Ep 25: A Beatitude Adjustment for Jordan Peterson

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01:18This is the case of someone trying to leverage the authority of the Bible to give permission

01:23to their specific group of followers to be monsters because he knows they want to be

01:28monsters and they want Jesus's blessing and you don't have Jesus's blessing to be a monster.

01:37Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan and I'm Dan Beacher and you are listening to the

01:44Data Over Dogma podcast where we try to increase the public's access to the academic study

01:49of the Bible and religion and combat the spread of misinformation about the same. And today

01:55we're going to be doing some of said combating, aren't we, Dan?

01:58Oh, my gosh. This is going to be, this is going to be some fun combat. We're we're

02:05rhetorical combat just to be clear. I'll tell you what, we're going after Jordan Peterson

02:10friends. It's I, you know, you don't want to bury the lead on this. The second half of

02:16our show, we're coming for you, JP. And we'll, we'll see how good a job he does. Yeah. Because

02:24he has been wading around on your turf. I got to say there is some trampling of my purview.

02:32Yeah, that that has occurred. And I'm not happy about it. So yeah, but before that, let's do

02:41a chapter in verse. Excellent. And which chapter and what verse shall we engage? Well, we're

02:50going to probably talk about a couple chapters and definitely several verses. We're going

02:55to be attitudes, which I recently learned is a word I never knew what that word meant.

03:03I had always heard it in reference to the sermon on the mount, but I didn't know what

03:07the beatitude meant, but I have a thing called Wikipedia that's very useful. Yeah. And I and

03:16it turns out that it's it's from the Latin Vulgate, the word blessings, or blessed that

03:24begins each of these little verses is Bayati in the Latin, which which means that the plural

03:33adjective. Yeah. But I got to say, I'm disappointed with something, which is that in the original

03:39Greek, it's it's makarioy. And it is a missed opportunity that these are not the makarioids.

03:47That's all I'm saying. Well, some scholars refer to them as makarisms. Oh, okay. So that

03:54is I feel like an English word. I feel like sayings that you say should be should be Mac

04:00or something isms anyway. I get Dan isms is what I heard, but there you go. Yeah. Anyway,

04:09let's talk about the beatitudes. The sermon on the mount as a as a sort of a as a sermon

04:15is kind of unique in form and in content for Jesus. Yeah. Wouldn't you say? Yeah, we there's

04:23only one gospel in which we have what we know formally as the sermon on the mount. And that

04:28is the gospel of Matthew. We have a lot of parallel comments in Luke chapter six in a

04:37sermon which is generally referred to as a sermon on the plane. So it's not a flat sermon

04:43and you got the bumpy sermon. You got what you go? Well, I was going to go in the direction

04:48of these lecturing folks who are sitting in first class. But yeah, he's a sermon on the

04:55mount and we don't know where if this actually happened, I think most scholars would say the

05:02exact words that we see in Matthew are a literary product and not a reflection of an actual single

05:08historical event. But if something like this happened, it probably would have been somewhere

05:16in the north of the Sea of Galilee as you and I will see next year, there is a church that is set

05:27up on up high on a hill overlooking the northwest shores of the Sea of Galilee that is traditionally

05:36associated with the location of the sermon on the mount, a gorgeous area, very peaceful and

05:43relaxing place to go, content plate, the sermon on the mount. But it is and like all of the places

05:50in in and around that area, that church is very surely exactly where this this historical event

06:00may or may not have happened. It's actually not a very old church. It is it's fairly recent,

06:05but there was a Byzantine era church that's a little further down the hill. But yeah, pretty

06:10much everything in the land of Israel that you see is either something that was identified in the

06:154th century CE or was identified in the Byzantine era or in the crusader area. So yeah, there's not

06:26a ton that goes all the way back to the 1st century CE and certainly not in this location.

06:31Because the textile it says is there was his mount and they were on the mount and turns around and

06:36starts addressing everybody. And what we have here are the sermon on the mount is the larger

06:43sermon that is it's kind of summing up what Jesus's followers thought were essential for

06:56disciples to know. So like if you had to take the whole Jesus movement and say if you became a

07:03disciple of the Jesus movement in the 1st 2nd century CE, what was like your intro packet?

07:10What did you need to know about being a disciple? The Sermon on the Mount is kind of the distillation

07:18of here's what it takes to be a disciple of Jesus. And the Sermon on the plane in Luke,

07:25some scholars have argued that the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew is aimed at a more Jewish

07:32social setting. Whereas the Sermon on the plane in Luke might be aimed at a more Gentile setting,

07:39Greco-Roman setting. And so one theory is that this was kind of the intro to Jesus' discipleship

07:50before the Gospels were written down. And so the Gospel authors Matthew and Luke, or at least

07:57whoever wrote those Gospels whom we traditionally attribute to Matthew and Luke took that little

08:03package up and kind of wove it into their narrative and said we're going to take this little

08:09primer on being a disciple and we're going to make it something that Jesus shared with the followers.

08:16And so the opening segment, the exhortation at the very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount

08:25contains our beatitudes. So this runs from Matthew 5.3 all the way down to Matthew 5.12.

