Ep 123: Jezebel!

00:00According to some early Mormons, they inhabit an oasis behind ice walls up at the North Pole.

00:10So wow, yeah, just throw in that out there, man, you're just chucking that bomb and then

00:17running away.

00:18Okay.

00:19That's what we do here.

00:20We show up with muddy the waters and we scamper off.

00:25Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan and I'm Dan Beecher and you're listening to the Data

00:34Over Dogma podcast where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible

00:39and religion.

00:40And we combat the spread of that wacky misinformation about the same.

00:45How are things today?

00:46Dan, wacky things are very wacky.

00:51We're going to get into some wackiness.

00:52I feel like I'm like the morning talk radio guy.

00:57We need a, we need a air horn.

01:00Yeah.

01:01Yeah.

01:02Yeah.

01:03Or the, the, the trusty boy, is always good.

01:08A slide whistle.

01:09We need all the things we need, but we won't have them, even though we are going to be

01:14talking about some clowns, or at least in my, in our estimation, we're bringing in a

01:21new, a new segment category.

01:25Yes.

01:26We're calling it Twisted Scripture because we're not going to take it anymore because

01:32we're not going to take it.

01:35And we are going to go after some, some guys who are very interested in weaponizing some

01:42scripture against a group, we're going to, we're going to be talking about that Jezebel

01:48spirit.

01:49Yeah.

01:50That's the one.

01:51And then old timey Jezebel spirit, Jezebel spirit.

01:56And then we're going to go into, we're going to do a, what's that?

01:59We're going to, we're going to delve into some Sadducees, some Pharisees, some dirty

02:05knees.

02:06Look at these, some dirty deeds and dirty knees and yeah.

02:12And we're going to figure out the difference between these two groups.

02:16I think I just referenced a very racist thing from my childhood and didn't mean to the,

02:22the, the dirty knees thing.

02:23So let's just pretend like that didn't happen.

02:26Okay.

02:27That just came out of my head.

02:28Okay.

02:29Yeah.

02:30Never mind.

02:31I did.

02:32We're not going to go into it.

02:33But if we had very different offerings.

02:34Yes.

02:35I'm going to, I'm going to voluntarily apologize for that.

02:40It was just, it was just lurking in the background of my, of, of my childhood and my brain and

02:46we'll, we'll, we'll get out of that and we'll go, we'll, we'll go on with the show plow

02:51valiantly forward with twisted scripture.

02:59And this week's twisted scripture is the Jezebel spirit and the reason that we're calling

03:05it twisted is that the way, first of all, the phrase Jezebel spirit does not appear in

03:14ye old Bible.

03:17It's nowhere in there.

03:19Nope.

03:20So, so why do we have all of these preachers and, and also like white, you know, Christian

03:29nationalists talking about it.

03:32I, you know, I, I brought it up because I saw a thing, I brought it up to you because I

03:36saw a thing on the threads that was Charlie Kirk talking about how great it is that young

03:43men are going back to church and how, but young women, women of the new, the young generation

03:49got to get rid of that Jezebel spirit.

03:54And I've heard this phrase many times and I was like, you know what, we got, we got to

03:59go after that.

04:00We got a, we got to talk about it.

04:02Yeah.

04:03You see it quite a bit in Charlie Kirk has said it.

04:06Oh, I'm forgetting the, the gentleman who Mars Hill was at the name of the Mark Driscoll.

04:12Mark Driscoll.

04:13I've heard Mark Driscoll talk about it.

04:15Oh, he loves it.

04:16I, I, I saw a whole, I, I watched some of as much as I could tolerate of a video of his

04:22called the 29 signs of the Jezebel spirit.

04:25I think you've done your research today.

04:29I did my, I tried to do some research about these things.

04:33And so yeah, this guy, first of all, yeah, that pastor Driscoll, he's, he's a, a real

04:40peach.

04:43He started off his, his sermon by making a joke about how he had set up a website where

04:51the, the men in his congregation can send pictures of their wives so that they could

04:57be shown while he talks about the different, the 29 signs of the Jezebel spirit.

05:05Saying ha, ha, ha, it was a joke that he was making about how the men in his congregation

05:12have Jezebel spirit wives that's a, that's pretty loathsome.

05:19Yeah.

05:20Like did men actually were like, yeah, put my wife up on the screen, talk about her Jezebel

05:24spirit.

05:25They laughed about it.

05:26They, they, they were excited to do it.

05:28It, it felt very gross.

05:31But look, I'm putting cart before a horse here, okay, let us talk quickly about Jezebel

05:37herself.

05:38Yes, because there is a biblical Jezebel help me out there.

05:46Is there a historical Jezebel?

05:47Do we know?

05:49So the name Jezebel would be, where is the prince in Hebrew?

05:58Okay.

05:59So it would be E and then Zavul and, and this is related to the, the whole Beelzebub being

06:08a corruption of Baal Zavul.

06:10So this is supposed to be the daughter of the king of Tyre.

06:15The, the name is probably related to like, Isabel is related to, to this name.

06:23Sure.

06:24Which I think we do have records of this name in, in some cognate literature, although

06:32it might be slightly different.

06:34We do have a name E-Ball, which would be the same where it's ball instead of Zavul.

06:39So where is the Lord in reference to ball?

06:42And so this is a, in 1 Kings 16, this is described as, as the wife of King Ahab, daughter

06:48of the king of Tyre.

