#2562 - Dan McClellan

“It's like, well, you got your guy, we got ours. Our guy did it better. And this is a lot of what's going on with the representation of Jesus in the New Testament. Because there are certain turns of phrase, there are certain things that Jesus does in the New Testament that reflect what the Greco-Roman world expected from their emperors and their god-men.”

“down or by writing any of the texts in the Hebrew Bible or in the New Testament. And the best way to figure that out is to try to situate the composition within, you know, whatever historical period makes the most sense, whatever we can make the best case for, and figure out how it would have worked in that period, which is why there are some texts that we think were intended as propaganda.”

“It's right next to her. Yeah. Yeah. So you were talking about Jesus and the New Testament and that some of it seems to have been the way it was done to appease the people that lived in the same era?”

“Jesus. In the New Testament, Jesus is the word. But it's never used to refer to a specific textual manifestation of the message. And so there's not really a case to make that any author of any text that's in the Bible used that phrase to refer to the scriptures or the Bible.”

“You have in one sense. You would think that would be kind of important. Yeah, you would think. Nobody talks about it until we get to the New Testament. There's a reference to Adam at the very beginning of a big genealogy in Chronicles. And in Ezekiel 28, there's a reference to the mountain of Eden, which you would imagine would be the same thing, but”

“But so throughout the Hebrew Bible and even in Greco-Roman period Judaism and down into some parts of the New Testament, it's not Adam's and Eve's fault that evil exists. That's not the main story that they use to understand why evil exists.”

“the angels taught humanity. And so I think that, up until the New Testament was written, that was probably the dominant tradition about where evil came from. And then in the New Testament, we kind of see both of them.”

“And the First Enoch tradition was probably the dominant one. And then because of Paul and the New Testament, we can kind of see traces of both of them in there. But I think Christianity later decided to just go with the one that was in their canon, which was the Genesis one.”

“I think is kind of funny. Most modern translations of the New Testament have taken out more than a dozen verses that are in the King James Version. Why? Because since the King James Version was translated, we have discovered hundreds more manuscripts, and we have been able to do”

“They were not written by the author. And so now, when we publish these translations of the New Testament, we just omit the verse. And because versification is kind of complex to just redo, we just leave the verse out entirely.”

“out. There are about 16 passages in the New Testament that have been taken out. Is there any debate about whether or not they should have been taken out? Among scholars, not really. So for instance, the passage in Matthew 17, 21, we have some very, very old manuscripts that don't have it at all.”

“And then later on, it gets worked right into the body of the text. So most modern translations of the New Testament, there are about 16 verses that are commonly just omitted. And they're included in footnotes. But also the ending of Mark, the whole story of Jesus' post-resurrection appearance at the end of Mark, scholars agree that's not original.”

“important text. And particularly because we have in the letter of Jude in the New Testament this direct quotation introduced by saying, Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying.”

“The stories get told over and over in slightly different ways. And then also, it contradicts a lot of the stuff that Christians are finding in the New Testament and in their Hebrew Bible. And so it was becoming unpopular in the second and into the third century.”

“And they develop as we get into the New Testament. And so I think it's trying to accomplish a lot of those bigger questions. What is the meaning of all this? Why do good people suffer? Why are wicked people so successful?”

“lot of good work. And there's not really much that's going to be much different. But also we have that idea that repeated a few times in the New Testament where they're referring to Gehenna as the place where the fire doesn't die and the worm doesn't, or the fire never goes out and the worm doesn't die.”

“a new sixth narrative that harmonizes it all, that makes it all fit. And that's what we did with the New Testament. Once we got it all together, we decided this is all inspired. It all has to mean the same thing. More or less. They weren't as strict about it as we are today about it.”

“So when we get to hell in the New Testament, scholars suggest there are three different ideas about post-mortem divine punishment that seem to be represented there. One is annihilation, that the wicked just cease to exist.”

“So I think the gap closed over time. I think in the New Testament you have inconsistent ideas about what post-mortem divine punishment is going to be like. And I think it becomes formalized and systematized by the Christian church in the centuries after the completion of the New Testament.”