08:34So not alongside. And this is a part where, I mean, each of these has a sort of a standard

08:41form where it says blessed are the blank and the reason that they're blessed. So it's a very,

08:50it's a kind of almost a call and response or it's a standard form that he goes throughout

08:57each of these, these beatitudes. And this is, and this is not original to the Gospels in the sense

09:05that this formula of blessed are because long pre-existed the New Testament goes back to Plato

09:14and even before we see this in the Psalms and elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. So in the Greek,

09:20the word is you pronounced it macadioi. That's following the Erasmian pronunciation in modern

09:25Greek. It would be macadioi. But this is a translation of the Hebrew term aschai, which also means happy

09:36slash blessed. And so we see in places like Psalm 128 one, I think blessed are those who

09:46trust in the Lord or something like that. And so this kind of two line statement

09:52couplet that begins with blessed are or blessed is and then goes on to explaining why is something

09:59that goes way back. And there's an interesting distinction. Sorry, I just wanted to drive to

10:04drill down on one thing that you said, which is that there's a difference between blessed are and

10:11happy are in my mind that they could be, they could mean the same thing. But also the word blessed

10:20blessed could be could contain a sense of a subject object sort of thing, like there's a

10:28blesser and those who become blessed by that blesser. Whereas you don't need that relationship

10:35with the idea of happiness, like you're happy because of the thing and not because. So I'm wondering

10:42if if that's explored at all in the in this or or if that's meaning a meaningful distinction

10:49for this to be blessed versus happy. Yeah, the concept, it's it's like fortunate,

10:56happy, privileged. Okay. And so that bleeds into the idea of being favored, divinely favored,

11:04blessed. So it certainly includes this kind of transitive property that this is something

11:10being bestowed upon you, but not necessarily. And so that's that's open for some interpretation,

11:18I would argue. Okay. And so that's why it's a little difficult to to translate. But blessed

11:25has become traditional. And so that's how most translations go about it. But you could say

11:30fortunate, you could say happy. But yeah, blessed is is most popular. And the idea is that these

11:40blessings are bestowed by God. But I don't think that's necessarily inherent in the in the text

11:46itself. But we see this in in Egyptian literature, we see this in Jewish wisdom literature, we see

11:53this in Greek literature, we see it in a number of different places. So they did not innovate it

11:59for the New Testament. Rather, they picked up this literary device, this literary genre and said

12:04we're going to represent this introduction to Jesus discipleship using this very popular,

12:13very famous, very widespread piece of nomological literature. This is this is Jesus's version of

12:22particularly participating in a TikTok trend, something like that. Yeah. One that had been going

12:28on for several centuries. And we can only hope that TikTok will go on for several centuries.

12:33Or not. And so they're basically trying to distill down essential positions and doctrines in the

12:43briefest, the shortest possible form. And one thing I want to point out is that these are focusing on

12:51divine justice. These are focusing on what is right and what is just in the world. And so there's

13:00a close relationship with morality, with ethics. This is supposed to heighten your ethical awareness

13:09and make people think about social justice, divine justice, cosmic order, and their place within all

13:17of that. Yeah. Unless you're Jordan Peterson, but we'll get to that. So should we just go through

13:25them? Yeah, let's let's go with the first one. So verse verse three starts with, and it's translated

13:31in, I think what I've got here is King James, but it says, blessed are the poor in spirit

13:39for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Exactly. And this is paralleled in Luke, only it does not have

13:49the addition of in spirit. It just has blessed are the poor. Well, that's two very different things.

14:01Yes, it is two very different things. Blessed. Let me see. This is Luke six verse 20. And it says,

14:12blessed are you who are poor for yours is the kingdom of heaven. So in addition to

14:17leaving out the in spirit, it's also a second person rather than a third person statement.

14:23Now, a lot of people try to make a big deal out of poor in spirit as if this is only referring to

14:30kind of a a psychological disposition and not to an economic socioeconomic status. I think the fact

14:40that Luke takes it one direction, Matthew adds the in spirit indicates that there's a relationship

14:45going on here. And and we actually see this phrase elsewhere in Jewish literature. In fact,

14:51it's in the Dead Sea Scrolls. It's in Hebrew, where we have the phrase, anve ruach, which means

14:58oppressed in spirit or poor in spirit. And so this is basically translating from Hebrew,

15:06this concept of poor in spirit, which is not which can be a reference to humility,

15:11but can also refer to socioeconomic status. And so the scholarship that I've seen on this has

15:20suggested that this is an invitation to recognize the the depraved state of the human condition

15:29that we are there's poverty, there is misery, there is suffering. And so the the one who is poor

15:37in spirit may be socioeconomically poor, but is also one who just recognizes the low state of

15:46the human condition. And recognizing that is important to understanding one's life. In other words,

15:53you need to recognize the poor states of the human condition in order to have a foundation for

16:02living an ethical life. Yeah, I got to say adding the in spirit feels like it makes it a much more

16:08nebulous concept becomes much trickier. It is. Yeah, I would agree with that. I think the idea

16:16here is is not just like a kind of constitutional here's a precise little datum, but it is to some

16:23degree an invitation to contemplate these things. But it is at the same time what the

16:28Beatitudes are doing is kind of overturning the conventions of the time regarding success in life.

16:36And having said that I have to think of Conan the barbarian what is best in life. Jesus might

16:44instead of saying to, you know, the quote says, well, to be poor in spirit, that's kind of the

16:51opening salvo. And it says for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, which overturns expectations.

16:57It's not the powerful. It's not the wealthy. It's not the haughty. It's not the people who rule things

17:03here who will rule in the kingdom of heaven. But the kingdom of heaven overturns those expectations.

17:09And it's I feel like Jesse Falwell and Joel Osteen would have would have some truck with this concept.

17:17Yeah. Yeah. This rather undermines the prosperity gospel because it is I think it is expanding the

17:24scope beyond just socioeconomic poverty. But it definitely includes the socioeconomic poverty.

17:31And so the idea is that the real philosopher kings in the kingdom of heaven are those who recognize

17:38that we are all in a pitiful state and that the human condition is the baseline is a one of poverty,

17:49socioeconomic, moral, and other types. So so we're starting off strong. We are hitting the ground

17:57running. And the next one is going to kind of move in an in an orderly fashion to those who

18:08mourn blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. We have a Hebrew Bible parallel to

18:13the transition from the poor in spirit to those who mourn. And that's in Isaiah 61.