06:50So this would be the Israelite king taking a Phoenician wife.

06:55Okay.

06:57And she was, is that like, is it, would that be like a certain, you know, you hear about

07:03in European history, if, you know, the king of France marries a princess of, you know,

07:11Germany, then they're creating alliance by doing that.

07:15Yes.

07:16Yes.

07:17He even, even King Solomon married a bunch of, of women and including the, the, the Queen

07:22of Sheba ostensibly.

07:24So we have, this is not unusual, although it is kind of represented as the king betraying

07:32his, his fidelity to, to Adonai, the God of Israel.

07:38And particularly because Jezebel is then supposed to go on and persecute and kill a bunch of

07:45the prophets, and including hunting down Elijah and Jezebel, supposed to have died an ignominious

07:54death as well.

07:56But she is represented as being someone who promoted idolatry and the worship of deities,

08:06specifically, Ashera and Baal, she's represented as, as promoting the worship of those two.

08:14And so she's, she's held up as, as this corrosive influence on Israel as one of the queens who

08:23was married to King Ahab.

08:24So this would have been 900 BC to 850 BC, somewhere around there.

08:32Okay.

08:33Yes.

08:34I, yeah.

08:35You, you mentioned how she's held up and maybe we should say that.

08:38Maybe we should.

08:39Here's what I think.

08:40I'm going to say some of the things that are attributed to her, and then we can go back

08:46as we talk about the actual biblical accounting of her and see if it lines up with what is,

08:54with how she is described because she is described as domineering and overbearing and unwilling

09:01to submit to authority.

09:03Oh, by the way, you, you mentioned her name, meaning, what did it mean?

09:09Where is the Prince?

09:10Where is the Prince?

09:11Well, you're going to have to explain to Mark Driscoll why, why it means that because

09:16he was very sure that it means without husband, which is a very, which is, I had to look

09:25that up.

09:26I looked up why it said that.

09:28And let's see if I can have that somewhere.

09:32I didn't find it, but it looks like it was just sort of a corruption.

09:34It was one of those things where it's like, like, instead of like something, instead of

09:43Zavul, it was Zavel, and that meant dung or lofty slash noble, which meant not lofty

09:52or noble.

09:53And then so then they said it meant without honor or without.

09:57And then somehow that was, anyway, this was just was apparently a husband.

10:03Yeah.

10:04I don't know.

10:05Anyway, I think that's nutty because the entire thing about her is that she has a husband.

10:12So what are we even talking about here?

10:16I don't know why he would make that argument that I mean, where is the Prince?

10:20If it were a ball, it would be where is ball, but ball is also a word that can mean master

10:27Lord or husband, right?

10:28So where is the husband is a way you could interpret that?

10:33If you really wanted to squeeze that interpretation in there, but that's not her name.

10:39Right.

10:40So I don't think that makes much sense.

10:43But yeah, certainly that doesn't really fit with anything.

10:46The whole thing is that she is the husband of the Wicked King Ahab, but she is she orchestrates

10:54the the murder of Naboth, the cease is vineyard land consolidation for Ahab uses deceit uses

11:03false witnesses uses her cunning to get what she wants.

11:08And she does it she uses it to get what he wants.

11:13Yeah, she's doing the bidding of frequently doing the bidding of her husband or and and

11:18you know, a lot of this comes down to interpretation.

11:21If you want to interpret it as as her at the reins, right?

11:25Her being the one making the decisions and just holding up her husband as the authority

11:30figure as the rubber stamp, like I'm sure people who who don't like women being independent

11:39would would be happy to interpret the text that way.

11:42Yeah, I think we're going to get to it.

11:44But I think that will be we'll find that to be the crux of a lot of things.

11:49Yes.

11:50But because the Bible, you know, one of the things that they accuse her of is like you

11:53said, she promoted the worship of ball and Asha.

12:01And she like, rah, rah, rah.

12:04And there is a scripture.

12:05I did a lot of research on this.

12:08There is a scripture that says that like, you know, where are these, these, uh, priests

12:14of of ball and Asha, yeah, sit at her table that sit at Jezebel's table or something.

12:20Yeah.

12:21I'm going to point out that in, uh, we're in first Kings.

12:25Is that where we are?

12:26Yeah.

12:27First Kings 16, uh, down at the bottom, it says of her husband, Ahab, he erected an

12:36altar for ball in the house of ball that he built in Samaria, Samaria, ahab also made

12:44a sacred pole.

12:45I assume that that's an Asha a pole.

12:47That would be an Asha.

12:49Yeah.

12:50And the Ab did, Ahab did more to promote, provoke the anger of the Lord, the, the God

12:55of Israel than had all the kings of Israel who were before him.

12:59Yeah.

13:00No mention in any of that of Jezebel just says he did it.

13:07Mm hmm.

13:08He, it's a earlier, like the, the verse before that, it says he took us his wife Jezebel and

13:15then he erected the altar for bay.

13:17So you could say, I don't know, does chronology equal causation because it doesn't seem like

13:24it does.

13:25Well, we do have a parenthetical comment in first Kings 21, 25 where this is the NRSVUE.

13:30Indeed, there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of

13:35the Lord, urged on by his wife Jezebel.

13:39Right.

