessness. It's because they're recognizing we can enforce this.

23:23Without being jerks about it. We can enforce it without hurting people. We can enforce

23:28these things appropriately without cracking down on immigration, without demonizing and

23:37dehumanizing and violating the constitutional rights of these folks. And then to be clear,

23:43they have constitutional rights too. Like you don't have to be born here to have, like

23:48our constitution protects every person in on our, it within our borders. Every single

23:53one of them. Do process is guaranteed to every person who is within the United States. Right.

24:00Can I just quickly, since you mentioned it, let's jump to Leviticus 19. Oh, yeah, Leviticus

24:0519 because you, you, you, you skimmed over it. So let's hit it. And importantly, because

24:12here's where some people get into the Hebrew and they're like, Oh, I know the Hebrew and

24:17are just flat out lying. So 33 and 34. And the NRSV uses the word alien. This is kind of

24:26a term of art in the Hebrew Bible. And so it gets translated weird ways. A resident foreigner

24:33is how the the N.E.T. translates it. But 33 and 34 say, when an alien resides with you

24:38in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to

24:44you as the native one among you. You shall love the alien as yourself for you or aliens

24:49in the land of Egypt. I am out on your God. Yeah, that's, that's pretty like unambiguous

24:58of me. It does not, it does not leave a lot of room for interpretation. Yeah. Except I'm

25:04sure that you that they find room for interpretation. So what do they say? So you've got a noun

25:10and a verb here. The noun is Gare and it is related to the verb Gour. And what they say

25:16is that I feel like you're making it up now. I just be Gare and Gour come on, like do better.

25:22You just come up with more interesting ones. The argument, and there was a video I responded

25:27to where somebody quoted the N.I.V. where it says the foreigner resides with you in your

25:33land. And, and this content creator was like, well, the word you changed there was Gour.

25:42And that means sojourner and you changed it to resides. And like, one, you're arguing

25:48it's a noun. It's a verb. And two, they were quoting directly from the N.I.V. that didn't

25:53change anything. But what they insisted this meant was somebody who was residing in the

25:59land with permission and legally and like they, they retroject this notion of immigration

26:09laws into the Bible as if everybody who traveled on camelback or whatever into another nation

26:18had like a border crossing where somebody was like papers, papers, let's see your papers,

26:22like that didn't exist in that time. I mean, the whole concept of immigration law is really

26:29new like very, very recent. Surprisingly recent. Yeah. In the whole world. Yeah. Like it just

26:35was invented recently. Yeah. Like in the last hundred and twenty, I don't know, a couple

26:40hundred years, a few hundred years. Well, in, in the United States, the closest we come

26:44to an immigration law is probably, and there was a, oh, shoot, I forget what it was called.

26:51There was an act in 1790. I forget what it was called, but basically it said that the only

26:55people that could become citizens were freeborn white people. Right. So like that's, that's

27:04the earliest thing we could refer to as an immigration law, but that was just about citizenship.

27:08That wasn't even about just coming into the country for almost a hundred years after that

27:13anybody could just come into the country. But it is, I think it is important to point out

27:19that our immigration laws are founded on white supremacy. Right. And then we get to 1882,

27:26where we get the Chinese Exclusion Act, which is self-explanatory. Yeah. It was well-named.

27:33It was a, it's a bad act, but it was, it was named correctly. Somebody, I hope they got

27:38their flowers for coming up with a name that really honed in on the substance of the act.

27:47But that was, that was the first time that they started saying, hey, we want to keep certain

27:51people out. Right. The, the, the laws were precisely about saying, these are undesirable

27:56people. Yeah. Not, not just anyone who's outside of our country, but specifically you. And

28:02then in the 1920s, we get a bunch of acts that are saying, okay, we're going to have quotas

28:08on how many people we're going to take from every country. And if you were from Northern

28:14or Western Europe, you got a higher quota. If you were from Southern or Eastern Europe,

28:21or heaven help you Asia or Africa, your quotas were significantly less. So still, it was

28:28white supremacy. Yeah. But, but this is, this is only a hundred years ago when we started

28:35establishing the immigration laws as we know them today. But I, I want to circle back to

28:40this. The thing I said, I would circle back to you. Yes. When it comes to lawlessness,

28:45when it comes to obeying the law, the primary violators of the law right now are the Trump

28:52administration. Yes. Violating the constitutional rights, violating due process, violate and

28:59trying to change, like talking about changing the law, talking about trying to find ways

29:04to deport US citizens, talking about how they, oh, we don't need to obey all of this stuff.