18:20And it says here. So the first three verses say the spirit of the of Adonai God is upon me

18:27because Adonai has anointed me. He has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed. And this

18:33this is that word that can also be translated poor. So Anav, Anve, Ruach, poor in spirit to

18:42proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners to proclaim proclaim the year of

18:47Adonai's favor and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn. So we're following

18:54kind of the the order of operations that we see in Isaiah 61. So this is not a haphazard. This is

19:02not random. But the author of Matthew is putting these together in an order that would resonate

19:09with folks who know the Jewish scriptures. And the idea here is that if poverty is kind of

19:19one of the features of the human condition in general, the next one after that would be grief.

19:26People are poor. People are suffering. People are oppressed. And then people grieve because death

19:32is also a natural part of everything. Yeah, I think that there's a it is an interesting

19:40opening, as you say, to this concept, which is we're starting off with a rejection of, like you say,

19:51the wealthy and the powerful. And and those who, you know, all the people who are sort of at the top

19:56of what you might consider a sociological pyramid of sort of who has it easy, who's happy.

20:05Those people are not the ones that are being celebrated here or that are being blessed here,

20:14which I think is fascinating. Yeah, and the second clause in the second B attitude for

20:21they will be comforted. That's what we have there in Isaiah 61. That's the spirit of Adonai

20:29God is upon me to comfort all who mourn, to provide for those who mourn in Zion. So this

20:36can have to do with personal loss, with death, but it's also about the loss of the land. It is about

20:43the oppression under a larger empire. So the mourning can take different shapes, but God is

20:50there to comfort those who mourn. And so what is unexpected is what the kingdom of God is all

20:58about. The poor and spirit, the kingdom of heaven will be there as those who mourn turns out they're

21:02going to be comforted. And and this has kind of contemporary application, but there's also

21:08an eschatological perspective. It's also saying this is what's coming in the future when God comes

21:17in the end times are here. Basically, those who are, you know, kind of under the boot of what society

21:25accepts as as happiness, as as a blessed state, should be happy, should be blessed. And in the

21:34end times, that's when everything's going to be overturned. And they're going to receive the

21:38recompense. And they're going to be shown to be the ones who are truly happy. They're going to be

21:44shown to be the ones who will be comforted, who will rule in the kingdom of heaven.

21:49And then we get to verse five, blessed, which we will have some contention with later.

21:55In the later in the show, but right now, yeah, it's blessed are the meek for they will inherit

22:04the earth. Yes. Talk, talk, talk first about the word that is used there for meek. And then, yeah,

22:15it is interesting because we've already had an inheritance of the kingdom of heaven. We know

22:20who's inheriting that. Yeah. Now we're inheriting the earth, which I find a little confusing because

22:25it feels like up until now, what we've been talking about is like, after in a sort of in a later time,

22:33you get a thing. Why, why are the meek inheriting the earth and what's going on there?

22:38This, this is something that is debated by some scholars, but in the gospels, the, what's coming,

22:47this promised salvation is not necessarily about flying into the sky to live in the clouds. It's

22:54actually something that's going to be on earth. And there's an argument to make that the kingdom of

23:00heaven, that the gospel authors are kind of presenting the kingdom of heaven is already here in some

23:05sense. And in the history of Christianity, there are folks who have interpreted the kingdom of heaven

23:10as, as underway as, as having arrived on earth. So the kingdom of heaven and earth are kind of

23:18different sides to the same coin. But we are talking about the earth itself. There are debates

23:27about does this mean political kingdoms? Does this mean the land? What does this mean? It's,

23:33I mean, the text doesn't really give us a lot of help there. However, this is a quote from an Old

23:40Testament passage. Oh, okay. This is Psalm 3611, but it's being quoted from the Greek translation,

23:50which is in the Septuagint, it's Psalm 37. The Septuagint has an additional psalm. And so,

23:59but in 3711, we have that same word that is used for the poor in Hebrew, Anav,

24:06which is the oppressed, really, but it can also mean the humbled. And so the new revised standard

24:15version translates, but the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant prosperity.

24:23And it's, oh, I think I, I think I flipped the versions. It's 3711 in the, in the Hebrew and in

24:29most English translations, it's 3611. Oh my gosh, Dan, get your act together.

24:33The debunking Dan TikTok account, I think needs to, I'm calling on the sock puppet to

24:44correct me there. But so, uh, when this is translated into Greek, they use this word prahis,

24:52which means gentle, which means humble, which means meek. It's not the, um, the word that they

24:58translate in the other parts where we talk about, um, poor in spirit. That's a different Greek word.

25:05So the, the interpreters of this psalm are understanding this to refer to somebody who's

25:09gentle, humble meek. And, uh, the idea here is, is basically again overturning those expectations.

25:18It's not the proud. It's not the arrogant. It's not the violent. It's the ones who are gentle,

25:23who are calm, who are reserved, who are meek, who will be the ones to inherit the earth,

25:29whether that is a reference to political kingdoms or geographical regions or whatever. So once again,

25:35what's expected is being overturned. And this is supposed to allow believers to reflect on their

25:42current existence, to feel better about perhaps being in a position where they really don't really

25:48have any power. Uh, but just accepting that and being gentle and kind and meek is how they can

25:56kind of, um, generate a sense of contentment of happiness. And we see this in, in philosophical

26:02treatises as well, um, around this time period talking about how kindness, gentleness, meekness,

26:08is the sign of someone who has, um, has their crap together, has a real, uh, grasp of, um, ethics.

26:16Yeah. Okay. We'll get a counterpoint to that in the second half of the show. Yeah. Yeah.

26:22And if you look at the rest of, of Psalm 37, it says the wicked shall be cut off. Those who

26:27wait for Adonai shall inherit the land, uh, yet a little while the wicked will be no more,

26:32though you look diligently for their place, they will not be there, but the meek shall inherit

26:37the land and delight themselves in abundant prosperity. So even this Psalm is kind of talking

26:42about when the Lord comes, they're going to overturn things and the proud and the powerful are going to

26:48be, keep thinking of pseudo Spanish words, like a chard. Um, no, they're going to be, um, kicked out,

26:57and it is the meek, the ones who, uh, are humble who are going to take over. Man, we already have

27:03like Latin and Greek and, and Hebrew here, we don't, don't bring Spanish into the mix. We're

27:09already too confused here. All right. Moving on. Um, blessed, blessed are those who hunger and thirst

27:17for righteousness for they will be satisfied. Yeah. And, and here we have another, uh, kind of a

27:24further development of this idea that this is recognition of the sad state of the human condition.

