Ep 124: Who are the REAL Christians?

00:00- Angels can't rebel, they don't have their own agency.

00:05They can't do that.

00:07They're not sexually compatible.

00:09They're not made of flesh and bone.

00:11Never mind. - So to speak.

00:15- Yes.

00:16(laughs)

00:17(upbeat music)

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

00:22- And I'm Dan Beecher.

00:24- And you're listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast

00:27where we increase public access

00:28to the academic study of the Bible and religion.

00:31When we combat the spread of misinformation

00:34about the same, are we things today, Dan?

00:37- So it's a steamy hot day here in Salt Lake City

00:40and life is good.

00:43- All right.

00:44- Excited, we're diving into some fun issues.

00:46I think we're gonna get some juice out of it.

00:50We'll squeeze some juice out of these controversial issues.

00:53- Yeah, it's gonna be a juicy day.

00:55I went for a walk earlier today and my shoes were pretty juicy

01:00by the time I was done.

01:02I've got really comfortable shoes

01:04that I like to walk around in, but if my feet sweat,

01:07I'm just slipping and sliding all over the place

01:09in those shoes and I hate it.

01:11- But that's my other here and we're there.

01:12I do need better socks.

01:14- Two shots.

01:15- Yeah, indeed.

01:16All right, well, what we're gonna be doing,

01:17we're gonna have two segments today as per the use.

01:21The first segment is a taking issue and the issue.

01:26What we're gonna be taking issue with is

01:29what counts as a Christian?

01:31What are the markers of a Christian?

01:35- Yes.

01:35- And who gets to decide to?

01:37- It's one who-- - Spoiler alert.

01:39- It's me.

01:40I get to figure it out.

01:42So you'll have to come to me to know for sure

01:44if you're actually a Christian.

01:46And then the second half of our show will be a what's that

01:49and the what's that that we're talking about are

01:52the sons of God?

01:54- Benelohim.

01:56- Yes, the sons. - The sons.

01:58The sons, that's a plural thing.

02:00That's not, we're not talking about just the son of God.

02:03- Nine.

02:04- So that'll be interesting.

02:06That'll be fun to dive into.

02:08But first, let's take issue.

02:11And this week we're taking issue with Christians.

02:17We're taking issue with you, Christians.

02:19- Yeah, we're gonna go off the beaten path this week.

02:22And we're gonna blaze a new trail

02:25through the tangled undergrowth,

02:29contemporary Christian identity politics.

02:32We had a wonderful discussion with my friend David Congdon

02:34a while ago on who is a Christian,

02:37his book that he published.

02:39I thought that was a fascinating discussion.

02:42But this was catalyzed by a recent discussion

02:45that was had on the Joe Rogan podcast

02:50when Texas state representative and OP Taylor Lookalike.

02:56- Representative Tallarico,

03:00I believe James is the first name, right?

03:01- James Tallarico, that's right.

03:02- James Tallarico, who if I understand,

03:07is hiding out somewhere right now?

03:09I don't know if he's,

03:11if the sheriff and his posse have caught up with him.

03:15- Someone check Mayberry 'cause he's probably there.

03:18Down by the fishing hole is where I would go first.

03:20- Yeah, check the fishing hole.

03:21He's got a cane pole out of him, I know it.

03:23And by the way, oh man, that brings back memories.

03:26Cane pole, poppers, oh, I don't even wanna get into it.

03:30I cannot get sidetracked.

03:32- I don't know all of your drugs, talk, weirdo.

03:37- No, this is growing up on a farm in West Virginia.

03:41But that is also neither here nor there.

03:44Nothing is here or there for this discussion.

03:48But, and he made, he made an interesting point

03:51when he was talking to Brother Rogan.

03:55He was talking about Rogan asked him

03:58about a biblical case for legalized abortion.

04:03But there was one part where James made the case

04:06that he didn't, he said I get suspicious

04:11when people say certain issues need to be at the center

04:16of our identity as Christians.

04:18- Right.

04:19- When Jesus never said anything about them.

04:21- He's specifically referring to the fact

04:23that the political right and the sort of the Christian right

04:28of the United States have coalesced very strongly

04:33around the subjects of abortion

04:37and the rights of LGBTQ people as the identity markers

04:42that make you Christian.

04:46- Yeah, and his main one of the things he concluded with

04:49was like, he said, I just don't think it's fair

04:53that to be a Christian or when people understand

04:57that you're a Christian, they automatically assume

05:00that you're against abortion and against gay folks.

05:05And he says, cause there are lots of Christians

05:07who do not subscribe to those particular policy positions.

05:12And I thought--

05:13- He's one of them specifically.

05:14- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

05:15And there are many of them.

05:16And I thought he made a pretty good appeal

05:21and also pointed out, he said, my Christian brothers

05:24and sisters, they will have their passages

05:28to which they point in defense of their opposition

05:30to these things and we can have that debate

05:33and we should be able to have that debate.

05:36And he said, this is different from my concern,

05:39which is the notion that you have to oppose abortion

05:44and homosexuality if you're a Christian

05:47and that's what he was speaking against.

05:49And immediately everybody jumped down his throat

05:53and the overwhelming majority of the negative responses

05:56I saw were all entirely misrepresenting his argument

06:00and they all thought that he

06:03was saying nobody has a biblical case

06:07to make against abortion or homosexuality,

06:10which is what he specifically said,

06:13we can have that debate, that's a separate thing.

06:15- Well, and the way that he phrased it

06:17seemed important to me.

06:19By the way, we should mention we introduced him

06:21as a member of the Texas House of Representatives,

06:24which is true, but he's also a pastor.

06:27- Yes.

06:28- So people should be aware that he's not dumb

06:32about theology.

06:34He does know what he, he went to theological seminary,

06:39et cetera, but what he said specifically was

06:44that he gets suspicious when people say

06:47that you have to centralize these ideas,

06:50ideas that Jesus never specifically spoke about.

06:54- Yeah.

06:55And I think that that's an important thing.

06:58Like he, again, he, like you said, he recognized

07:02that you can make a case one way or the other

07:06on both of these things and a biblical case at that,

07:09but you can't, but to say that the thing,

07:13the thing that defines your Christianity

07:17is something that Jesus didn't even talk about

07:21is, I think that's a pretty strong point to me.

07:24- Yeah.

07:25- I think the idea there is that, hey,

07:28if the Bible and the New Testament are the roadmap,

07:33if that is what is supposed to be dictating

07:36our morality, our identity, our faith and all that to us,

07:40and Jesus never says anything about it,

07:43on what grounds do we say, well, this now takes priority

07:46over these other things.