29:09Again, the Department of Homeland Security has been excoriated in hearings for even their

29:16spending is illegal. Like Congress has allocated funds that they're not using, which is against

29:23the law. And instead, they're reallocating those funds to other things, which is against

29:28the law. And they're going to run out of money well before the end of the fiscal year, which

29:33is against the law. So like, excuse me, the notion that we need to violate all these constitutional

29:40rights and every and break all these laws in order to brutalize folks who are committing

29:47civil offenses or misdemeanors, because they're breaking the law is is just profoundly stupid.

29:55Yeah. Like there's not another word for it. It is dumb about this argument. And the fact

30:02that the argument is being made by people like Stucky and people who are trying to say

30:10that, trying to come at it from a quote, unquote, from a Christian perspective, when when there

30:17are, you know, verses like the Leviticus versus where it's where it's just so clear when an

30:25alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress them. That's just so clear. That's

30:30just so easy. And it's not and it's literally like, like you say, it's what our laws require.

30:38Non oppressive treatment is is like kind of a whole thing, but not anymore. I don't know.

30:46It's that maybe that's gone now. Yeah. So I get, I get particularly annoyed when people

30:53try to leverage their faith and their reading of the Bible to endorse and justify and excuse

30:59hurting people, like going out of their way to hurt people, going significantly increasing

31:08the deficit and the debt in order to hurt people. Right. Like, well, well, remind me

31:14what scripture it was, where Jesus said that the cruelty is the point. I'm pretty sure that's

31:22he said, he must have said that at some point, because that seems to be the guiding, the guiding

31:28principle of the Trump administration's immigration policy. Yeah. Well, and, and if we're talking

31:34about the gospel of Matthew, there's a Hebrew Bible scripture that is quoted no less than

31:38two times just in the gospel of Matthew itself. And that's Hosea six, six, where Jesus repeatedly

31:44says, I will have mercy and not sacrifice. And in one of those passages, he tells the

31:51people go and learn what that means. And in another passage, he excoriates people for focusing

31:58on the minutia of the law in ways that advance their social standing. And then says, they

32:06ignore the weightier matters of the law, which have to do with justice, with righteousness,

32:14with equity, with people having equal access in society. And a lot of people don't think

32:21equity was a concept back then. It 100% was because just like the framers of our constitution,

32:28the folks who were writing the gospels and, and parts of the Hebrew Bible knew that the

32:35last thing you wanted was an unstable society, right? Because that led to rebellion, that

32:42led to uprising, that led to instability. And so they always emphasize the need for equity.

32:51Doesn't mean that there is no rich and there is no poor, but it means that you are providing

32:56for everybody, the widow, the orphan, the, the poor, the oppressed, the foreigner, they

33:02all have mechanisms within society that allow them to get what they need.

33:08Well, I think that that is a good summary of why the Trump administration is bad and

33:17Ali best Stucky can can go stucky herself. That could be misinterpreted. Let's, let's,

33:26let's pretend I didn't say it and move on to our next, our next thing, which is artifacts

33:31and fiction. And this, this particular artifacts and fiction we're talking about, you say the

33:40name, you say the name of this island. I'm not going to say it first. Okay. So I say

33:45elephantini. Okay. I have heard elephantine. I have heard elephantine. Yeah. I have not

33:55heard elephantine in reference to the island. I have heard that as a, as an adjective. Right.