27:34If you are poor in spirit, if you are mourning, if you are meek, then you're going to recognize

27:38that there is unrighteousness all around you and it's going to hurt. It's going to leave you

27:44wanting righteousness. And so we have this concept of hungering and thirsting after righteousness

27:51as a result of the human condition. And I want to go to, to Luke here, actually. So in Luke six,

27:57this follows after the blessed are the poor, uh, in the sermon on the plane, Luke six, 21,

28:02blessed are you who are hungry now for you will be filled. Uh, and so in Luke, again, we're going

28:10away from kind of the, uh, the math, eh, and poor in spirit, hunger and thirst after righteousness.

28:16And we're back to kind of a more corporeal kind of immediate, those who, who have hunger, uh, a more

28:23specific hunger for food, uh, for you will be filled. Remind me which, uh, which between Matthew and

28:31Luke, which one do we think was written first and which second? Um, so, uh, Mark is first of all the,

28:37all the gospels. And then I think I am of the opinion that Matthew, uh, comes before Luke,

28:44but it's not that they were, like Matthew wrote his and Luke was like, has Matthew and says,

28:50well, I'm an improve upon this. It's that, um, Matthew is writing, using Mark as a source,

28:57but also using other sources. And then Luke is writing probably a few decades later,

29:03a few years to a few decades later and they have Mark and they have Matthew, but they also have

29:08their own independent sources. And so they're probably pulling these things, um, from other

29:13sources rather than just kind of directly piggybacking on, uh, what Matthew is saying. So it could be

29:19that Luke is preserving an earlier version of this. It could be that Matthew has, uh, editorialized,

29:27where maybe they both had the, this manuscript that said, blessed are the poor, blessed are those

29:32who hunger. And Matthew was like, I can do better than this, blessed are the poor in spirit,

29:38blessed are those who hunger in thirst after righteousness. Um, there are arguments about that.

29:46We don't have near enough data to say much more than could be one way, could be the other. I would,

29:53I would suggest. I wanted to hit on something with this, uh, with, with this verse six with the

29:59hunger and thirst for righteousness or after righteousness thing, because I think you mentioned

30:04it. It's very clear, like the, the following thing that they will be satisfied makes it seem pretty

30:12clear that this isn't hunger and search thirst for righteousness in themselves, but rather those

30:19who hunger and thirst for righteousness in the world and don't find it. Right. Uh, and then,

30:25and then finally, you know, I will be eventually satisfied that, you know, everybody got their

30:30comeuppance or whatever it is, but it doesn't, it's, yeah, I think that's fascinating that it's not

30:34about like those who try to be righteous, but rather those who are out there wishing that

30:42everybody else was righteous. I think, I think there's a lot of, uh, a lot of folks think that

30:46when they talk about righteousness, it has kind of a modern legalistic sense that righteousness is

30:51like right behavior. And, uh, in the New Testament, we are incorporating some Greek philosophical

30:57frameworks. It's not, um, uh, it's not directly, uh, unmediated from, uh, ancient Israelite concepts,

31:06but in the ancient Israelite world, righteousness was a state of affairs where righteous meant that

31:13people were fulfilling their role. And there was harmony. There was, uh, social, the, there was

31:22social order. There was cosmic order. And so, uh, is there a sense of justice in that? Absolutely.

31:27Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Like, like I said earlier, this is, it has a lot to do with divine justice.

31:32And in the Hebrew Bible, you have this idea that God is there to uphold cosmic justice,

31:39and then social justice and cosmic justice are intertwined. And if one, um, is out of sync,

31:46then it will throw the other out of sync as well. And so social justice was, um, these ideas that,

31:53you know, you've got to provide for the poor and the widow and the orphan and the oppressed.

31:58You've got to make sure that they're not going through too much suffering because if the imbalance

32:03is too great, then that's when everything gets thrown out of whack. And, and so, you know,

32:08earthquakes and floods and disasters and invasions and these kinds of things are in, in some ways,

32:14conceptualized as the natural consequences of the social order and the justice of society being

32:20thrown out of whack. And so like in the laws of Hammurabi, you have, um, the kings are kind of viewed

32:27as, as the deities mediator on earth. It's their job to implement the deities will. And so to the

32:36degree that they uphold justice, they are, um, and righteousness. They are performing their duties

32:43well. So in the laws of Hammurabi, you have a Hammurabi starting off saying, you know, I'm,

32:47look at me, I'm awesome. I maintain the rights of the widow and of the poor. And I did, I'm doing

32:54all these things. And then you can look throughout all of the laws and you never find any law about

32:59the poor or the widow that's actually like serving their interests. That was kind of a social justice

33:05was kind of the canary in the coal mine of cosmic justice. And so if you saw it getting out of whack,

33:11you knew that something bad was going to happen. So when they're looking for, um, thirsting after

33:18righteousness here, you're exactly right. It's not in themselves. They're searching after a

33:23state of affairs that is in alignment with God's righteousness. And it's not going to be fulfilled

33:31until the escaton, the end times, it's the, the second coming. It's the institution of the kingdom

33:37of God that is finally going to achieve a, uh, a state of affairs that can be called righteous.

33:43Well, if, if there, if anything in this book could be said to be prophetic, I would say that 2,000

33:49years later, we have still not achieved an, an, an adjust order to society. So, uh, yeah, okay.