07:47It's basically, I think he's pointing out

07:50that it is kind of a socially and historically

07:54contingent identity that these folks are asserting,

07:58as if what it means to be a Christian

08:00changes from generation to generation,

08:02depending on the particular political stances.

08:07- I think I have news for you.

08:10I think what it means to be a Christian

08:12does change from generation to generation.

08:15- Well, yes, and that is because

08:16it's all socially contingent.

08:18- Right, yeah.

08:19- For folks who insist this is all inspired,

08:22I mean, you're kind of shooting yourself

08:23in the foot rhetorically here by saying

08:26that it is ever-changing and it is always subordinated

08:31to social and historical context and circumstances.

08:35- Yeah, I think, so what are we talking about?

08:38What does make a Christian?

08:41Because I think that it is an interesting,

08:45I think when he said that

08:48and everybody who jumped down his throat,

08:51I think what they were jumping down his throat about

08:54was they do mark those as key and central points

08:59to their Christianity and to what they believe

09:05a Christian has to believe.

09:07- And I think, and I believe we've talked about it before,

09:10but at least in the case of abortion,

09:13this is of recent historical origin,

09:17like we can trace in the '70s

09:20an intentional rhetorical campaign

09:23to turn abortion into a central evangelical identity marker.

09:28It was for a time something that evangelical leaders

09:32did not feel so strongly about until some folks decided

09:36that they needed to gin up some outrage

09:38and they identified abortion as their golden ticket

09:42because they were trying to

09:47irrigate more authority, government authority,

09:50to the Christian right so that they could

09:54exercise political power in their favor

09:57rather than being on the losing end of a political--

10:00- Well, and specifically, they were losing traction

10:03because they had been using the idea of race

10:07as their bludgeon, as their wedge point.

10:12- Yeah. - And they were losing traction

10:14on that, they were, the writing was on the wall

10:17for that point.

10:18- Yes. - At least then.

10:20- I don't know, it's making a comeback.

10:22- Yeah, the whole reason is-- - The pendulum

10:23is unfortunately swinging the other direction,

10:25but with the Civil Rights Act,

10:28the government was starting to deny funding to schools

10:32that were not admitting black students

10:35and denying grants and things like that to students.

10:39And so folks that like Bob Jones, University,

10:42Jerry Falwell, Paul Wierick, and others were like,

10:45"We gotta do something about this."

10:48And the most bizarre thing, in my opinion,

10:53is that they ultimately, well, okay, pendulum again,

10:57for decades, they lost that battle.

11:01Like what they wanted to do, they weren't able to do,

11:05but instead, they ginned up this central identity marker

11:09that has become phenomenally powerful

11:12to the point that that has helped facilitate

11:15the pendulum swinging back.

11:17And now, you have a lot of the school choice arguments

11:22that people are ginning up for.

11:24Oh, I need state vouchers so that I can send kids

11:29to private schools, even though the vouchers really

11:33are only gonna work for people who can already afford

11:35to send kids to private schools.

11:37But this is no different from "Remember the Titans"

11:40and people getting upset about desegregation.

11:44Like it's the same concern, really.

11:48It's just reborn in slightly different packaging.

11:52But, and so yeah, I think that the pendulum swinging back

11:55and I don't know how, if Jerry Falwell and Paul Wierick

12:00are celebrating in their graves right now

12:02about white supremacy becoming such a big part

12:05of right-wing politics again.

12:10But yeah, it's certainly hurting a lot of the living

12:14these days, but yeah, that's,

12:17you can see kind of in their trying to orchestrate

12:21what the central identity markers of Christianity are

12:25so that they can structure power.

12:27And I was talking before we hit record,

12:31was mentioning that there are a lot of folks

12:35who make a lot, an awful lot of money

12:37trying to curate the boundaries of Christianity.

12:40A lot of apologists, I brought up James White,

12:43someone I got into it with on blogs,

12:47back when blogs were a big thing, almost 15 years ago.

12:50- Juling blogs, oh, the internet of yesteryear.

12:55It's like home on the prairie for the internet.

12:59- Yeah, we were some young and naive there.

13:04I can remember when, if my blog had 200 visits in a day,

13:09I was like, I had a good day today.

13:12(laughing)

13:14- And to quote the great poet, to misquote the great poet.

13:18But yeah, James White was fond of denying a lot

13:23of other folks their Christianity.

13:26And he had a video denying that Mormons were Christians

13:32and on my blog, I was like, hey, self-identity

13:36is really the main marker of membership

13:41in something like Christianity.

13:44And so if somebody's like, I don't think you're a Christian,

13:46great, you can't really tell them

13:48they're not allowed to think that,

13:50but it doesn't go beyond their own perception.

13:53And when they try to make a case for why this should be

13:57authoritative beyond the boundaries of their own skull,

14:02that case is never anything but dogmatic and arbitrary

14:08and usually pretty hypocritical.

14:10Because James White will say that,

14:13well, the Trinity is the defining feature of Christianity.

14:18But then when he wants to turn around and tell Catholics

14:21that they're not Christians,

14:23suddenly the defining feature of Christianity

14:26is something entirely different.

14:28For a lot of people, what defines Christianity changes

14:32depending on who it is precisely they're trying to

14:35shove out of Christianity.

14:38- Yeah, I guess that's the more salient question

14:41is who isn't Christian, right?

14:43Like because the project is one of exclusion.

14:48- Yeah, yeah.

14:49And that's from my cognitive linguistic days

14:54and prototype theory, we approach categories

14:58as if they are naturally bounded,

15:00as if they have natural boundaries inherent to them.

15:04And the reality is that when we form conceptual categories

15:08and religious identity is 100% conceptual categories,

15:11we actually focus on prototypes.

15:14We focus on the center of the category

15:17and membership radiates out towards non-existent initially

15:24or fuzzy boundaries, where membership is debated.

15:27And, you know, there's a lot of examples

15:30that linguists will use to talk about this.

15:32Like if you had a hundred different pieces

15:36of dining in a row going from a cup to a bowl

15:41and just kind of incrementally changing a tiny bit

15:45between the two ends of that,

15:47where do you say this is no longer a cup, this is now a bowl?

15:51Like it's entirely arbitrary.

15:53- Yeah, and so that's absolutely the case

15:57with something like religious identity.

15:59There's no inherent essence to being Christian.

16:03There's no inherent boundaries to what makes a Christian.