34:02And that is not what we are. It's the same word. It is spelled exactly the same as the

34:06adjective, but this is an island in the Nile in, in Southern Egypt. And I will, I will tell

34:13you the Greek transliteration. I think it's, I don't know if the Greek is a transliteration

34:20of Coptic or what, but the Greek is elephantini. So that's why I go with elephantini because

34:29I think that's the closest. So that's just me. Don't take my word for it. We'll, we'll

34:34just, we will make that the official pronunciation of the island for this episode of the show.

34:40And then people can feel free to comment their, their various and sundry other pronunciations

34:46far enough. So what, okay, we're talking about an island in the middle of the Nile. Why? Why

34:54are we talking about this island? What is special about it? Because it looks like an

35:00elephant. No, because it is, this is the location of an ancient Jewish temple. So this is a,

35:11a place where there was a Jewish garrison. There was a Jewish group of some kind that

35:18lived there in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. So between around 500 BCE down to in the 300s

35:29BCE, there were Jewish folks who lived on this island. And there was a temple there. And

35:35that's a big deal, right? Because that's a big deal. They weren't supposed to have temples

35:40outside of Jerusalem. Well, according to the Deuteronomistic literature, which probably

35:46hadn't been written yet because these groups were probably Jewish folks who during the

35:527th century leading up to the Babylonian exile probably were like, yo, this party's

35:58dead anyway. We're going to bounce and they dipped on out of there and probably made their

36:05way into Egypt and down the Nile or up the Nile, depending on how you look at it, to

36:12Elifantini, which is by Aswan. It is in the right by the upper Nile. Yeah. And, and set

36:21up shop there. And at some point, they, they seem to have created a temple down there and

36:29they were making all kinds of offerings. And we have, we've discovered hundreds of papayri

36:35of texts from in and around this place. A lot of them in Aramaic, a lot of them related

36:41to the Jewish community that was located there. And there's one, there's one reference to

36:48something that seems like it could be about a Passover celebration. However, it does not

36:56seem to line up with how Passover is represented in the book of Exodus. Okay. Which suggests

37:02that when these people came down here, when they left the land of Judah and came down here,

37:09they probably didn't have the Torah. They probably didn't have any part of the Torah.

37:13They probably had knowledge of some kind of festival that would later become written into

37:18this narrative as the Passover and would have all these rules and regulations about it.

37:24By the way, are themselves inconsistent from one book to another in the Torah, but they

37:29don't show any awareness of the Torah and the specific laws and legislation and including

37:36the Deuteronomistic literature, which is where- And you said that this was what time period?

37:40This was fourth and fifth century BCE? So fifth and fourth century BCE is when we have

37:44a lot of these, these texts. Okay. And so, and presumably I, my understanding was that

37:53the tradition is that the Torah came from long before then. Yeah. Yeah. Probably not.

38:00Probably not. Okay. Was the discovery of these papayrae, like one of the major reasons why

38:08we think probably not? Or is it just supporting evidence? It's supporting evidence. But scholars

38:15have been hypothesizing for a while that the Pentateuch, the Torah, the first five books

38:22of Moses probably came together piecemeal over the course of several centuries and probably

38:28did not come together as a single collection of texts until fifth or fourth century CE

38:36is kind of a traditional dating. But these days, yeah. So like we have the priestly literature,

38:43which is probably post-exilic. It's probably coming from the late sixth of the early fifth

38:47century BCE. Deuteronomy was the earliest layers probably were brought together at the end of

38:55the seventh century BCE. You have other traditions that are probably from earlier and other traditions

39:02that are from later. But in light of what we have from Elephantini and in light of other

39:08evidence that suggests we don't have widespread awareness of the legislation of the Torah much

39:16less enforcement of that legislation until the middle of the second century BCE. So there

39:22are some scholars, Yonatan Adler is one of them, for instance, who just published a book

39:26called The Origins of Judaism. He argues, it seems likely that the Maccabean revolts,

39:34the Hasmonean dynasty that was established with the Maccabean revolt with taking back over

39:39the temple with rededicating the temple in the 160s BCE. The creation of that kingdom was

39:47probably the period at which they were like, Hey, let's use these texts. Let's make everybody

39:52aware of them. Let's use this as an identity marker as a way to circle the wagons around

39:58our ethnos around our people and create this this people group. So you have arguments that

40:07understand the the penituc, the Torah to be disseminated somewhere between like maybe

40:12the fifth century BCE down to the middle of the second century BCE. And so it's it was

40:20not pre-exilic. It was definitely post-exilic. And because the people who occupied Elephantini

40:27probably left the land of Israel and Judah prior to the exile, they just were not aware

40:34of it. Right.