13:40And so the Hebrew has which, uh, Hey, Satah, which is based on a verb, soat, which means

13:46to incite or mislead, uh, Hey, Satah, Joe Jezebel, each toe, his wife.

13:53So, uh, the, the text there suggests that Jezebel is inciting him to do, uh, all of these

14:00things.

14:01So it sounds like she is functioning as a bit of a scapegoat, uh, for a hab, but certainly

14:06it's, it, it's not leaving a hab blameless.

14:09Yeah.

14:10It just seems to me that like, I mean, and yes, that, that is there.

14:16That, that's sort of that parenthetical that you referred to as tucked in with Elijah pronouncing

14:23a sentence upon them or whatever because of Naboth's vineyard, but that's deeper.

14:31That's, that's when that's, you know, that's many chapters later into, you know, into this

14:39whole thing and she, you know, in that, in that chapter, we do see her doing her like

14:47being very integral in everything.

14:50She did.

14:51She was the one that orchestrated things in that chapter for, for which she is being,

14:56you know, they're being sentenced or whatever.

14:58Well, there's something, um, let me just, uh, king, so we've got Elijah is confronting

15:05a hab and then we have, um, Elijah's triumph over the, uh, the prophets of ball or the

15:11priests of ball profits, but the, the section heading in the NRSVUE says priests, um, but

15:18here's the interesting thing.

15:19You said that it says that they sat at her table, right?

15:23Mm.

15:24Um, assembly.

15:25That's first 19 in the, uh, in, in chapter 18.

15:30So here's the funny thing with the 450 prophets of ball and the 400 prophets of Ashera who

15:38eat at Jezebel's table.

15:39So here's the funny thing.

15:41That's a big table.

15:42It is a big table.

15:44She's got, um, she's got a large table, lots of chairs.

15:48Um, the rest of the story, hmm, entirely omits any reference to any prophet or priest of Ashera.

16:00It is entirely and exclusively about the 450 prophets of ball of ball.

16:07And then it says, um, sees the very end, uh, 1840 Elijah said to them, sees the prophets

16:14of ball, do not let one of them escape.

16:15Then they seized them and Elijah brought them down to the Wadi Qishon and killed them there.

16:22And that's the end of that.

16:24Well, you, you have, uh, and then a, uh, Elijah says to a hab go eat and drink for there was

16:29a sound of rushing rain and so the, uh, the drought ends.

16:32Mm hmm.

16:33So a lot of people, a lot of scholars will suggest that the reference to the prophets

16:38of, um, Ashera is probably a later edition.

16:43Some editor was probably like, yeah, throw the one about the, the, uh, the Ashera folks

16:48and Jezebel in there as well.

16:50And then they did and just ignored that they're not in the rest of the story.

16:55Huh.

16:56So that's very interesting.

16:59Yeah.

17:01I think one of the things that has me sort of baffled by how Jezebel is seen and how,

17:13and how she is portrayed by people recounting the story, not in the Bible itself, but by

17:20people talking about the story is that everything she does, if it were done by a man would just

17:31like, yeah, she's the bad guy because she and Ahab are pro the wrong God, right?

17:38That's, that's why they're the bad guys.

17:40Yeah.

17:41But like, so, you know, when she starts killing all of the, the prophets or the priests of

17:47Adonai, that's bad.

17:53But when Elijah kills all of the prophets and priests of ball, that's good.

18:01They're doing the same stuff.

18:04So like, I, but turn of a turn about isn't fair play when it's a woman who does it.

18:10You know what I mean?

18:11It's definitely a gendered villainy that, that she's painted with.

18:17And you don't really see much of that elsewhere in, in the Hebrew Bible.

18:22Like the women, the sex workers are generally treated quite well.

18:29Yeah.

18:30You have, you have, for instance, Judas, Judah and Tamar, Judah's like, oh, you got me there.

18:35That was a good one.

18:36That was a good one because she caused played as a sex worker and all the way through to

18:45the end.

18:46And you know, you have Rahab at a Jericho.

18:52You have other women who are treated as, you know, they have a, they have a positive role

18:58in the narrative in the story, but Jezebel is the one kind of negative one where she

19:03gets, like there's no indication she ever functioned as a sex worker, like promiscuity

19:11isn't a part of her story.

19:13Right.

19:14But it gets represented that way because we need, we need a female villain.

19:20And what's the worst thing that a female can do is be promiscuous.

19:24Well, you know, she just by, there's a guilt by association.

19:28She's a female.

19:29It must be, and I have seen a lot of talk about how Jezebel spirit involves promiscuity.

19:37But I will say that it is not entirely unbiblical because there's the reference to her in Revelation.

19:42Revelation.

19:43Yeah.

19:44And this is where we have the two in the letters in chapters two and three, we get these references

19:52to Jezebel, and then the other one is Balaam, these, these two kind of symbols of unrighteousness

20:01and, and wayward leadership.

20:04Right.

20:05And the author is criticizing these folks.

20:09And so Jezebel is accused of seducing Christians to practice sexual immorality and to eat foods

20:17sacrificed to idols.

20:19Those are the two things for which Jezebel is condemned.

20:23And I don't know if we've talked about this before, but there is a theory out there.

20:27It's certainly not the leading theory, but it is a theory that the author of Revelation

20:33is condemning Paul as the Jezebel.

20:37Oh, yes, because what, what, a couple of the things that Paul talks about in his letters,

20:43one of the things he says is that because they would, they evidently they referred to followers

20:49of Jesus, married to non-Christians.