33:56Yeah, give it to them. And, um, and, and these days we're, we're still trying to, the same old

34:02tact, a same old approach of saying the wealthy need more power and money than everybody else will,

34:10um, everything will fall into place magically for everybody else. For some reason, it still

34:16hasn't worked. But the, the justice trickle down. Yeah. Yeah. It's not trickle down. Right. Yeah.

34:23Yeah. Has it played out any better than the economic version? No, no, no, no. It's, is, uh, uh,

34:30Epic fail, uh, in the parlance of our times. And then, um, at the, uh, toward the end of the

34:37sermon on the mountain, Matthew six, verse 33, we have this, uh, the statements, uh, in the NRSV,

34:44we have, but strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these things

34:51will be given to you as well. So the, this idea of God's right righteousness is kind of the pinnacle

34:58of, of, um, what discipleship is about. You're trying to bring about a state of righteousness

35:05across the board. Okay. I like that. Uh, and then, uh, we, we get to another, another one that I'm

35:14pretty fond of. Blessed are the merciful for the, will be shown mercy. Yeah. This is, uh, and the,

35:22the word here for, um, for mercy is, uh, is a pretty generic one in Greek, but, uh, in Hebrew,

35:30has said is, uh, is a word that it's translated. Sometimes mercy, sometimes grace, sometimes loving

35:36kindness. Uh, but the idea behind it is to, um, extend, basically to extend aid who, to someone

35:45who was unable to help themselves. Uh, when it's not even required of you. So from, uh, the point

35:53of view of the law, you know, there are certain things that you're required to do. You have rights,

35:57you have duties, but when you see someone in need and you are not required by the law

36:04to help them, but you do it anyway, that is a biblical notion of mercy. Uh, that is extending,

36:13uh, grace, extending mercy when it's not required. And so when we, we see talk about grace and mercy

36:20and particularly in the Hebrew Bible, but also in the New Testament, it's the idea that someone is

36:24helping someone else when they're not obligated to, which interestingly enough was an obligation

36:31within ancient Judaism. So it was like, here's the law. Also you have to go above and beyond the law.

36:37Um, you're, you're, you're, you're still not off the hook. Yeah. And I assume that that,

36:42that version of mercy, that sort of loving kindness, uh, generosity, idea of mercy,

36:49is how we were meant to understand the first part of the sentence as well. Blessed are the merciful.

36:55So that, that, that version of, of what mercy means, uh, applies to both of those instances.

37:01Absolutely. So it's basically what you send out into the universe, you will get back,

37:07provided it's, it's mercy provided. It's that grace, which is interesting because this is the

37:12first time that, uh, what you, what you are, what you give is what you get. And the rest of these,

37:18it's been, you know, you, if you are, if you are this, then you get this other thing. Yeah. And now

37:24you get it, uh, reflected, you get this mercy reflected back to yourself. Yeah. And, and we have

37:31elsewhere in the gospels, the idea that the more you forgive, the more you will receive forgiveness.

37:37So there's, there's a reciprocity, uh, to the concepts of forgiveness and mercy. But yeah, and,

37:43and this, uh, puts the lie to the argument that's, you know, the, particularly the Christian gospel,

37:50but, but, uh, any part of your responsibility to a, a biblical law where like this is what's written,

37:56and that's all I'm responsible for. The reality is, um, if you're really fulfilling it, it's

38:02it's a pieces of flair thing. Um,

38:06if you really, if you really internalize and believe in it, you'll want to wear more pieces of flair.

38:17Look, 12 is the minimum. Okay. But we hope that you'll want to do more and we encourage that.

38:25Yeah. Well, why don't you just make the minimum more?

38:27I feel like you're not understanding. All right. Let's move on. So the next one is, uh, blessed

38:35are the pure in heart. Yeah. For the, for they will see God. I like this one. This is a really

38:40cool one. A lot of people don't see the connection here, but, uh, but pure in heart, purity, the concept

38:45of purity and the New Testament and ancient Judaism had to do with cleanliness and cleanliness had

38:51to do with, uh, the ability to enter God's presence. So, uh, ritual instruments and ritual

38:58actors had to be cleansed, had to be purified both richly and physically so that they could enter

39:05into the sacred spaces, which were cleansed so that God's presence could dwell there. And so, uh,

39:14pure in heart is, uh, someone whose heart is clean and, uh, and pure. And we have this Psalm, uh,

39:22Psalm 24, verses three through six, uh, who shall ascend the hill of Adonai and who shall stand

39:28in his holy place and the holy place is the temple, which is richly and physically purified

39:35for the divine presence. Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their

39:41souls to what is false and do not swear deceitfully, they will receive blessing from Adonai and

39:45vindication from the God of their salvation, such is the company of those who seek him,

39:50who seek the face of the God of Jacob. And I am of the opinion that this has reference to an

39:58ancient commandment that, uh, is found in places like Deuteronomy 16 and 16 and elsewhere, where

40:04all the males of Israel were commanded three times a year to go up to, and, and most translations

40:10will say appear before God. And, uh, if you look in the Hebrew, the word therefore appear

40:16is a little odd because it is the verb for to see, but it is vocalized. In other words,

40:25the vowels that were added to it in the medieval period based on earlier traditions of how to

40:30vocalize the text have its, um, in the passive. So be seen. So we have the consonants that say,

40:38see the face of God. And we have the vowels that were added that say appear before the face of God.

40:46And so I and other scholars have argued that, uh, what we have here was originally a commandment

40:53to go into the temple to see the face of God. And that was, that became theologically problematic.

40:58And so a tradition that read the verb in the passive, uh, became normative. And so now we read

41:07it as, uh, appear before God, but you see it as well in, in Isaiah one, uh, verse 12, uh, when,

41:14who commanded you to trample my courts when you come to, and if you translate it appear before me,

41:19I just totally muddles up the Hebrew because the Hebrew is very clearly, but when you come to see

41:24my face is what it says in the Hebrew. So, and that became problematic just because, I mean,

41:30I know that there are scriptures that say, if you see God's face, you'll die or if you,

41:37yeah, that's, that's Exodus 33 20 where Moses says, show me your glory. And God says,

41:41no, um, and says, uh, no, no, human can see me or the text says, no, human can see my face.