16:07And so when people try to define it overwhelmingly

16:11in order to exclude, because those fuzzy boundaries,

16:14they really only harden up when you need to exclude something.

16:19- Right, right.

16:19- When you run into an argument

16:22about whether or not this is a member of the category

16:26and it's an undesirable member,

16:28that's when you tend to come up with boundaries.

16:32And there are so many different ways

16:35that that plays out in how we use our categories today.

16:38Like I have a paper that's gonna be coming out

16:41in a volume on monotheism.

16:44Hopefully next year, I'm editing the volume

16:46and I'm very slow, but the other editors

16:48will do a better job than me.

16:50- But one of the things I point to is the,

16:54you'll recall every now and then the argument flares up

16:57about whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich.

17:00- And this is kind of a rather silly example

17:00- Right.

17:04of how attempts to define things cause problems.

17:09- Yes.

17:10- When it's like, well, when you look at the definition

17:11of a sandwich, a hot dog qualifies.

17:14And it's like, well, these are conceptual categories.

17:16Definitions are arbitrary.

17:18They're imposed upon the category.

17:20They don't actually have anything to do

17:21with how categories function in real life.

17:24But that's one of the artifacts of this,

17:27is that you get these silly...

17:28- I'm talking in the sandwich.

17:29- And it was a little comedy.

17:32- I mean, listen, hot dog I can go with you on,

17:35but if a hot dog is a sandwich,

17:37then is a taco a sandwich, and now we're in a hole.

17:40He put your hand on it.

17:42(laughs)

17:42- Yeah.

17:44(upbeat music)

17:48- And so when it comes to Christian,

17:51it's always contextual.

17:53- Yeah.

17:54- It's like, who's asking?

17:55Why?

17:56Who is it you're trying to keep out?

17:57And then you basically, you argue from the conclusion.

18:02- Right.

18:03- It's overwhelmingly a conclusion in search of an argument.

18:05- Right.

18:06So I decide Dan McClellan is a Mormon,

18:08and therefore that's not a Christian.

18:10Let me find an argument that fits that conclusion.

18:15- Yeah.

18:16And it's funny because people will be like,

18:18well, Christians don't accept them as Christians.

18:20It's like, well, that's kind of begging the question.

18:24- Yeah.

18:25- Because you have to decide whether or not they count

18:28in the Christian part of it all.

18:31And if you already are denying them that identity,

18:35it's kind of begging the question.

18:36But also, you know, Pew and others have done research on this.

18:40And actually, majority of Christians in America

18:43say that Mormons are Christians.

18:45So, I mean, you got the name Jesus Christ right there

18:49in the full title of the church.

18:52- Yes, which Mormons now feel obligated

18:57to say every time they say the name of the church.

19:00- They got yelled at pretty hard by their daddy.

19:02- Yeah, the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

19:07- We're not supposed to say Mormons.

19:08They don't want us to.

19:11- Yeah, we're all very shocked, Dan,

19:13that you go along with this word Mormon.

19:15- Yeah, well, if you go on Twitter or Acts

19:20or whatever the hell it's going by these days,

19:22there, you will find a lot of people who insist

19:27that I probably can't even call myself a Mormon anymore

19:31and shouldn't call myself a Mormon.

19:33For multiple reasons, one of them being

19:35that you're not supposed to use that word.

19:37- Yeah.

19:38- It's, I was gonna make an hour word

19:43joke and thought better of it.

19:45- Yeah, well, it is your word, I don't know.

19:47- But we're not even allowed to use it now.

19:49- Yeah, yeah, exactly.

19:51- So yeah, but that becomes an identity marker

19:56in and of itself.

19:57That's a piece of costly signaling also.

19:59If you go online and you go,

20:00how dare you say Mormon, you're not supposed to,

20:03that's a way to put on display to everybody else

20:06that you're willing to berate another Mormon

20:09all in the name of defending the prophetic council

20:14that we've all been given.

20:16So that's just credibility enhancing displays.

20:18It's identity politics all the way down.

20:21- Well, and that's what we're talking about.

20:24- What we're getting at is that identity

20:28is the issue here.

20:30And whether you're an evangelical or a Catholic

20:34or some other kind of Protestant or LDS or whatever,

20:39if the word Christian is important to you,

20:44which presumably it is to all of those categories

20:49or most of those categories,

20:51or most people who inhabit those categories.

20:54The question of what makes someone a Christian

20:57becomes very, very vital.

21:00- Yeah.

21:02And it becomes, and can lead to some very silly arguments

21:06about like, no, Christians believe, you know, it's funny.

21:10I remember one point I heard a guy that I knew

21:15and his brother who was of a different religious ilk

21:20arguing just furiously about, you know,

21:25what makes you a Christian is your belief in faith by works

21:28or, you know, salvation by faith or by works or whatever.

21:33And they kept both, like from an outsider perspective,

21:37they were saying exactly the same thing.

21:40They were using different words,

21:42but they were saying exactly the same thing.

21:44And I was just sitting there giggling as I listened

21:48from the other room.

21:49- And sometimes it comes down to whether or not

21:51you say the right, the thing with the right words.

21:56'Cause you can say the right thing with the wrong words

21:58and then suddenly you're out.

22:00And I've been surprised how frequently this comes up

22:03on like TikTok, because every single day,

22:07multiple times a day, people will comment

22:10that non-Christian shouldn't be talking about them.

22:14The New Testament or the Bible or things like that.

22:16And if I happen to see those and respond to them,

22:20I'll be like, oh, I'm a Christian.

22:22And then, you know, heads explode at that point.

22:25- Right, I'll hell breaks loose.

22:27- Yeah, because inevitably there will be those

22:30who will be like, more and more Christians.

22:34And you know, and then that whole argument erupts.

22:38And then there will be others who, you know,

22:41it just does not compute for them.

22:43It's like, you're an atheist.

22:44And it's like, no, I'm not an atheist.

22:47Like the video I responded to some guy,

22:50some Catholic apologists, I think he goes by Jimmy Aiken.

22:54But he made a video responding to me.

22:57And one of the things that he was talking about

23:01was my Mormonism, and he was like,

23:05and you know, you say that it doesn't matter,

23:07but then you go and make statements like this,

23:09and then you share as a clip of me saying,

23:10"I am not an atheist."

23:12And like, checkmate, I imagine he felt like saying,

23:17but I get kind of annoyed by how frequently

23:22I have to curate the understanding

23:26of the relevance of my religious identity on my channel.

23:31I wish, and you know, people like,

23:33you're lying to people, you need to let 'em know

23:36at the top of every video that you're a Mormon.