20:53They said that was poor Nia.

20:54That was sexual immorality.

20:56Right.

20:57And Paul said, no, no, it's not sexual immorality to be unequally yoked for a follower of Jesus

21:04to be married because stay married, you might convert and save the soul of, of your spouse.

21:12And so if there were folks who were committed to the other position that no, this is sexual

21:17immorality, then Paul would have been responsible for seducing Christians to practice sexual

21:23immorality.

21:24And Paul quite openly said, eating food sacrificed to idols is nothing.

21:28Who cares?

21:29Right.

21:30That's no big deal.

21:31It's only if you're in the presence of a weaker follower of Jesus who doesn't know that an

21:36idol is nothing in this world, that it then becomes a problem for you to scandalize them.

21:42Oh, that's really interesting.

21:43Yeah.

21:44And so that is Paul advocating for, or at least not condemning eating food sacrifice to idols,

21:52even though according to Acts, the chapter 15, that's one of the four things that non-Jewish

21:59Christians were responsible for.

22:01But there's an argument that it's actually followers of Paul, that the author of Revelation

22:08is condemning because of this Jezebel spirit, so to speak.

22:15To be clear, the reference, the Revelation reference, which is in Revelation two, yeah,

22:22versus 20 to 23.

22:25It does seem to be just using the word Jezebel, but it's actually definitely referring not

22:32to Jezebel in the past, but to someone who is in this congregation currently.

22:38Right.

22:39Like a real person who is leading the congregation of Thyatira astray.

22:50Yes.

22:51And so it's that pronunciation.

22:55Fair enough.

22:56Thyatira.

22:57I don't know.

22:58Anyway, so yeah, it's not an actual reference to the Jezebel of history or of First Kings.

23:09Well as using her as a symbol and a substitution for naming an actual person, and maybe it's

23:18a movement rather than an individual person.

23:22But that's where we get this idea, and that's really, unless I am misremembering, that's

23:32really the only association of Jezebel with sexual immorality.

23:37Yeah.

23:38There's nothing else.

23:39There's an indirect notion that worship of Ashara was invariably associated with sexual

23:47immorality, which would not be that accurate.

23:52That's also just a way to demonize the worship of Ashara.

23:55Who by the way, prior to probably the seventh century BCE was worshiped as God's wife.

24:03And we don't have any indication.

24:05We don't have any data that make it most likely that anybody in any kind of institutional

24:11position had any problem with that.

24:14Right.

24:15Like maybe some prophets did, but even the couple of references and some of the prophetic

24:20literature to Ashara in a condemnatory way are dated by some scholars to the Deuteronomistic

24:31layer according to a number of scholars.

24:34So and this might be why this story about the prophets of Baal has somebody scribbling

24:39in the prophets of Ashara afterwards, because they're coming from a time period later when

24:45Ashara is now the villain, Ashara has been demonized.

24:49Right.

24:50So yeah, so the association of Ashara with sexual immorality is a later development as

24:57well.

24:58Now, when first Kings was written, which I take to not be the time of the actual king

25:05of Ahab, King of Ahab, King of Ahab, no, because like you don't you don't have here's an

25:12interesting tidbit.

25:15You don't have historical prose in alphabetic writing until after Ahab was dead.

25:22Okay.

25:23Like the second half of the ninth century, that's when it first pops up in the record.

25:27And what that means is, and by historical prose, I mean that genre of historical narrative,

25:34if you had poetry, you had letters, you didn't have historical narrative.

25:39So and so was the king of so and so, and then they did this, and then they did that, and

25:43then they did the other thing that that genre doesn't show up in alphabetic writing until

25:49the second half of the ninth century BCE.

25:51So in the Hebrew Bible, if you see narrative prose, that was written after the late ninth

26:00century BCE.

26:02So Kings, Samuel, the overwhelming majority of all of that, apart from a few scattered

26:08pieces of poetry were written after Ahab was was dead and gone.

26:15Now, that doesn't necessarily mean they're not telling stories that were passed down

26:19from the period of their of his reign and her life.

26:25But it would have been committed to text in a later period.

26:29And that means it would have been articulated in a way that served the interests of the

26:33people doing the commission to text.

26:36Well, that's part of what I wanted to ask you about who's writing this, because this

26:42is about Israel, but I read something that indicated that maybe their author was a Judean.

26:50This is probably coming from the Deuteronomistic historian.

26:55So what this means is this is somebody.

26:58So around the time of Josiah, we have the Deuteronomy begins to take shape, which is

27:09Josiah saying, I want the laws to do this.

27:13And then the one day, they're like, guess what we found in the temple, the book of the

27:21law.

27:22And guess what?

27:23It says everything you wanted to say.

27:24And Josiah was a king.

27:25Josiah was a king.

27:26And so after that, you then have the Deuteronomistic history, which is probably taking the historical

27:34animals that precede it by a couple centuries.

27:39And it is a kind of narrativizing these things, but telling the stories in a way that represents

27:48the northern kingdom is wicked and the southern kingdom is good because the northern kingdom

27:53had been destroyed a century before, specifically northern kingdom is Israel.

27:58Israel, southern kingdom is Judah.

28:00Yeah.

28:01Right.

28:02So the northern kingdom had been destroyed 722 BCE.