“And I think that's a post-biblical thing. Certainly folks who wrote the New Testament, I'm sure that if they were asked that, they would have been like, yeah, I would agree with that. But it's not something that's ever stated anywhere in the New Testament, at least not in those words.”

“I just don't talk about that. And in no small part because I do believe that it is, as Jesus in the New Testament says, when you pray, go into your closet and pray in secret, and your Father will reward you openly.”

“Bible that's kind of picked up again in the New Testament. And while there are definitely problems with the authors who are responsible for spreading this, because they are somewhat hypocritical themselves, I think the message is an interesting one.”

“Whether it was through oral tradition, then eventually written down. Like, what was the original event? That fascinates me the most about the Bible. It fascinates me the most about the ancient Sumerian writings. I'm just, I don't think all of it is fiction, but I don't think all of it is literal.”

“Oh, interesting. So I think one of the key things to keep in mind is every text, whether it's a text that's inscribed on a piece of pottery or something that wound up in the Bible, every author wrote it down because they wanted to achieve something. We tend to think of language as just about communicating information, but nothing happens in a vacuum.”

“that phrase is never used anywhere in the Bible to refer to texts specifically as the texts that are in circulation. So word of God is always a reference to just the message, however it's circulating, whether it's oral or whatever, or to Jesus.”

“And so there's not really a case to make that any author of any text that's in the Bible used that phrase to refer to the scriptures or the Bible. And so even in 1 Corinthians, in a couple of places in Paul, he says, this is not coming from the Lord, this is just coming from me.”

“And a year later, I went to serve a two-year proselytizing mission in Uruguay. And I fell in love with studying the Bible when I was doing that. I love the stories. I love learning about the history, the culture. And I wanted to better understand the languages so I could try to engage the texts as they were originally written.”

“There are very, very different ways to go about. So how complicated is that when you're reading an English translation of the Bible? Like, that's when things must get very strange if you're, especially Old Testament, right?”

“fighting a seven-headed serpent dragon beast. So the Ugaritic literature helps us an awful lot with understanding what was going on before the Bible happened, but also helps us better understand the Hebrew of the Bible and also the relationship of these gods to one another.”

“Yeah. Because we have to. Allegedly. I wonder if that's in the Bible. You know, I've always wondered what the original stories were based on. I keep going to the origin story because like Adam and Eve being the one that the Christians share.”

“So these are the kinds of questions that keep us up at night. Well, it's so fascinating because if you just imagine our version of the Bible today, and if we continued to exist as a society a thousand years from now, most likely it would be the exact same version because we're really good at keeping records.”

“We knew something was supposed to be there, but we had no idea what. And we found out what was supposed to be there in the Dead Sea Scrolls. So maybe we discover another cache of ancient manuscripts of the Bible, and maybe they're earlier than the Dead Sea Scrolls. Oh, that would be exciting. Oh, it would be phenomenal.”

“And I think people like that will be around a thousand years as well. But I think we will just multiply the available versions of the Bible, and some of them will probably be closer to what was originally written originally. And some of them will be people trying to hold on to their favorite translation or their favorite version.”

“And this might have been one of the ones that was closed down as a result of that. But interestingly enough, people ask me a lot about narcotics in the Bible and stuff like that. But this is one where they tested the burnt residue that was on top of the incense altars.”

“the Bible, down to the kingdom of Aksum, probably late 3rd or early 4th century CE. And so, this is right around the time of the Council of Nicaea. So, this would have been something that looked similar to what we have in Codex Sinaiticus.”

“And there's certain things that get explained today that aren't necessarily really in the Bible. So the concept of hell, let's get into that. Because when is that... So it's first introduced in Enoch?”

“you are. Where's that come from? That's not something that's ever stated anywhere in the Bible. Yeah, that's that is an interpretation, yeah. Because when we, just like just like 1 Enoch, it's a collection of five different books. If you look back on it and you say this all has to mean the same thing, you basically have to create a new sixth narrative that harmonizes it all, that makes it all fit.”

“of the Bible changes from the earliest parts of the Bible to the latest parts of the Bible. So right now we're going with God's biography, a biblical history. But I'm really enjoying writing. Well, what little I've been able to write of it, I've really been enjoying.”