23:38It's like, that would be kind of dumb.

23:40- Yeah.

23:41- But sometimes I'm like, I should do that.

23:44Just so, you know, that will reduce the number of comments

23:48I have on most of my videos by probably 20 to 25%.

23:52- But I think it would just change the comments.

23:56- Yeah, there would be different comments.

23:58I'm still surprised by how many times like in this video

24:02I posted where I was responding to this individual,

24:07I was still getting comments when people were like,

24:10"I've been following Dan for two years.

24:12I didn't know he was a Mormon."

24:13- Yeah.

24:14- And it's like only every other video now has to address it.

24:18- I think it's funny.

24:21You know, the other funny thing about that is that like,

24:26like you say, if a person, I mean, or rather,

24:30what I assume you mean is that if a person

24:33knows what they're talking about,

24:36why, you know, this whole idea of that, you know,

24:39atheist, Mormons, whoever shouldn't be talking

24:41about the New Testament or shouldn't be talking

24:43about the Bible, if they know what they're talking about,

24:46why wouldn't you want their input?

24:49Why wouldn't you want to hear it?

24:51But again, it's like, it's this grabbing of ownership

24:54of something, which, you know, by that logic,

24:58probably Christians, you know, if you want to say that,

25:02like, we own this, so you shouldn't have any access to it.

25:07I got bad news about the Old Testament for you guys

25:10'cause somebody else claims that one.

25:13- Yeah, yeah, and that, you know, there are a lot of folks,

25:17folks like Christina Rosetti and others who study Mormonism,

25:20who are not Latter-day Saints,

25:22and I'm not about to step to them.

25:26Say, hey, that's your wheelhouse,

25:29the particular fields of study that they're in.

25:33You know, just because you happen to, like, you know,

25:36just because you happen to be a living, breathing human

25:38does not make you an expert on human biology,

25:42just kind of innately, that's not how it works.

25:48But yeah, it frequently comes down to boundary maintenance

25:52and who gets to be in charge

25:54and something that I've frequently pointed out.

25:56Who gets to be in charge of who's a Christian?

25:58Nobody.

25:59There is no individual or combination of individuals

26:03on the planet who has authority

26:05over another individual's ability to identify as a Christian.

26:10Really, it comes down to consensus

26:13and, like, ecclesiastical hierarchy.

26:16If there's a group out there

26:17where you actually have to have a membership card

26:20or you have to have the tattoo

26:22or you have to have some kind of indication

26:25that you are an official member of that group,

26:29like, that's the only time somebody can say,

26:31you're not a member of our particular group.

26:33Right, and every individual Christian church can say that.

26:37Yeah, and there's no group

26:39that has authority over all Christians.

26:41That just doesn't exist.

26:41Right.

26:42So there's no person or combination of people

26:46who has any authority at all over anyone's ability

26:51to identify just as a Christian.

26:53And anybody who pretends to irrigate

26:56that authority to themselves

26:58is just playing identity politics.

27:00Damn you, Martin Luther.

27:02(laughing)

27:03There used to be a guy who had authority over

27:06who got to call themselves a Christian.

27:08Oh, I guess not, 'cause there was still Eastern or--

27:10Oh, yeah, there are Christians all over the place who--

27:13But there was a guy who was pretty sure he had--

27:15There's lots of people who are pretty sure

27:17they have the authority to do it.

27:20Yes, they come to my website and my channel

27:23every single day to let me know that they're the ones.

27:28Now I'm tempted to start calling myself a non--

27:32calling myself a Christian who doesn't believe

27:34in Jesus or God, just to mess with people,

27:37just to really mess up the category.

27:40You know, and,

27:44okay, I'm gonna throw a wrench into this discussion

27:46a little bit, talked about Pew.

27:48Pew does, not Pew Pew's, but the Pew Research Center.

27:53They do a wonderful religious landscape survey

27:56every few years, and one of the things they talk about

27:58is belief in God, and it's fascinating

28:02because you get like Buddhists and things like that

28:06where like 25% of them are positive that no God exists.

28:12And it's comparable for Jewish folks.

28:15And then there's like 3% of Orthodox Christians

28:20say they're positive God doesn't exist.

28:22And about the same percentage of atheists

28:28are positive that a God does exist.

28:30I know, it's amazing.

28:32And I think it's so fun because,

28:35hey man, atheism is just as much an identity

28:41as any of the religions.

28:44Or can't be, sure.

28:45Yeah, it can be.

28:46And so I think as much as Christians are like,

28:49you can't be an atheist Christian.

28:52I frequently get, you can't be a believing atheist

28:56from the other side as well when I point that out.

28:59But yeah.

29:00Those kinds of identities are messy and they are tricky,

29:03and they have to do with belonging and membership,

29:08commonly more than they have to do with a credence

29:11that you sign off on.

29:12And again, when it comes to a lot of these religions,

29:17signing off on the credence doesn't necessarily mean

29:20you actually believe those things.

29:21There are an awful lot of people who are like,

29:23oh yeah, I'm willing to sign off on that.

29:25Yeah.

29:26I see, even though they don't.

29:27They don't treat every Sunday,

29:29but it's like, come on.

29:31Yeah.

29:32And I think one of the things that Protestantism did

29:35was it reduced Christianity at least,

29:38but religion really because our conceptualization

29:41of religion is a thoroughly Protestant conceptualization,

29:44but reduced it all down to a set of truth claims.

29:48Right.

29:48And so now people think of religious identity and religion

29:51as just a set of truth claims.

29:53But it's never been that.

29:54It's never been reducible to that.

29:56Yeah.

29:57It's community, it's, you know, it's ritual.

30:02It's behaviors.

30:03It's meaning making, it's behaviors.

30:05It is death, anxiety, curating.

30:10It's all of these things all wrapped into one.

30:12And there are an awful lot of people

30:14who enjoy everything about it,

30:16but maybe not so much the truth claims.

30:18It doesn't make him any less Christian.

30:20Sure.

30:21Or Jewish or Muslim or atheist.

30:25So I think it's a fun conversation

30:28to have mainly because of how just enraging it is

30:32for people who would like everything to fit

30:35into a neat, nice little box.

30:37Well, one of the interesting things, you know,

30:39when you listen, when you ask a Christian,

30:43you know, what makes a Christian?

30:46You'll get a lot of different answers,

30:48but one of the things that I never,

30:50like you'll, you know, you'll get people

30:52that say you have to personally accept Jesus

30:55as your Lord and savior or that, you know,

30:57the Bible is the final authority on whatever, blah, blah, blah.