28:05And so they're not there anymore.

28:07And there are a lot of scholars who think that Judah was just like, Oh, that was us

28:11the whole time.

28:13We were all it was always this United Kingdom, or at least it started out as this United

28:18Kingdom.

28:19And then they were wicked up in the north.

28:21And that's why God carted them off to the lands to the north and dispersed them throughout

28:25the world.

28:27And according to some early Mormons, they inhabit a an oasis behind ice walls up at the North

28:35Pole.

28:36So Wow.

28:37Yeah.

28:38Just just throw in that out there, man, you're just you're just chucking that bomb and then

28:43running away.

28:44Okay.

28:45It's what we do here.

28:46We, we show up with muddy the waters and we scamper off.

28:51So they are writing the story, explaining why the northern kingdom got the boot, explaining

28:59why they're the good guys.

29:00Well, at least some of the kings has a kaya is mostly good king, but not quite all the

29:05way there.

29:06And then Josiah was the big savior king who did everything he was supposed to do.

29:12And so the Deuteronomistic history is this project of recording all of Judah and Israel's

29:18history through the eyes of a Judean through a Judah height, through the eyes of somebody

29:24who who identifies with the southern kingdom, which is why, yeah, the kings in the north

29:30are all all bad guys.

29:33And you know, you see the the on rides when you look in the historical record, Israel was

29:39at its peak in under the on ride dynasty.

29:46But they're just glossed over in the Deuteronomistic history and treated as just meh, they were

29:52there.

29:53And, and this is because they're, they're telling a story in, in a way that makes David

29:58the big hero and Josiah is, you know, supposed to be continuing on the Davidic dynasty.

30:07I see. Okay. So yeah, it's all propaganda. Yeah. Well, and the propaganda continues because

30:15now we have guys like Charlie Kirk, like Mark Driscoll and many others using this phrase,

30:25using the name of Jezebel, using the phrase Jezebel spirit and sometimes meaning like an

30:31actual spirit, like a demon. Yeah, it is bothering the earth that that is like, that is influencing

30:38people badly. But and it's funny because Driscoll keeps saying things like, you know, a man

30:46can have a woman can have the Jezebel spirit or a man can have the Jezebel spirit. A woman

30:51can have the Ahab spirit, but it's always a woman that has the Jezebel spirit. Yeah.

30:57And you know, he didn't say wives send up pictures of your husbands who have the Jezebel

31:03spirit. He's very clear that this is like the Jezebel spirit is women who are bad and

31:10women who are, who will not submit to authority and willing women who are overly controlling

31:16and blah, blah, blah. And really what it, I mean, listen, obviously the Jezebel who

31:24is presented in the Bible is not a good person. Like you said, she, she, she does that whole

31:32thing with the, with the, the vineyard of Naboth, she did a bad thing there. You know,

31:41she, she set him up, got him killed just so that she, so that her husband could have

31:46the land. She's a, in, at least in that part of the story, she is very much a lady Macbeth

31:51type character. But, uh, the way that she is used, the way, the way that she is crafted

32:03as a bludgeon against women who won't submit to their husbands, who won't submit to the

32:09church, who, who, you know, who actually wants to have equal place in their, in their marriages

32:19and in society. Uh, it's, it's pretty gross. I'm just going to say it's pretty gross. Yeah.

32:27And, and it always, the Jezebel spirit rhetoric is always about, um, trying to undermine,

32:37uh, women seeking after a role that these men believe is their unique and exclusive prerogative.

32:47So authority in the church. Oh, uh, if a woman wants that, that's the Jezebel spirit, uh,

32:53eat an equal partnership in the home. If a woman wants that, the Jezebel spirit, if a

32:58woman wants a career, the Jezebel spirit, it's, it is a, it is a rhetorical Trump card for

33:05right-wing authoritarian, uh, sexual politics. I really may have basically heard that phrase

33:11now that I think about it, when Hillary Clinton was running for president. Oh, really? Yeah,

33:16that maybe it may have been my first introduction. And then of course it came back, uh, very

33:20strong also when Kamala Harris was running for president. Yes. These are, these are women

33:26who are possessed of the Jezebel spirit. Yeah. Because they want to do something that these,

33:31that these pastors and, uh, Christian nationalists want to reserve solely for men. Yes. And you

33:38know who they don't say has the Jezebel spirit, uh, Jael, uh, or Deborah and judges five. Uh,

33:48these, these are women who, uh, have, uh, not just, uh, local, but like military authority,

33:55Jael kills another man, uses, uh, you know, invites him in to, uh, to let him rest and

34:03then drives a, a tent peg through his forehead. It's pretty hardcore. She's pretty hardcore.

34:10Yeah. Um, and yeah, I, I think there were probably, there would probably be a lot of

34:16people if, if the full story of, um, uh, oh my gosh, I'm blanking on the, the name Mary

34:26Magdalene. Excuse me. Uh, Mary Magdalene, if her last, if, if the, the name Magdalene truly

34:33was an epithet was a, a title that was given to her, towering one, uh, or tower S or something

34:40like that. Certainly that is a result of her not only seeking after, but obtaining and exercising

34:47authority, including, uh, over men. You never hear about, uh, the Jezebel spirit of, of

34:53Mary Magdalene. Of course, you do have people, um, falsely accusing her of being a sex worker,

35:01uh, based on a, uh, homily given by the pope in 591 CE, which falsely identifies her with

35:11another woman who had, uh, a bunch of sins. And basically the idea again is when it comes

35:18to what a woman can do to sin, really there's just sexual sin that that's about it because

35:24that's all they function as right is a sex receptacle. Uh, and so if they are, uh, if

35:31she's a sinful woman, she must have been a sex worker. And then, uh, identifying that

35:37unnamed woman as Mary Magdalene results in the idea that Mary Magdalene was a sex worker.