40:40And and there are there are a couple of other interesting things about this. So so first

40:45of all, we have this temple, which gets destroyed probably around 410 BCE. You have locals,

40:56Egyptians, who are upset and have the temple in Elephantini destroyed. And we have some

41:05letters that people wrote that were sent to Jerusalem to Judah to the there was a Persian

41:16governor of this region. And these letters are written to them saying, Hey, we're petitioning

41:24you to allow us to rebuild our temple, because we know that Judah is in charge of our customs,

41:32our traditions, we want permission. So a guy named a guy named Yedania or yeta Nia or

41:40Jedda Nia, if you like, who in one of the letters does not identify himself as a member

41:47of the priestly class, but in a revised version of the same letter, we actually have multiple

41:54different like copies of some of these letters, where they're like, you know, scratch and stuff

41:59out and write new stuff and all that kind of stuff. And another one, he identifies himself

42:02as a priest. And then you have the the Judeans or the Judah heights or the Jews of Elephantini

42:09writing to Bhagavah, or or Bhagoyas, I think is, or Boghis or something there. There are

42:19a few different versions of this name that we find in like Josephus and the Elephantini

42:26stuff. But this is somebody who was probably around 407 BCE was the Persian installed head

42:33of of Judea. They write this letter to our Lord Bhagavaya, governor of Judah, your servants,

42:42Jedda Nia and his colleagues, the priests who are in Elephantini, the fortress, and tells

42:48the story in the month of Tamu's year 14 of Darius, the king, when our sarnis had departed

42:53and gone to the king, the priests of Knube, the God who are in Elephantini, the fortress

42:59in agreement with the Dranga, who was chief here, said the temple of Adonai, the God which

43:05is in Elephantini, the fortress, let them remove from there. And so they go and demolish

43:11the temple. And then so this letter is saying, now your servants, Jedda Nia or Jidanya and

43:19his colleagues in the Jews, all of them citizens of Elephantini, thus say, if to our Lord it

43:25is good, take thought of that temple to rebuild it, since they do not let us rebuild it, regardless

43:31your obligis and your friends who are here in Egypt, may a letter from you be sent to

43:36them about the temple of Adonai, the God to rebuild it in Elephantini, the fortress just

43:42as it had been built formally. And we get this, and we have a couple different copies

43:48of this letter. And then we have another letter that is an offer of payment for reconstructing

43:57the temple, where Jedda Nia or Jidanya, son of Gamaria by name, and then you've got a

44:04bunch of other names, Mausi son of Nathan, Shamaya son of Haggai, Jose a son of Jatham,

44:11Jose a son of Natum, you get all these people who are basically saying, let us pay to reconstruct

44:19the temple. And it seems like they were allowed to rebuild the temple. This is the conclusion

44:25of I think the majority of the scholars, because we have another letter that was written in

44:31a later time period, where somebody's talking about, Oh, I had this house and I gave it to

44:37him. It is basically this legal document where somebody's complaining about a contract or

44:45something like that. And they're describing where the house is. And then they describe

44:49it in one part as West of it is the temple of Adonai, and the street of the king is between

44:56them. So a later letter seems to identify the temple of Adonai as presumably a functional

45:04building. And when you say Adonai, just just to clarify in this case, we are talking about

45:09the Tetramaton. Well, the kind of the the consonants are YHW. So three of the four letters

45:18of the Tetramaton. Yes. And here's there's an even more interesting letter in my opinion.