31:01And what I've never hear is the one section of Romans,

31:06I think it's Romans 12.

31:09Romans 12.

31:11Where Paul is talking about, is this actually Paul?

31:15I never remember which one.

31:16Oh yeah, yeah.

31:17Romans is one of the genuine Paulian epistles.

31:19Okay, so Paul is talking about,

31:22well, the section, Romans 12 verse nine

31:27through the end of the chapter,

31:29the section in multiple translations

31:32is marked marks of the true Christian.

31:35Yes.

31:36And you know what it doesn't say?

31:38Any of the things that I hear people say

31:42when they say what, when they're asked what a true Christian.

31:44Well, yeah, it's, it's, there's nothing about belief in here.

31:47There's certainly nothing about whether

31:49you are a diaphysite or a monophysite

31:54or meaphysite or whatever.

31:56I don't know what those words mean at all.

31:58I don't know what any of those things were.

32:00Those are, remember we talked about saying the same thing

32:05but using different language.

32:07Yeah.

32:08There's, these are some of the debates that raged

32:11in the third and fourth and fifth and sixth centuries

32:14about, you know, when you're whittling down

32:17your conceptualization of Jesus, like it came down to,

32:21well, how do you understand the distinction

32:23between Jesus' divine and human nature's?

32:26Cause that's just, we, we are at an impasse.

32:30We can go no further until we settle this

32:33and you are all now ejected from our kingdom

32:37if you cannot say the right word.

32:39So, but yeah, there's nothing about belief in there.

32:43No, it says, let love be genuine, hate what is evil,

32:48hold fast to what is good,

32:49love one another with mutual affection,

32:52outdo one another and showing honor, you know,

32:56it's, it's real nice.

32:59Well, here's one verse that I think a lot of people

33:02would do well to take note of,

33:04contribute to the needs of the saints,

33:07pursue hospitality to strangers.

33:11So the, for the folks who are like,

33:13hey, I'm sorry, we gotta, you know, snatch Jesus

33:17from the parking lot of the Home Depot that he's working at

33:20and send him off to a Gulag and leave his kids in the car

33:24that is running because of Romans 13, one is like,

33:29but you just entirely ignored Romans 12, 13,

33:32which is quite a bit more central to defining Christianity

33:37if we take Paul's word for it.

33:39Right.

33:39Yeah, there you go.

33:42All right.

33:43Well, you can rejoice with those who rejoice

33:45and weep with those who weep.

33:46And we will move on to our next segment,

33:49which is what's that?

33:51(upbeat music)

33:54And the what's that that we're talking about,

33:57we're going to Genesis six as our starting point.

34:02Yes.

34:04Because jumping off point, our springboard.

34:06Our springboard, if you will.

34:09And we'll just start with,

34:11'cause Genesis six opens up with people multiplying.

34:18We're in the early days of humanity in this.

34:22Yes, we're about to segue into the flood.

34:25Right, right.

34:27Yeah, but the multiplying of people is about to get.

34:32Yeah, it's not subtle.

34:34It's a quick pivot.

34:36Yeah.

34:37So it says, when people began to multiply

34:40on the face of the ground,

34:42and it literally says that.

34:44(speaking in foreign language)

34:46The face of the ground.

34:48The sons of God, the Banae Elohim,

34:52oh, it says daughters were born to them.

34:54And it says the sons of God.

34:55Daughters were born to the people,

34:57to the people who were multiplying like rabbits.

35:00Yes, it is.

35:01On the face of the ground.

35:02The sons of God saw that they were fair,

35:04and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose.

35:08So the Banae Hylohim or Banae Elohim, if you're nasty,

35:13that is what we're talking about here.

35:16But Genesis 6, 3 says, then Adonai, the Lord said,

35:19"My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever,

35:23for they are flesh.

35:24Their days shall be 120 years."

35:28Which is a weird, weird thing to say in chapters before Noah.

35:33'Cause it did not turn out to be 120 years.

35:37'Cause yeah, he theoretically lived way longer than that.

35:42As did all the patriarchs, except for one.

35:44I forget which one it was.

35:45But it might be like Isaac or somebody, I forget.

35:49But somebody was like, "Oh darn it."

35:51They didn't get to live as long.

35:53And then we get to verse four, which is the peculiar verse.

35:56The Nephilim, or a Nephilim, if you're nasty.

36:00No, if you're wrong, if you're wrong.

36:03I see people tag me in videos where people are like,

36:07"I'm gonna drop some knowledge on y'all about the Nephilium."

36:10(laughs)

36:11It's like, is this a battery that you,

36:14they were on the earth in those days.

36:15And also afterward.

36:17When the sons of God went into the daughters of humans

36:21who bore children to them,

36:22these were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.

36:27And so here's a peculiar thing about this passage,

36:30which I think is unclear both in the English

36:32and in the Hebrew.

36:33It does not say that the Nephilim were the offspring.

36:39- Yeah.

36:40- Of the union of the sons of God.

36:42And I think Bernard Hadam, the daughters of humanity.

36:46It just says they were there.

36:48- Yeah.

36:49- It's like, this was when those weirdos were around.

36:53- Yeah.

36:54- And so it does not necessarily say that.

36:58It gets interpreted that way by an awful lot of folks.

37:01But it's not clear to me that this text is stating

37:05that the Nephilim were the offspring

37:08of the sons of God and the daughters of humans.

37:10That is how First Enoch takes it.

37:13- Oh, okay.

37:14- So like that is the traditional reading.

37:17I don't think it's necessarily there.

37:20- But there may have been like a cultural understanding

37:25of who these people were.

37:27- Well, and that isn't present in this text.

37:30- Right.

37:31And we may have a little hat tip in the direction

37:33of a similar cultural understanding.

37:36'Cause it says the Nephilim were on the earth in those days.

37:40And also afterwards.

37:42We have a little parenthetical.

37:44- Yeah.

37:45- A little interjection there.

37:46And this is kind of a nod to the fact

37:49that Nephilim are mentioned in one other verse.

37:52- In all the Hebrew Bible.

37:52- Yeah.

37:54And I mentioned to Dan earlier,

37:56you know things are about to get wild

37:58when they say open up the book of Numbers.

38:02- Yeah.

38:03(both laughing)

38:05- Numbers 13, verse 33, the word Nephilim occurs twice there.

38:09And this is part of the,

38:11what do they call it?

38:13The Wicked Report.

38:15The Bad Report.