35:43Uh, yeah, all features of, of the story that, that don't really play into how folks like

35:51Driscoll and others, Driscoll, by the way, who has been accused and even found liable

35:58for all kinds of abuses of authority and intimidation and, uh, manipulation and lying and deception

36:09and all this kind of stuff, I would say he's domineering, overbearing, yeah, in control

36:14and not willing to be controlled. Uh, I, I would say he is definitely possessed of a

36:21Jezebel spirit as long as a man can be possessed of the Jezebel spirit. He's, he's, uh, yeah,

36:28he's our, uh, yeah, our, uh, our poster child. He's an exemplar. Absolutely. Uh, so there

36:35you go. That's, that's the Jezebel spirit for you. I, I think, uh, Jezebel is definitely

36:43being unfairly treated in this, but that's par for the course in, in terms of the sexism

36:51of how these, how these guys treat almost all any, any woman's, uh, any woman's story

36:59that they come across. As you say, Mary Magdalene definitely didn't, definitely gets the short

37:05end of the stick too. Uh, so there you go. I think we should move on to our next segment.

37:12Uh, what's that? And the, what's that of this, uh, segment, the that in this case are, are

37:25two that's who, what is they, uh, which is the side to Sadducees and the Pharisees. Uh,

37:33the Sadducees and the, and the fair, the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Uh, these are, these are

37:39two of, uh, at least four different, what Josephus calls philosophies of Judaism, which we would,

37:47we would call sects, um, these days, S E C T S. Right. Um, we have the Pharisees, uh, you

37:56have the Sadducees, uh, you have the Essenes, which are another group that I think probably

38:02most scholars today would say is, uh, how the, uh, folks at Coomran who are responsible

38:10for, uh, storing at least the Dead Sea Scrolls, how they were identified. Uh, and then you

38:15have the, uh, the zealots. And there are some other, there are some other groups that are

38:19identified by like Philo and stuff like that. But, but we're focused on the Sadducees and

38:23the Pharisees and these groups probably begin to distinguish themselves around the middle

38:30of the second century BCE. So this is when we have the, we have the, uh, the second temple

38:38is, you know, operating, everybody's bopping along, uh, the, uh, Hellenistic empires are

38:45fighting over this territory. The salutids cause a lot of problems for, uh, the Judeans

38:52and they, and then you have, uh, Antiochus, the fourth epiphanies who comes in does a

38:56lot of bad stuff. So at first and second Maccabees is all about this is what the celebration

39:01of Hanukkah is about. They come in and they desecrate the temple and then, uh, Judah Maccabee,

39:08uh, come, they fight back. They, uh, wrestle control of the temple back from the salutids.

39:14They rededicate the temple. That's what Hanukkah is celebrating. The rededication of the temple.

39:20We just briefly remind me who the salutids are. That's not what this is about, but just

39:25as a quick rabbit trail. Sorry. So Lucid is, uh, is a reference to one of the, um, kind

39:32of groups that controlled a part of Alexander the Great's kingdom. So after he died, you

39:39had a bunch of his, uh, subordinates fighting over control of his territory. And rather

39:46than one person stepping in and taking control of everything that Alexander the Great controlled,

39:52let's split up into a bunch of different territories. And you had the Ptolemy's controlling Egypt

39:59and the salutids. Uh, so Ptolemy was the one who was in Egypt. Celiacus, uh, was the one

40:06who's in Syria. And so Israel Palestine is right in between those two. And so they're

40:12kind of a battleground, uh, between these two groups and, and they kind of went back and

40:16forth, but the salutids, um, cause some trouble. The Maccabees fight back. They win. And this

40:23is actually the reestablishment of a semi autonomous, semi independent kingdom. So for in the

40:32one sixties, B. C. E. Like the Daniel, the book of Daniel is written right around this

40:37time, uh, the, a lot of the apocalyptic literature of second temple Judaism is written around

40:43this time. And for the people living in that time, this must have felt like the fulfillment

40:49of prophecy, because for a long time you've been waiting on restoration and the return

40:54of, uh, the kingdom of Israel. And suddenly the Maccabees win, drive off the invaders

41:01and establish what becomes known as the Hasmonean dynasty and kingdom. Now they are kind of

41:09like, Hey, Rome, we're going to play nice. Um, you know, can we get some help? And so

41:14they are, uh, kind of the, uh, you know, uh, subordinate to Rome in some sense, but they

41:22are an independent kingdom. And so, uh, this is what gives rise to now, uh, some scholars

41:31think this is when the Torah and the Hebrew Bible first begins to become authoritative,

41:37where they're finally like, all right, we have our kingdom back. We got all these texts.

41:41We got all these laws. Let's start putting them into play. And then they win. Oh crap.