41:49Um, I know you, you can't see my face because no human can see me and live. And this is the idea

41:55that the face of God is so brilliant and so shiny that it would kill you. Um, and so, uh, God says,

42:04I'm going to put my hand over your face. I'm going to walk by, then I'll take my hand away.

42:09You're going to see my butt, but you will not see my face. Um, and the text is my back, but, uh,

42:15backside is, is, uh, I think a better translation. Um, I'm only kind of joking. Um, and so the,

42:22there was this idea that God was so brilliant and shiny that it would kill you to look directly

42:27at God. It was like the sun. You can't look at the sun or, you know, um, you hurt your eyes like

42:32I did when I was like eight years old. Um, and so the, but if you are purified, if you are pure in

42:40heart, if you have that cleanliness, then you can withstand the, uh, what is called the beautific

42:46vision, which we see in Psalms, uh, where they're talking about longing for the face of God. Um,

42:53which is something that you can, if, if that ancient tradition is what I think it is,

42:58is something that you can only experience when you go into one of the temples, um, which

43:03don't exist anymore, uh, in the land of Israel. So I, I would argue that, uh, blessed are the pure

43:09in heart for they will see God is, is a reflex is an echo of this ancient idea that you went into

43:15the temple to see God's face or to be in God's presence. All right. That's cool. Uh, all right,

43:23moving on to blessed are the peacemakers, uh, for they will be called the sons of God or, or, uh,

43:30cheesemakers, or just any kind of security. I think you said cheesemakers, or, or is it the

43:35peacemaker, which is the, the, the pistol. No, yeah, blessed are the peacemakers. There, there are

43:42arguments about if this has a religious dimension or a political dimension, but that division didn't

43:48exist. Anciently you, that is something that was created, uh, between the medieval period and,

43:55and the enlightenment. Uh, so explain, explain the two, the, the division that you're talking

44:01about. So, um, when we talk, we talk about religion and politics as like, two separate

44:07social categories or, or dimensions. And so we get, we will label stuff as religious and other

44:13stuff as a secular or political or, or something like that. And that division was not a division

44:20that they recognized anciently. That is a creation of the Renaissance Reformation and

44:26enlightenment. And there's a, um, there are a couple of really good books that talk about this,

44:30how there was a time when there was no such thing as the concept of religion or secularity,

44:36the secular. Uh, one good book is a Brent Nongbury before religion. Another one is William Kavanaugh,

44:41the myth of religious violence that talk about the history of the development of the concept of

44:47religion. So those who say is peacemakers, a religious concept or a secular slash political

44:53concept. That's that division didn't exist in the first, yes, it is those things. So, so the

45:00answer is yes. Um, uh, but notice, okay, peacemakers for they will be called the children of God.

45:07Children of God is a title that we see in the Hebrew Bible, Benelohim in Hebrew, uh,

45:13their representatives kind of problematic beings in Genesis six, uh, and elsewhere. But by the time

45:19of the New Testament, there's another sense that has developed, which is related to the notion that

45:24Israel is God's son. And then when we get into Christianity, we have, for instance, in the Gospel

45:29of John, this idea that, uh, those who believe in Jesus will become the children of God.

45:35And the idea is basically you're adopted into God's family. And so the way to, uh,

45:42achieve alignment with an incorporation into God's family is to be peacemakers. So once again,

45:47we have this reflection on the poverty stricken miserly state of the human condition. And we want

45:57to try to improve things by being peacemakers. Yeah, which is an interesting take, uh, considering

46:04that at very least a significant amount of this book is not about peace. So, so yeah, it's nice,

46:13it's nice that we've now turned to, uh, to peacemaking as a virtue. And, and this is one of the reasons,

46:18a lot of people understand the gospels to have been brought together from disparate traditions.

46:25They're not perfectly, uh, consistent internally. Indeed. Um, all right, blessed are those who are

46:31persecuted, uh, because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. I feel like we've

46:37already given the kingdom of heaven away, but that's okay. Well, this is, this is, uh, not irrelevant

46:43because we started off with theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Now we've come back to theirs is the

46:47kingdom of heaven. And this is what's known in literary circles as an inclusive. So it basically

46:53bookends our sense unit. So we start off talking about kingdom, heaven, we end with the kingdom of

46:59heaven and we bring up the righteousness again. Uh, those, we have those who are hunger and thirst

47:05after righteousness. So, um, one of the problematic features of seeking a better world for everyone

47:13and recognizing the pathetic state of the human condition is that in so doing you in, in pursuing

47:22that better life, uh, that, uh, righteousness, you will receive persecution. Um, and that's

47:30something that people can recognize today, everyone who, who goes out to try to, uh, improve the state

47:35of affairs around them, not just for themselves or not just within themselves. Um, persecution of

47:43some kind is inevitable. And, and, and anciently that persecution was a lot more organized and

47:48was a lot more harmful as well. And so here, yeah, I, I feel like there's a whole thing here of like,

47:53I feel like this is a dangerous, uh, scripture, this particular one, just because I see so many

48:02people using this scripture as, you know, and, and, and saying that their version of righteousness,

48:09meaning their dogma, their, uh, their series of rules, particularly pertaining as they pertain to,

48:17you know, marginalized groups, the LGBTQ group, segment of society, et cetera. They use this to say,

48:25Oh, when, when people get mad at me for doing this, it's fine. I'm being persecuted, uh, for my

48:34righteousness, but I'll be, you know, I'll gain the kingdom of heaven for doing it. How, how do we

48:40differentiate between what is good righteousness, uh, that, that it's okay to be persecuted for?