38:16(both laughing)

38:17- If that's not the title of someone's like TikTok channel,

38:21the Wicked Report.

38:22(both laughing)

38:23- Somebody's missing out.

38:24Yeah.

38:26So that is when the spies are sent into the land

38:29and they come back and they're like,

38:30oh, yeah, it sucks.

38:32It all sucks.

38:34We shouldn't go in there.

38:35We should go back to Egypt.

38:37But one of the things they say is

38:39that they saw the Nephilim and we were like grasshoppers

38:42to them.

38:43- Yeah.

38:43- And this is, I think,

38:45where we get the idea that Nephilim means giants

38:50because the Septuagint,

38:52the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible,

38:54renders Ighantes or,

38:58I think I might be slurring my Spanish in my (laughing)

39:02it's probably not Ighantes.

39:05♪ When they ♪

39:08And those days, no, that was right.

39:11He got days.

39:12Okay, so they render, they translate Nephilim as giants

39:17and Nephilim does not mean giants.

39:19The, our best bet is that it means fallen ones

39:24and probably is a reference to some kind of post-mortem,

39:32fallen warrior, bracer, flass or something like that.

39:36- There's zombies?

39:37- Something like that.

39:40- Yeah, I like it, there's zombies.

39:44- Yeah, and so they get translated as giants

39:47and I think probably because of the other story

39:50where the spies come back and they're like,

39:53ooh, we were like little grasshoppers to them.

39:56Which, you know, is probably hyperbole.

39:58- Right, they probably weren't like literally their 300 feet tall.

40:03Like we average five, four, they were,

40:06they were at least 10 and a half feet tall.

40:08Like I don't know that, that verse ought to be taken so literally,

40:13but they, and they link them with the,

40:18what was it, the anacides.

40:19- The anacides? - Anacides, yeah.

40:22(upbeat music)

40:26- The other interesting problem here

40:29is that this is theoretically a post-diluvian.

40:34We're after the flood in this moment.

40:37- Yeah.

40:38- So presumably the Nephilim either were drowned,

40:43so how could the anacides come from them?

40:47Or they had snorkels?

40:49- Yeah, they were so, they're so giant

40:54that their heads were above water the whole time

40:56and they just waited it out.

40:58- I always wanna, wanna point out, be like,

41:01yeah, they drowned in the flood.

41:03Trailing off, kind of, and I'm thinking of Frank Drebin.

41:06When he's got the evidence that so-and-so was involved

41:11in all these crimes and he's like,

41:12and where is this evidence?

41:13And he's, well, it burned in the fire.

41:15So yeah, they, but that's what verse four is like parenthetically,

41:23they're like, oh, and they were there afterwards too.

41:25- Yeah.

41:26- Well, we're not gonna tell you how,

41:27because according to the flood tradition,

41:31everything that drew breath,

41:33everything that had the breath of life in it

41:36was a snuffed out, was destroyed.

41:39So they should not have survived.

41:41And this is one of the clues that combines

41:44with a number of other clues to convince,

41:46I think most critical scholars,

41:49that the flood tradition is a secondary insertion

41:52into the primeval history.

41:54- How dare you?

41:55- How dare you, sir.

41:57- Dare, dare.

41:58That's another, not too deep a cut,

42:03but dare I say dare, dare.

42:07That is, that's blazing saddles, excuse me.

42:10But yeah, that's, this is probably why

42:16the Nephilim were there before and after,

42:17because there was no flood.

42:19- Right.

42:19- And then you think that that phrase,

42:22the parenthetical and also afterward phrase

42:28was inserted later when somebody was like,

42:31oh, wait, we mentioned that also in numbers, crap.

42:35Let me just chuck this in here real quick,

42:37just to cover our butts.

42:40- It certainly could be.

42:41- It reads like that to me, that's--

42:44- Yeah, yeah, it does, it's kind of like your book

42:49of Mormon, oh, and by the way,

42:51you're thinking that this actually means this,

42:53but here's a little clue

42:57so that you are not led astray by what I just said.

43:00It sounds like an afterthought,

43:02but something that was inserted in there later.

43:06We certainly don't have, as far as I'm aware,

43:08we don't have any textual evidence of that,

43:10but I think there are certainly scholars

43:11who would raise an eyebrow or two

43:15about the integrity of this passage.

43:19But there, and you also have some folks who think

43:22that this is, this whole story about the banal heme

43:24is inserted in here, secondarily,

43:27because it seems like it's supposed to be motivation

43:30for God to send the flood,

43:32but it doesn't really have a connection

43:33to what the next verse says catalyze the flood.

43:38The Lord saw that the wickedness of humans was great

43:42in the earth and that every inclination

43:43of the thoughts of their heart was only evil continually.

43:46- Yeah.

43:47- And it's like, well, but what about these demigods

43:49that are evidently roaming all over the place?

43:52Like, they're setting it up as if the reason

43:55everything's going wrong is because the banal heme

43:58were causing trouble, but then this verse is like,

44:02oh, the silly humans.

44:04And if you take out the Nephilim account,

44:07then it doesn't feel like the problem is big enough

44:11to merit killing everything.

44:14Because then it's just like, and God looked at humans

44:17and they're like, they're mad at everything.

44:18Look at them, they got anxiety.

44:20Like, all it says is, oh, the every inclination

44:25of the thought of their hearts was evil continually.

44:28Oh, I guess I'll just destroy them all.

44:30That doesn't sound adequate.

44:31That doesn't sound like a just reason for the deluge.

44:35And so maybe somebody is like--

44:36- They have bad news for you.

44:37Nothing sounds like a just reason for the deluge.

44:42- But somebody at some point was like,

44:44what if we threw the Nephilim in there?

44:46What if we threw the Nephilim in there?

44:47- So let's talk a little bit about these--

44:50- Who them are?

44:52- What's that?

44:53- Who them are?

44:54- Yeah, the-- - Who are them?

44:56- The banalohim, the sons of God who aren't Jesus.

45:01- No.

45:02- And they're plural. - And ain't us.

45:05- Yes.

45:06- We've got a few different phrases

45:09that we see throughout the Hebrew Bible.

45:11Here we have banalohim,

45:13which is literally sons of the God or sons of the gods,

45:18and then elsewhere it's just banalohim,

45:20sons of God or gods,

45:22because allohim can be plural or singular.

45:24This is what you see in Job chapter one,

45:28verse six, in Job chapter two,

45:31where the sons of God come prancing before God's throne

45:35to present themselves, ta-da,

45:38and Hasatan the Satan is among them.