45:27Okay. That is not a letter. It's an oath text. So we have someone who there was a there

45:38was an ass. It was a good ass. It was a donkey. And somebody had ownership of it. And someone

45:47else was like, Hey, I'll give you money for half ownership in exchange for for this other

45:52donkey or something like that. We're doing we're time sharing on donkeys now. Is that

45:56yeah, yeah. It was two weeks on and sure. And then, you know, but and it was really hard

46:03to get out of this country. But the the person who was offered this deal, they evidently never

46:09closed the deal. And that guy died. And then his son showed up and was like, Hey, I want

46:14my half of the ass. And so this person had to go into court, and they had to swear an

46:21oath saying that they that this deal was never closed. Okay. And it says the oath which Manacham

46:31son of Shalom, son of Hoshaya, swore or will swear to Meshulam son of Nathan by and then

46:40we have some Divine names. Hurham, the God, by the place of prostration and by Anat Yahu,

46:50which seems to be the combination of the feminine divine name, Anat, and the trigramaton.

47:00So which would, which is not unknown, because we sometimes see Anat paired with Bethel,

47:07which is another name of a deity. We see, we see Anat Bethel, which some people think

47:13is is just the name of the female version. Some people think is the divine pairing. Whatever

47:19the case, we've got one of these Jewish folks was a very Jewish name, Manacham, who is swearing

47:26by not only a foreign deity named Khadam as according to the reconstruction of this text,

47:32but is also swearing by Anat Yahu, which would seem to be a divine pairing, a divine couple,

47:39God and God's wife, who is not Asherah here, but Anat, perhaps by analogy with this Anat

47:47Bethel, divine pair. Okay. So, so this group is a not Orthodox group according to what

47:57we have in the Hebrew Bible. But if they bounced prior to Josiah's reforms, then it

48:06would have maybe been perfectly natural for them to be worshiping Adonai alongside Adonai's

48:13concert partner or wife. And so maybe Anat Yahu or Anat Adonai was somebody they took

48:21with them, or was a development of the divine pair that originally was Asherah and Adonai.

48:29Or maybe Asherah was with Elle and these people left before even the conflation of Adonai

48:36and Elle. We don't know for sure, but it's such a tantalizing little datum that we have

48:42these, these texts that attest to these practices and these dogmas that don't fit what the later

48:53developed Pentateuch would require followers of the Bible do. And there's so much research

49:01that is being conducted. Elephantine is, Elephantine, excuse me, is such a fascinating location.

49:08And there are books by, I've got, I've got friends who have published books on Elephantine.

49:14In fact, there's, I'm trying to remember the name of the book. I can't remember. But we

49:23have a friend of mine named Colin Cornell, who works a lot with deities in ancient Southwest

49:30Asia, wrote a paper called Elephantine Trespasses Theological Arguments and Recent Religion

49:36History that is, that is about what these texts might tell us about the, the religiosity

49:42of the Jewish folks who were located at Elephantine. But I think it's cool stuff.

49:48You know, it would be tempting to say that these people isolated themselves and therefore,

49:54you know, you can't sort of conclude anything because they, they, they are isolates, they

50:00are different and whatever. But the fact that they're writing back to Judah, in order, like,

50:10it seems like there was definitely transmission between these, the, the, the old culture and,

50:17and their, and themselves. Yeah, yeah, this, this wasn't a, a blue lagoon thing where they

50:23were like, there are more of us out there that they definitely know headquarters is in Judah.

50:30And, and there's, there's obviously communication between them. And so, you know, where the folks

50:36in Judah, like, oh, it's those weirdos out in Egypt who don't follow the law. Um, you

50:42know, maybe they, they thought of them that way. Maybe they were like, Oh, those, there,

50:47there are cousins, they're a little different, but you know, they're fine. Who's to say exactly

50:52how the, that relationship was, uh, was conceptualized. But yeah, I, I think just dismissing them off

51:00hand as, as this aberration that became an aberration because of that isolation. I don't think that's

51:07accurate at all. I think the most likely way to understand the difference is to understand that

51:13they were bringing with them the traditions that existed at the time period they separated off.