41:47They conflict with each other in a bunch of ways and we got a bunch of gaps and we got,

41:52and so you have a bunch of schools of thought that, uh, are trying to figure out how we're

41:57going to, to approach this. The Sadducees may have grown out of, um, the Zadakite priests

42:06and Zadak would have been, um, one of the descendants of Aaron. So this is a priestly household,

42:12a priestly family. And so Sadducees is, is thought by, um, by most scholars to, uh, be

42:19a callback to, to this idea of the Zadakite priests. And so these are wealthy elite people

42:25associated with the temple and they want stability. And so they're very happy to play

42:32nice with Rome as long as, as this gives us stability. And so there's, uh, the high priest

42:41is, is, uh, in later periods after 63 BCE, um, you have Pompeii who annexes Judea for Rome.

42:52So 160s BCE to around 63 BCE, you have an independent Judean kingdom. Right. Um, and

43:01then Rome takes over. And from this point on, the high priest is, is appointed by Rome.

43:07And so it's coming from the, the Sadducees. So they're basically the temple authorities.

43:13The Pharisees are kind of a, a lay movements that are about, uh, the law and they're about

43:21purity. And so this is why in the first century BCE and around the turn of the era, right around

43:26the time of Jesus's life, you have a lot of people focusing on purity and you have things

43:32like stone pots and cups and vessels that do not, uh, do not transmit impurity to the

43:40things that they're, that they're holding. Like this is something that pops up in this

43:44time period because of the Pharisees and the biggest differences between the two, the,

43:49the Pharisees accepted this, uh, oral tradition and the authority of traditions about how to

43:56interpret the law because remember they, they were like, all right, let's, let's get rolling

44:02with, with the implementation of all these laws. And then they were like, Oh wait, it

44:05doesn't all fit. We got to do all these things to, um, to, you know, smooth over the iron

44:12out the wrinkles and everything. And this is what later, the circles, et cetera. Yeah.

44:17And this is what later turns into the rabbinic literature and the halakic, uh, literature,

44:23which is, which is basically, uh, trying to figure out legal questions, answer legal questions

44:29and things like that. The Sadducees reject that. They reject the oral interpretations

44:36and they want to go back to just the Torah. So they're, they're text is the five books

44:44of Moses. And which means that they don't have things like Daniel. They don't have, um,

44:54other texts that develop the concept of resurrection. They don't have discussion of angels and

45:01all this other kind of stuff that's later in the Hebrew Bible and in second temple Jewish

45:06literature that the Pharisees do have. So while the Pharisees are exploring heaven and

45:11hell and resurrection and all this other kind of stuff, the Sadducees are sitting there

45:16with their five books of Moses, like y'all are nuts. I don't know where you're getting

45:20all this. None of this is in here. These extremists over here with their, with their

45:25resurrections and what? Yeah. Yeah. And, and so they were, these were some, some movements

45:30that, that clashed on a lot of things and, and even in the New Testament, you see at one

45:35point, Paul is, is like caught between a rock and a hard place. And he's like angels and,

45:41uh, you know, starts the fight over his head between the, the Sadducees and the Pharisees

45:45and, um, and then, you know, slips out the back door while they're all fighting. So,

45:51uh, so he's, he's exploiting, uh, the, the differences between these two groups. And,

45:58and then because the Sadducees authority is, is based entirely on the temple and not on

46:04like household religion. Like the Pharisees, it's all about, you know, I'm, I'm going

46:09to school. I'm reading the law. I'm, you know, I've got stone cups at home. I'm washing

46:15my hands before the meal and all this. That's, that's kind of this ritual and ideological

46:21framework that governs all different parts of life. Sadducees are like, we're just, we

46:27just deal with the temple. We just deal with the temple and then the temple gets destroyed

46:32and they've got nothing. Right. They've got, they've got no way to, they've got no framework

46:38that they can provide for how to go on. And so for all intents and purposes, the Sadducees

46:44disappear, just stop within a decade or two after 70 CE and the Pharisees basically become

46:52rabbinic Judaism because they have, they have everything else. They have how we do this

46:59at home. They have how we do this in our synagogues. They have how we do this, uh, everywhere

47:05else apart from the temple and with the destruction of the temple, uh, that it doesn't really hurt

47:12their worldview, uh, nearly as much as it hurt the worldview or at least the, the, uh,

47:18the structures of power that held up the Sadducees. And also they were, you know, they were cozy

47:24with Rome and the Pharisees hated that. They were, they shook their fist at Rome and they

47:28shook their fist at the Pharisees. Um, you know, playing, playing nice with Rome. Uh,

47:34and so they had, yeah, those, those are the main differences, uh, between the Sadducees

47:39and the Pharisees as I recall them. Okay. Um, talk to me a little bit about because

47:45look, I, uh, I don't know if everyone knows this. I am not a scholar of the Bible. I have

47:53not read all of the Bible nor have I, but my memory of the word Pharisees is that it only

48:03comes up in the Bible in the New Testament as a pejorative, like it's like, these are,

48:09these are the bad guys in a lot of, in a lot of the stories of the Bible. Is that, is that

48:14right? Am I remembering that correctly? There, there are definitely, uh, those who are Pharisees

48:20who are not represented as bad guys. Like the, the New Testament, most of the New Testament,

48:25I think it would be unfair to say it's anti-Pherasiacal. I think they would attribute a lot of the

48:30faults of, of the Judaism against which they were representing themselves as the product

48:37of the Pharisees, but a lot of that was incidental. That was the fact that the Sadducees were