45:42In Job, what is it, 37 or 38?

45:45The sons of God shouted for joy with all the stars

45:50at the foundation of the earth.

45:52You have, I think you have banalohim,

45:55which would also be sons of gods,

45:57but more explicitly plural, in Psalm 29

46:00and in a few other places.

46:03And then you have banalohim, sons of the most high,

46:06in Psalm 82, which is probably a callback

46:09to Deuteronomy 32, 8, and 9,

46:11where Elion divides up the nations.

46:13According to the number of the sons of God.

46:16- Right.

46:17- And there's a long history of interpretation here,

46:19which I would argue begins in horientiquity

46:23with the conceptualization of the gods of the divine council

46:26as the offspring, the literal children of the high deity

46:31and the high deities, consort, partner, or wife.

46:35We see this in the Eucharitic literature,

46:37where El is the high deity, Athirat is the,

46:42the consort, partner, or wife of El,

46:44and then all of the gods of the divine council

46:46are referred to as the children of El

46:48or the 70 sons of Athirat.

46:52And so this is probably the tradition

46:55that's influencing what's going on here.

46:57So in the earliest conceptualization,

46:59the banalohim would have been the literal offspring

47:02of the divine couple, the children of God,

47:05and that would have constituted the various patron deities

47:08of the different nations of the earth

47:10and the various members of the divine council.

47:13So that I think is the oldest conceptualization.

47:15- And this would have been written at a time when

47:20this was before yawism, is that correct?

47:28Is this is before sort of that got conflated with El?

47:34- So these hierarchies and structures,

47:39yes, predates Adonai's arrival into the area.

47:43Now their use in the Hebrew Bible probably does not,

47:47but the Deuteronomy 32, 8, and 9,

47:51I and many other scholars think preserves

47:54an early understanding of Adonai

47:58as one of the banalohim, as one of the children of God.

48:03So El-Yon would be a separate deity, the Most High,

48:05and then Adonai would have been one of the banalohim

48:09who was given Israel as their inheritance.

48:13That was the nation that they inherited from El-Yon.

48:17And that was, which is why Israel is repeatedly referred to

48:21as Adonai's inheritance in the Hebrew Bible.

48:24And, but that meant that Adonai's purview

48:28and sovereignty, geopolitically speaking,

48:30was limited to the land of Israel,

48:32which we've talked about many times on this channel.

48:35- So theoretically, what we could be talking about then

48:39is a sort of other patron deities

48:43or at least entities of that level,

48:48whether they were given a patronage or not,

48:51deciding to live here on earth

48:53and grab them one of those pretty human girls

48:57that seem so fun.

48:58- Yeah, and this story, there's no good place

49:03to slot this into the rest of the narrative

49:08that we find in the Hebrew Bible

49:12or in other literature.

49:15There aren't a lot of traditions of demigods

49:19running around the different nations of the earth

49:22because they are the offspring of their patron deity

49:24and human.

49:26- Yeah, it really does seem like it's just thrown away.

49:29It's like they dropped this bomb at the beginning

49:34of this chapter and then just never mind.

49:38- And that's one of the reasons I think

49:40that you have later elaboration on it by other texts

49:43and the main one being First Enoch,

49:46which kind of takes this text in the Greco-Roman period,

49:49the Hellenistic period and runs with it.

49:52And one of the first things that they do

49:53is they re-interpret the Benelohim as angels.

49:57- Okay.

49:58- And this is part of the post-exilic kind of squishing down

50:03of the divine council, which occurred alongside the elevation,

50:08the exaltation of Adonai the God of Israel.

50:12Basically, they're trying to distinguish

50:15and separate these two groups of deities,

50:18Adonai in one group and then everybody else on another group

50:21and they get shoved down into angelic status.

50:26And so these are now angels and they're giving a bunch

50:29of names in Enoch and you have the head malevolent angel

50:33and all this.

50:34And so a bunch of angels rebel and descend to Mount Hermon

50:38on earth and then they have sex with all these human women

50:43and the offspring are the giants

50:45and then the giants give birth to the Nephilim

50:48and then the Nephilim die and their spirits rise up

50:51and become the disembodied demons that inhabit the earth

50:56and possess people.

50:57- Oh, wow, okay.

50:58- Yes.

50:59- That's the story in first, you know,

51:01well, it's one of the stories.

51:02They actually repeat things a few times

51:04and it's not always consistent.

51:06- Repetition in the Bible?

51:07What?

51:08- Yeah, that's not the Bible, right?

51:10That's the non-canonical Bible or whatever.

51:13- Well, depends on who's canon you're talking about

51:15'cause it's still a part of the canon

51:17of the Ethiopian Orthodox to Ahado church.

51:19- Right, so remember that.

51:21- Yes, it is in there.

51:23But this raises an interesting question

51:25because once you get down into early Christianity

51:29and early Judaism in the first century BCE,

51:31first century CE, people are beginning to ask questions

51:35'cause they're like, wait a minute.

51:37So the angels had sex with humans

51:40and they were rebelling against God.

51:43- Right.

51:44- And you had a bunch of different people

51:46on different sides of this going, wait a minute,

51:48angels can't rebel.

51:49They don't have their own agency.

51:51They can't do that.

51:53And then there were other people saying,

51:55they're not sexually compatible.

51:57They're not made of flesh and bone.

51:59Never mind. - So to speak.

52:03- Yes. (laughing)

52:04- As it were.

52:05- As it were in the parlance of our times.

52:09(laughing)

52:12And so you had a bunch of different ideas developing

52:15about the sexual compatibility of angels.

52:17And so there are, and you see actually different positions

52:22in the New Testament 'cause you have the idea

52:25that is reflected in one of the epistles, I think Peter,

52:29that these angels, no, it's Jude.

52:31We talked about this.

52:32The angels kept not their first estate

52:36and they came down and did the naughty.

52:41And then it talks about Sodom and Gomorrah,

52:44in like manner, pursued other flesh.

52:49And so this is condemning the angels

52:51who are trying to have sex with women

52:53as this perverse abomination,

52:56just like the men of Sodom who tried to have sex with angels.

53:00We're crossing boundaries here that ought not be crossed.

53:03- Right.

53:04- And there's a wonderful paper from,

53:07gosh, now 40, 53 years ago,

53:11written by Philip Alexander called Targumim

53:14and the early exegesis of sons of God.

53:17But he talks about a lot of early Jewish debates about this.

53:20For instance, some of the folks said

53:25that the Testament of Reuben says

53:27that there was no actual intercourse

53:29between the angels and the women.