48:47And what is you just being a dick and, uh, and, and, uh, other people calling you out,

48:54not being persecution, but being just you being called out for being a dick. It feels like it's a

48:59tough, it's not clear. Well, if, if we take the beatitudes as, as kind of culminating in this

49:06statement, look at the prerequisites. Is this someone who is poor in spirit, who mourns, who is

49:11meek, who hungers and thirsts, thirsts after righteousness, who is merciful, is pure and hard,

49:16is a peacemaker. If it's not these things, then, um, you know, it's, it's quite a fallacy to say,

49:22if you're, uh, if you're righteous, you'll be persecuted. Therefore, everyone who is persecuted

49:27is righteous. That is, um, yeah, that is a logical fallacy. That is a, yeah, that's, that's a hell

49:34of a modus ponens or whatever it is. Yeah, I don't remember the name of the exact fallacy, but, um,

49:40logic class or whatever. Yeah. We've got a, uh, we've got kind of a development, uh, a trajectory

49:47from the most elementary of the virtues, humility, all the way up to the, the highest form of virtue.

49:54And that is being persecuted for, uh, the sake of righteousness. So I think the, the beatitudes

50:01are culminating in this. Uh, and then, uh, we have that in Clusio that kind of bookends the two

50:08statements and then the last two things, the last two verses here, uh, change from third person plural

50:15blessed are, uh, those two second person plural. Now we're shifting. We've, we've got our beatitudes

50:23and we're kind of closing, uh, we're tying the ends off. Uh, so Matthew five, 11 and 12 say,

50:28blessed are you and people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you

50:32falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven for in the same way

50:39they persecuted the prophets who were before you, which kind of just capitulates everything. And

50:45says this, this is the, the ultimate, uh, kind of, uh, recompense for what we're doing for seeking

50:54after the kingdom of heaven. And so just know that you are blessed if you experience all these

51:00things, you can do all these things and you can be, be attituted. You can be blessed.

51:05But you're also going to, um, you're also going to be persecuted because of it. But

51:11well, I think, you know, I think, uh, I think that's great. You know, we mentioned

51:16the possibility that this could be misinterpreted. No, I think it's time. Okay. I think it's time

51:23that we, uh, let's take a brief break. And then we're going to get to one of the most impressive

51:30misinterpretations I think I've ever seen in my life. Let's stick around. All right. Let's see it.

51:37Well, here we are. Uh, we, we've gotten through all of these wonderful beatitudes. We've talked,

51:43we've talked about how being poor in spirit, how being, uh, kind and gentle and a peacemaker.

51:52These are all the things that the beatitudes are telling us we should be. Uh,

51:57we mentioned that that meek one was going to be, uh, highlighted. This is Jordan Peterson, uh,

52:06who, if you don't know who he is, congratulations. If you have a life, if you do know who he is,

52:12you may not be aware of the fact that his expertise is he is a psychologist. Um, to my knowledge,

52:19he has no particular, uh, expertise in biblical studies or, uh, ancient languages of any kind.

52:29But boy, that doesn't stop him. You. So, uh, this is him on the Joe Rogan show, another non expert

52:37decidedly. So, uh, a man who, uh, is a comedian and also very into, uh, mixed martial arts, uh,

52:48fighting. So let's see what those two have to say about a beatitude, shall we?

52:54I, I read this New Testament line. Well, it decades ago and I could never understand it.

52:59It's the line is the meek shell in here at the earth. And I thought, there's something wrong

53:03with that, that line. It just doesn't make sense to me. Meek just doesn't seem to me to be a moral

53:07virtue. And so I did a series of biblical lectures this year, like 15 of them. And that was also a

53:13weird little experience that we can talk about. But I was looking through the, these, these sayings,

53:18these maxims, and that was one of them, the meek shell in here at the earth. But I've been using

53:23this site called Bible hub, and it's very interesting. It's very, it's organized very

53:26interesting. So you have a biblical line and then they, they have like three pages of commentary on

53:32each line. And so because people have commented on every verse in the Bible, like to the degree

53:37that's almost unimaginable. So you can look and see all the interpretations and all the translations

53:42and get some sense of what the genuine meaning might be. And the line, the meek shall inherit the

53:48earth. Meek is not a good translation. Or the word has moved in the three or 100 years or so,

53:54300 years or so since it was translated. What it means is this, those who have swords and know how

54:01to use them, but keep them sheathed will inherit the world. And that's another thing I've been

54:06telling. Yeah, no kidding. That's a big difference. That's a big difference. It's so great. And so

54:10like one of the things I tell young men, well, young women as well, but the young men really need

54:15to hear this more, I think is that you should be a monster. You know, because everyone says, well,

54:20you should be harmless, virtuous. You shouldn't do anyone any harm. You should sheath your competitive

54:25instinct. You shouldn't try to win. You know, you don't want to be too aggressive. You don't want

54:29to be too assertive. You want to take a back seat and all of that. It's like, no, wrong. You should

54:35be a monster, an absolute monster. And then you should learn how to control it. Do you know the

54:39expression? It's better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war. Right. Right.

54:44Exactly. That's exactly it. Well, that's fun. Wow, George, JP, that's a, that's a hell of a take

54:54and feels to me very different than what we were just discussing. It does feel quite a bit different.

55:02And I think the part of this, it kind of gives things away is what Jordan says at the beginning,

55:10where he says that, that just doesn't feel right to me. It doesn't seem to me that this is a moral

55:16virtue, which shows that the impetus for this is not an interrogation of the data. It's not

55:26awareness of the literary and the historical and the rhetorical context. It's just, I don't like

55:32that. Right. And which shows that the point is not trying to understand the text on its own terms.

55:38The point is trying to align the text with one's own ideologies and one's own set of moral virtues,

55:46which, you know, may not always be that great. Yeah, I feel like he actually does us a favor

55:54in that moment because so often people do decide to impose their worldview, their sense of how things

56:03ought to be onto these texts, but they don't give you that very clear, like this, like he,

56:11he said the quiet part out loud. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My motivation is that I don't like it.