48:41often their temple doing weird temple stuff. Um, the Pharisees were the ones, uh, in the

48:46streets. And by the time of the gospel of John, it's, it's just the Jews is how, how

48:54Jesus's enemies are generally represented. There is certainly, I, I think, uh, what we

49:00could call, uh, Judea phobia, if not straight up anti-Semitism in different parts of the

49:06New Testament. I, I don't think it is, uh, you know, the, the, you know, if you're a

49:13Pharisee, you're a bad person or something like that. Because, you know, Paul represents

49:18himself as, uh, as a Pharisee. Right. Now, so the, today people use the term Pharisee,

49:27uh, pejoratively, and it's wildly inappropriate. Um, they, that is anti-Semitism today because

49:36it's a, it's a, so it's an anti-Semitic sort of dog whistle. Yeah. It's accusing someone

49:42of being overly legalistic. And I even, I even recorded a video, uh, with a friend Logan

49:48Williams when I was in Italy at this, uh, Enoch seminar where he was pointing out, he's got

49:54a paper that he's, uh, gonna publish soon, soon on this, that when you look at the scenes,

50:00when you look at Jesus in the New Testament, when you look at other non-pharisaical, uh,

50:07interpretations of the law, the Pharisees were commonly dismissed as casuals. Mm. They were

50:15not strict enough. Interesting. They were, and, and even when you look in Matthew, Jesus

50:20says your righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees or you cannot enter the kingdom

50:25of God. So like when, when you look at the text themselves, the Pharisees are not represented

50:30as these strict legalists. They're, they're frequently represented as, as folks who are

50:35not legalistic enough. And today they, people use Pharisee to mean overly legalistic person

50:43and, and it's inaccurate and it's pejorative. And like I said, the Pharisees would become

50:48rabbinic Judaism, which is the mainstream of Jewish tradition today. And so it is directly,

50:55um, uh, maligning the, uh, the ancestor of contemporary Judaism. And in that sense, it

51:04is, um, antisemitic as well. And yeah, there's the, uh, the whole anti Pharisee thing, uh,

51:14pejorative use of, of Pharisees is it is incredibly common within contemporary Christianity, not

51:21just evangelical Christianity. It is, it is widespread all over Christianity. And there

51:26is a wonderful book that was recently published that I should have gotten handy for this,

51:36for this discussion, uh, called Judea phobia in the New Testament and, and in the back,

51:41there is a handy flow chart that answers the question, can I call this person a Pharisee?

51:49Do all of the things go to know basically, uh, it is the only time you can call somebody

51:58a Pharisee is if you're referring to a, uh, a person in first century or first, first

52:05century CE, first century BCE Judea who identifies as a Pharisee. Right. And everything else

52:12all goes to do not call this person a Pharisee. Right. So, uh, that's the lesson here. Don't

52:18you refer to, are you referring to Paul? Then yes. Yeah. You're referring to your neighbor

52:24Paul who lives down the street. And no, yeah. Uh, stop using it pejoratively. It's anti-Semitic.

52:32It is inaccurate, historically, textually, ecumenically, grammatically. Uh, you know,

52:38in, in all the senses, it's not a good thing to use the term Pharisee pejoratively. I assume

52:44though that I can use the term Sadducees pejorative. Well, I, I tend not to, but I don't, there's

52:51not really, yeah, they don't really, there's not really a reputation to, uh, you know,

52:56for that pejorative. You, you, wealthy temple guy. You, you're such a sad to see that. That

53:03might work within Mormon circles, but, uh, well, that's sure they, they do like probably

53:07temples. Yeah, they, uh, we would have to be a little careful about that. But, um, yeah,

53:14I, I am just in the, I am of the mind that, uh, you should not use designations of, uh,

53:22other ethnic and religious and ideological groups as pejoratives, just in general. Just

53:28in general. Yeah. Um, and you know, except the, the one that I make an exception for is

53:33doofus. I don't think that really counts as an ethnic group or anything like that. Well,

53:39what was it? I, oh, I have no idea where the word came from. It's just a pejorative term.

53:44Yeah. The only time you'll ever see me name calling is if I call somebody a doofus because

53:49I, I feel like that's a pretty tame. Oh man. Somebody right now is heading to the comments

53:55section on YouTube to tell us about the origin of the word doofus and how it's horrible in

54:01some way, but well, until that happens, you're, you're clear to use the word doofus. Um,

54:07probably related to doodoo and goofus. Okay. Night students slang, dolt idiot nerd. Yeah,

54:15by the 1960s. There you go. All right. Uh, well, that, that's great. Thank you for sitting.

54:24I'm so glad when I like actually know what a thing is because you hear the, I, I have

54:31heard the words Pharisees and Sadducees so many times and I haven't really known what

54:38we were talking about. So thank you for that. That is very handy. Yeah. And in, in the New

54:46Testament you will frequently see in the synoptic gospels distinctions between those two and,

54:51and frequently it's significant that they're dealing with the Sadducees because they're

54:55dealing with like temple authorities or something like that, or they're dealing with the Pharisees

54:59because it's people in the streets. And sometimes the Sadducees and Pharisees team up the enemy

55:06of my enemy is right. And then they can form Voltron together and fight against, uh, Captain

55:15Planet. Yeah. All right. Uh, that's it for this week's show. If you would like to hear

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