53:30The angels changed themselves into the shape of men

53:35and appeared to the women

53:37when they were with their husbands.

53:40- Oh.

53:41- So yeah, they were basically just leering at them

53:45in the shape of male humans.

53:47And what does it say?

53:50Oh, and the women lusting in their minds after their forms.

53:55So the women are with their husbands

53:59and in the biblical sense.

54:00And suddenly an angel decides to take the form

54:03of a human male and the ladies are like,

54:06hey now, and this resulted in them

54:10giving birth to giants.

54:12For the watchers appeared to them

54:14as reaching even unto heaven.

54:16- Wow.

54:17- Now I'm thinking of Isaiah six

54:20and what exactly it was that filled the temple.

54:22But.

54:23- Right, right.

54:24- But yeah, I know the reference, yeah.

54:26- So, and now we're getting into the sympathetic magic

54:29with Jacob and the sticks in front of the sheep.

54:34Like they saw these well endowed

54:38and in who knows how many ways angels

54:40while they were doing the hippity-dibity

54:43with their husbands.

54:44And so they conceived giants evidently.

54:46- Right.

54:48- And then you have others, let's see.

54:51Another text that said Rabbi Joshua Ben Karka said,

54:56"The angels are flaming fire."

54:58As it is said, his servants are flaming fires on 104.4.

55:02The fire had intercourse with flesh and blood

55:05yet did not burn the body.

55:07But when they fell from heaven from their holy place,

55:10their strength and stature became like that of the sons of men

55:14and their frame was made of clods of dust.

55:17As it is said, my flesh is clothed with worms

55:20and clods of dust, Job 7.5.

55:23And so Alexander says,

55:25"The implication is that real intercourse took place

55:28"made possible because the angels assumed material bodies

55:31"of evidently fire and dirt."

55:36- So it's like in Superman too,

55:38and Superman goes into the chamber and...

55:41- He reverses the thing. - Yeah.

55:41(laughing)

55:44- And then he's suddenly not Superman anymore.

55:48- And then he tricks him.

55:49And so the one guy goes, "Huh!"

55:51- Yeah, that's right. - And then just,

55:53whoa, spoiler alert, man.

55:55- Hey, if you have not seen Superman too yet,

55:58I'm not gonna ruin Superman 4.

56:01- Yeah, what's the guy's name, Nuclear Man or something like that?

56:04- Oh my goodness.

56:05- Well, listen, when you get a hair from Superman,

56:08what are you gonna do with it?

56:09- Yeah, so basically, there was just,

56:12there was a lot of controversy about sexy angels.

56:15- Yeah.

56:16- Stupid sexy angels.

56:18- Do you, they...

56:19- Stop being so hot.

56:20(laughing)

56:22- And so this is what's going on.

56:23We've talked about Jude.

56:25That was one of the things that was going on.

56:27However, the folks who were like,

56:29"Wait a minute, angels can't rebel.

56:31"Wait a minute, angels can't have sexual intercourse

56:34"with human women."

56:35Another interpretation popped up.

56:37- Okay.

56:38- What if they're humans?

56:41Hmm, yeah.

56:43- The angels?

56:44- Well, the banalohim, the children of God.

56:47And so a different interpretation of Genesis 6 popped up,

56:51which understood the banalohim, the children of God,

56:55to be a reference to the line of Seth.

56:59And so this is humans who are doing this

57:03and therefore not gods at all.

57:06- Okay.

57:06- And so this is kind of sidestepping the anarchic tradition

57:09saying we don't like that tradition.

57:11We're gonna go this other way.

57:12That interprets things as humans.

57:14And what this facilitated was this allowed them

57:18to now look at other passages that use the word Elohim

57:21and say maybe it's humans there too.

57:25And so we get Exodus 21 and Exodus 22

57:29where you have these different rituals

57:30that you're supposed to do before Hylohim

57:34and the verbs associated, at least in Exodus 22,

57:38make clear that these are plural Elohims.

57:41And so it's not just God.

57:43You see a lot of translations that render judges there.

57:48'Cause they're like, well, this must be,

57:50so by analogy with the human reading of Genesis 6,

57:53we're also gonna read these Elohim as humans as well.

57:57And we're just gonna imagine that they're judges.

57:59So this debate resulted in a few different interpretations

58:04of what the Benelohim could be.

58:06- Sure.

58:07- And one of those interpretations was,

58:08oh, they're just humans.

58:09They're the line of set.

58:10- Which is weird because they do seem to be very much

58:13differentiated from the daughters of people.

58:18- Humans, like of mortals.

58:21It's an odd contrast to draw.

58:23- It starts with the idea, yeah.

58:25If that is your interpretation,

58:27then Genesis 6 says, "When people had daughters,

58:32then the sons of other people thought that they were fit."

58:36Yeah, I think that's how it works.

58:39- Yeah, it doesn't make much sense to me.

58:44Like the humans, they had children

58:47with the daughters of humans.

58:49- Right, exactly.

58:51- It feels like a weird thing to make a distinction about.

58:54- Yeah, it's a little anticlimactic,

58:56but so yeah, it's clearly not what was originally intended,

59:01but that became for a lot of people.

59:03And particularly as the anochic tradition

59:05kind of faded into the background,

59:08that kind of became a more standard view.

59:12And so today you'll see an awful lot of people

59:14who'd be like, "Oh, that just means judges."

59:17And however, the anochic tradition is starting

59:21to make a comeback because the text has been available

59:24now in English translation for some time.

59:27You're seeing a lot more people who were like,

59:30"They took this from us, we gotta bring it back."

59:34And so there's a lot more concern for what this means.

59:37And I don't think they have yet thought about the implications

59:42of returning to an angelic interpretation of Genesis 6

59:45for how they interpret other uses of the word Elohim

59:48or Benelohim elsewhere in the Bible.

59:51So.

59:52- There you go.

59:53- It's a mess, it's a mess, it's like so many

59:57of the topics that we go over, it's entirely unclear,

60:00but what we do know is that there's something fishy going on.

60:04- Yeah.

60:05- Something weird how angels.

60:07And something tells me that if biblical authors

60:10had any idea how much like turmoil,

60:15their little things would cause in the future,

60:19I think they might've thought a little better

60:20of how they did a few things.

60:23But.

60:24- I think an awful lot of them would be proud

60:26of how influential their texts have been.

60:29They would, I did that.

60:31- That is the true answer of the perpetual provocateur.

60:34So there you go, well done to you.

60:37I guess that's it for the show,

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