51:19Right. And, and those traditions certainly continued to evolve and be renegotiated over the course of

51:25time, but, uh, but they don't go from being, you know, monotheistic or at least mono-yauistic to

51:34worshipping Anat Adonai in an unauthorized temple, uh, just because of that isolation. That, that

51:41doesn't make as much sense to me or, or to most scholars. Especially if they're asking permission

51:46to rebuild the temple. Yeah. They're, they're very clearly, uh, sort of subjecting themselves to this,

51:53to this higher group or whatever or to the main, to the main dudes, whoever, whoever they may have

52:00been. Yeah. Or, or they could have just been like, well, they're not going to let us do it. Maybe we

52:04can, you know, call your cousin. Yeah. Um, he's got money, uh, but they don't lack us. Um, you know,

52:14maybe they, uh, who's, who's to say? We don't know for sure, which is what makes this such,

52:18such a tantalizing little, um, issue. Yeah. And, and so like it broadens the scope of how we see all

52:26of this stuff because I think that the temptation has always been like the more we can lock this

52:34history down to what is in just the Bible as we have it, the, then the easier and cleaner it is,

52:41and we don't have to think about anything else, but it's so much broader and so much bigger than that.

52:46Yeah. And so much more interesting. That's, that's what frustrates me about attempts,

52:50not only to, to limit it to only what's in the Bible, but then to gloss over the plural formity,

52:55that's in the Bible. Right. Like there are a lot of differences in the Bible. But if you

52:59gloss over it all and say, no, it's all one thing. Everybody was exactly the same. And any time

53:04there were divergences, that was apostasy. And you know, they, they got burned at the stake for it.

53:10Like that's, that's such a boring and ahistorical way to approach the Bible. It's so much more

53:18fascinating to let these people be who they were and let them worship what they were worshiping

53:25instead of trying to subjugate them to the unifying frameworks that we impose on the Bible.

53:31Yeah, that's just boring. I agree. Although I do understand like the psychological

53:39difficulty of it is so much easier if you, especially if you want to believe it as a,

53:45as a guiding document, as a, you know, it's so much easier if you can, if you can trust it to be

53:52univocal, inerrant, whatever, like that, that feels safer, but don't sacrifice

54:04the truth for that sort of wrong feeling of safety. Yeah, and that's, and that's

54:12a question I think a lot more people need to ask themselves. Do I want to know the truth?

54:17Or do I just want to feel safe in my identity politics? And maybe if you do want to feel safe,

54:24that's okay. As long as you acknowledge that that's what you're doing and just say, look,

54:28there may be more and I'm just not willing to explore past that. But when you draw hard lines

54:34and when you say, this is what it says, and, you know, in the case of like, Ali, Ali Bestucky or

54:40whatever, you start to say, this is what it says. And therefore I can, we should be oppressive to

54:46this group or we, or it's totally justifiable to hurt other people or whatever. That's where

54:52you got to draw a line. That's where it's, you got to say either, either you're going to acknowledge

54:57the grander scope of reality or, you know, or shut up. Those are the better options.

55:05Yeah, keep it to yourself. And yeah, I think that would be a much more productive approach.

55:13I think it would be an approach that would make Christianity at least some streams of

55:20tradition within Christianity a lot more popular. Like, I get messages every day from people who

55:28are like, if you were around, when I was going through these things, I would still be Christian.

55:34Yeah. And it's like, I think I probably do more to, I don't know the numbers. I don't have the data,

55:40but I would not be surprised if I am more beneficial to missionary work for Christians

55:48than apologists are. Yeah. Who knows? Maybe it's 50/50. You invite people, you give people the

55:57freedom to leave if they want to, and you give people freedom, the freedom to stay with a broader

56:02sort of spectrum of knowledge and understanding. And who cares where they land as long, you know,

56:10be good people. That's the main thing. Yeah. So, that's what we're going to end with.

56:16We're going to end with be good people. I think that's a good, that's a good message for the

56:20show, don't you? I like it. All right. Well, friends, if you would like to be good people to us,

56:26you can become a patron of the show over on patreon.com/dataoverdogma, which is where you can sign up to get

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57:05Thanks so much to our editor, Roger Goudy, for taking care of us so well. And we'll talk to

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