56:17Yeah. This really bugged me. Yeah. And so I'm not going to go with whatever I think Jesus meant.

56:24I'm going to change it until it makes sense to my own worldview. Right. Which is something that

56:31I've said many times on my channel is that people are going to read the texts in ways that make it

56:38more meaningful or and or more useful to them. And here Peterson is rereading this in a way that is

56:46both meaningful and useful to him. Meaningful, not only because it's is something that aligns

56:52with his concept of moral virtue, useful because he now gets to give permission to the people who

56:59follow his ideologies to be monsters. Yeah. There. He's suggesting, hey, Jesus wants you to be a

57:09monster. Yeah. And based on this car cry from the sunbeam that I was told to be growing up. Yeah.

57:18And so this is rhetorically useful for a guy who makes his living off of slaking the anger of

57:27white men who are not incredibly successful at life and think that the answer is this dude.

57:36And he says that the word has shifted in 400 years or whatever that this better translation.

57:45What were you going to say? Well, I just wanted to know, like, yeah, he says he has his definition,

57:51that involves knowing how to use your sword, but then sheathing it. Is there anything that you can

58:00find in the various, various versions of this that you've seen that would support that translation?

58:10Absolutely not. That's nothing. Well, here's what's going on here. This word in Greek is price.

58:17And the if you have two different kind of styles of Greek of classical Greek, which was

58:25which was earlier kind of the third quarter of the first millennium BCE, 400 BCE is kind of the

58:36what many people think the pinnacle of classical Greek. By the time you get to the New Testament,

58:41you have what's what people conventionally call coin a Greek, common Greek. This is when Greek

58:46had become the lingua franca of Southwest Asia. And this is a different style of Greek. Now,

58:52it's not the case that in classical Greek, that's what the word meant. However, in classical Greek,

58:59the word just refers to, here's one lexicon's entry pertaining to not being overly impressed

59:06by a sense of one's self importance. Like, if you have to describe in general what this term is

59:13used to refer to, it's that gentle humble, considerate meek. Now, this can be used in context that are

59:19related to that. You might describe someone who does know how to use a sword, but keeps it sheathed

59:26as meek. But the term does not include within it a reference to that. Like, if I, if you know,

59:36you might describe, like Dave Bautista is very gentle, particularly when it comes to dogs.

59:42But the word gentle does not mean a professional wrestler who loves dogs.

59:48Like, there's a context for the usage. And then there's the words sense. So you get the sense from

59:56the context and absolutely nothing in the context of the Beatitudes or the Sermon on the Mount

60:02indicates we should be understanding this as a reference to the people who are meek,

60:07despite being monsters. So that's reading other contexts into the usage here without any

60:16grounds or basis whatsoever. Yeah, I mean, I suppose that the concept of meekness as it's

60:23defined as it's described in the Beatitudes could apply to a monster who has learned to sheath his

60:30sword. Certainly. But that's not, that's not the category we're talking about. Right. The word

60:36itself does not include that sense in its usage. Whatever meek, like, like a very a small withering

60:45meek person, a very, you know, someone who's never felt a violent impulse in their lives,

60:50the kind of person that I imagine Jordan Peterson would not consider a real man.

60:55That's also in the category. That's, that is also every bit as much contained in that category.

61:03Right. And, and I've heard people say, well, it has to refer to the people who have a capacity

61:09for violence or monsterhood who sheath it, because otherwise it's just talking about the way you are.

61:16And that's not a virtue. And that's kind of an asinine argument as well, because a lot of the

61:20other things in the Beatitudes are not talking about things you choose to be. They're talking about

61:26things you are, whether you are that way on purpose or not, whether you like it or not. Being in

61:32poverty is not a virtue. Yeah, yeah. It's not like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you know, it's not a virtue

61:38that Jordan Peterson has lived up to. That's for sure. And so the argument that, and that's just a

61:44rationalization. That is just, I like, that's people saying, I like what Peterson is saying,

61:51because it gives me permission to be a dick. Yeah. And so I'm gonna try to figure out a way to

61:57rationalize why what I like is, is legitimate. But just looking at the data, looking at the usage

62:05of the word pratis meek, in all the different ways that it can be used, looking at what's

62:13the psalm that we're translating, who still uses anav, oppressed, poor, humble. This is not

62:21someone who is a monster, but knows better. And so this is just a ridiculous argument.

62:27Yeah. All you have to do is look at the rest of the word, of that chapter to know that that is not

62:33who we're talking about. We are not like the, yeah, that the whole concept, when that video came out,

62:40when it first hit, I was shocked. Genuinely, like, I've seen that man make some bizarre statements

62:48before. Usually they're just incomprehensible word salad. But in this case, he was so direct

62:55about it. I was just like, I think you just reinvented a whole thing. I think you just made

63:01up a bunch of stuff. So I'm glad that you, that you can confirm that for me.

63:07Yeah. Yeah. This is the case of someone trying to leverage the authority of the Bible to give

63:11permission to their specific group of followers to be monsters because he knows they want to be

63:18monsters and they want Jesus' blessing. And you don't have Jesus' blessing to be a monster.

63:25Don't, ladies and gentlemen, don't go be monsters. We don't need more monsters.

63:30Whatever your belief system, we just don't need monsters in the world.

63:34So learn to be prais, learn to not be overly impressed by a sense of your own self-importance,

63:41learn to be gentle, humble, considerate, meek so that you will inherit the earth.

63:47I love it. I love it. All right. Well, thanks so much friends for tuning into us.

63:52If you have any questions or comments for us, you can always write into us

63:58contact at dataoverdogmapod.com. Also, this conversation will continue in the patrons-only

64:06section if you would like to become a patron and help to make the show go as well as get access

64:12to the patrons-only content. You can always go to patreon.com/dataoverdogma. Dan, thanks so

64:19much for enlightening us. I sure do appreciate it. Thank you, Dan. And we'll talk to you again next

64:23week. Bye, everybody.