“there would be versions that are very different because the so the King James Version is the, I think it's probably still the highest, the highest-selling Bible translation.”

“I think is kind of funny. Most modern translations of the New Testament have taken out more than a dozen verses that are in the King James Version. Why? Because since the King James Version was translated, we have discovered hundreds more manuscripts, and we have been able to do”

“And we know that some of the passages that are in the King James Version were added later on. They were not written by the author. And so now, when we publish these translations of the New Testament, we just omit the verse.”

“comes from other tales. And the Epic of Gilgamesh is an interesting one. I don't know how much you've read of Gilgamesh. A little bit. Yeah, it's difficult. It's difficult to absorb.”

“So you've got a few different stories of the flood. And in the Epic of Gilgamesh, he's going to find Utnapishtim, who was the one who survived the flood. So the flood has already happened in the Gilgamesh epic. But like Atrahasis is another version of that story.”

“And there's a wonderful book by Eric Klein, 1177 BC. Have you ever heard that book title? Phenomenal book on how the Late Bronze Age collapse happened. But so the destruction of Ugarit happens before the invention of Hebrew.”

“And there's a wonderful book by a scholar named Ara Noran Sayan called Big Gods, which is all about this. But the idea there is that gods develop in a variety of different ways.”

“Or nootropics. I don't know how to pronounce it. There is some research that is suggesting creatine might be a little more helpful for brain function. So I actually do 10, I don't even know if it's grams or mil. Yeah, 10 grams of creatine every day.”

“That's debatable. Yeah, oddly enough. Yeah. I mean, I don't know where I stand, honestly, because I take in fiber, mostly in the form of fermented vegetables. I'm a big kimchi fan. Okay. But there's quite a few people that have zero fiber and that exists on a carnivore diet.”

“I enjoy running a lot more because the lack of oxygen doesn't take it out of me nearly as quickly. We have a hypoxia chamber in the studio. Yeah, we have a gym that's connected to the studio. And in the gym is this thing called a hypoxia. It's called I forgot the name of it.”

“there's a neuroscientist, V.S. Ramachandra, and he's written some wonderful books. One of them is called Phantoms in the Brain. The other is called The Telltale Brain. But he shares this story about when he was working with people who had phantom limb pain.”

“all the shit that you've learned it has been but it's it's been a lot of fun and i wanted to give you this as well this is a a book that i published last year it's called the bible says so what we get right and wrong about scripture's most controversial issues is basically a greatest hits of of what i've done um on my”

“I have heard a lot of people say that the Catholic Church tried to shut it down. Because he wrote another book afterwards called The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth that covered similar topics. Yeah, I think it was kind of a mythicist take that Jesus never existed.”

“few times. Okay, yeah. So you probably talked about his book, The Righteous Mind, at some point. And he talks quite a bit about that. He uses a metaphor of an elephant and a rider, where you have this quick kind of intuitive”

“Did you ever get into any of John Marco Allegro's stuff? I'm aware of the sacred mushroom and the cross, but it's mainly etymological. That's the main argument. And it has been just torn to shreds.”

“Ramachandra, and he's written some wonderful books. One of them is called Phantoms in the Brain. The other is called The Telltale Brain. But he shares this story about when he was working with people who had phantom limb pain. And there's a particular type of phantom limb pain for folks who are missing the bottom part of their arm, where they”

“But the. It's called The Wisdom of Insecurity. Okay. A message for an age of anxiety. And the point I want to make is that, you know, there are people who lived that who are still around who can talk about it.”

“I would imagine they would have the same similar function. It reduces the amount of oxygen you get. But they were a thing, the training mask. It was a thing among MMA fighters for a while. They've all abandoned it. Okay. At least most of them that I know. I don't know. Maybe they got tired of it. Maybe it was too hard already.”

“Really? And I was like, watermelon. Yeah. And I was like, that has to be the watermelon doing it because I haven't had anything else out of the ordinary. And so I started looking at that. And so I'm sensitive to that kind of stuff. But that's just my own biological makeup.”