Speaker 1: We're gonna talk next about some high tech findings and
Speaker 1: some forgeries from some ancient documents. So we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about this really cool guy named Mike Langlois. I'm sure
Speaker 1: I said that wrong, Mike, and I'm terribly sorry about that.
Speaker 1: But this guy, Okay, so it's worth pointing out. This
Speaker 1: guy has like, I don't know, what was it, like
Speaker 1: seven degrees, you guys, in all kinds of different stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, this man has been studying the Dead Sea scrolls. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of our audience is familiar, but
Speaker 1: for those that aren't familiar, I'll give just a quick
Speaker 1: little rundown, which is a while ago, there was this
Speaker 1: cave and it had all these like really old documents
Speaker 1: in it that had to do with like the Bible
Speaker 1: and stuff, and we didn't know about those for a
Speaker 1: really really long time, and then we found them, and
Speaker 1: then we've been searching through them and there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of really interesting information in there. Obviously, there is
Speaker 1: a probably more technical way to say all that, but
Speaker 1: that gets us up to speed for the most part.
Speaker 1: But one of the really really cool things that he
Speaker 1: is doing is he is using some high tech stuff
Speaker 1: to kind of scan over these documents and that has
Speaker 1: given us a lot of really really cool information. So
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go through all of that, but
Speaker 1: before I pass it off to Richard, I just want
Speaker 1: to point out that when I started reading this, I
Speaker 1: thought it was really cool because very early on I
Speaker 1: noticed that one of the things that Michael had published
Speaker 1: on also one of those publishers is a man by
Speaker 1: the name of doctor Kip Davis aka doctor Kill. And
Speaker 1: if you don't know who this guy is, he is
Speaker 1: a dead Sea Scroll scholar. He's been hanging out, you know,
Speaker 1: with all kinds of incredible people, just debunking all kinds
Speaker 1: of things, and I just thought that was really cool
Speaker 1: because I've seen a lot of his stuff that I
Speaker 1: enjoyed the crap out of it. And anyway, I will
Speaker 1: stop talking so that we can have some more technical
Speaker 1: discussion on this from our resident professor, Richard. What do
Speaker 1: you got for it?
Speaker 2: Well, I was going to say, an active and still
Speaker 2: professional musician, a PhD in obscure history reaches corpus linguistics
Speaker 2: and programming and language analysis, good looking, talented, sharp dressed.
Speaker 2: Enough about me, this guy's pretty cool. I really like him.
Speaker 2: I suspect we get on quite well, should we meet.
Speaker 2: I've the technology that's coming into the field of things
Speaker 2: like textual analysis. I was back in the day. I
Speaker 2: was doing very very very simple corpus linguistics, where I
Speaker 2: put a Python three program together that was kind of shoddy,
Speaker 2: and it will pick out certain words from certain texts
Speaker 2: from about twenty three thousand books, which was great because
Speaker 2: once upon a time you do a history degree by
Speaker 2: sitting in a cellar for three years reading things very slowly.
Speaker 2: But that amazed me at the time that I could
Speaker 2: do that. But this, this isn't a whole of the level.
Speaker 2: This is the satellites that are mapping Egypt and the
Speaker 2: Amazon and finding cities level of stuff. And it's important,
Speaker 2: I think, to know which historical documents are real which
Speaker 2: ones aren't, because there are lots and lots of arguments
Speaker 2: out there amongst historians and archeologists this is real and
Speaker 2: that isn't. And it's usually based on stuff that is
Speaker 2: more subjective than they would admit, like certain forms of paleography.
Speaker 2: Oh that little curly r means it's from the first century,
Speaker 2: And you're like, yeah, but does it though? And someone
Speaker 2: else comes along to say no, no, no, no, it's
Speaker 2: from the second century, whereas this what he's doing, the
Speaker 2: kind of analysis is no, no, that curly ar is
Speaker 2: definitely from the first center. I can prove it. Look
Speaker 2: at the readout on my system, and I just find
Speaker 2: that brilliant. It's going to make my life easier because
Speaker 2: I don't have to whenever I'm doing anything all that,
Speaker 2: don't have to look at a text and go, Okay,
Speaker 2: who actually wrote this? And it's going to make other
Speaker 2: peoples easier in the field. And it's so important to
Speaker 2: studying religious texts because so often you get the latest
Speaker 2: this is the real Bible? Well is it again? You
Speaker 2: need to go and see this guy's work and see
Speaker 2: if you're looking at the right thing. It's ground it's
Speaker 2: groundbreaking stuff. And I think not just religious text but
Speaker 2: all texts need this kind of tech and it's only
Speaker 2: going to get better. But you also needs someone like
Speaker 2: him who is fluent in all these areas to pull
Speaker 2: it together. And there's another area that I'm interested in,
Speaker 2: which is sort of not just focusing on one subject.
Speaker 2: Because I'm a bit of a neglector. I can't focus
Speaker 2: on one thing at a time. I can't focus on
Speaker 2: you know, I'm just far too fidgety. And I think
Speaker 2: he sounds like he's the same. He's like, yeah, I've
Speaker 2: done that. I need to bring this into it. And
Speaker 2: I've done that. I need to bring this into it,
Speaker 2: so let's study it. And without that, I don't think
Speaker 2: you can have this kind of innovation. You need people
Speaker 2: weirdos like us who are multidisciplinary and so what what
Speaker 2: subject do you do? And like him like me or
Speaker 2: go ah, you need to sit down and it's he's great.
Speaker 2: I think he's fantastic and I think his results are fantastic,
Speaker 2: and I think it's bodes so well for this kind
Speaker 2: of research. I you can tell I'm a little excited
Speaker 2: about this kind of It's kind of in my wheelhouse
Speaker 2: just a bit.
Speaker 1: It is pretty cool stuff. Yeah it is, Helen. What
Speaker 1: did you think about this, this all around awesome guy.
Speaker 3: I have feelings because, as a woman that is married
Speaker 3: to an intelligent, well read basis, part of my brain
Speaker 3: was like this part this is Megan Helen A little
Speaker 3: oh sorry, sorry, I mean, you know, happy, happy and smart.
Speaker 3: I love happy and smart man. Sorry, so, but this
Speaker 3: is the type of shit I love where someone starts
Speaker 3: on because he was a person of faith, the person
Speaker 3: of faith, and he just started following the evidence and
Speaker 3: he was was and he, like many of us that
Speaker 3: were in that been in person of faith, had tooken
Speaker 3: the Dead Sea scrolls for gospel. You know that they
Speaker 3: were legitimate, and then by using all the vaiable scientific technologies,
Speaker 3: bam so many forgeries. And this is helping people that
Speaker 3: have certain documents and their private collections and they're finding
Speaker 3: out that they were frauded. They're re examining the pieces
Speaker 3: that are in museums to go is this actually authentic?
Speaker 3: And I just find this so fascinating the way that
Speaker 3: modern technology and these scientific discoveries are reconstructing not only
Speaker 3: how we look at nature, but how our faiths and
Speaker 3: mythologies have developed over time and giving this reconstruction of
Speaker 3: how things are, which I think is really fascinating because
Speaker 3: the thing is, though it's kind of my feeling on it,
Speaker 3: the people that lived in those ancient times and followed
Speaker 3: certain myths and part of the culture and the religion,
Speaker 3: it shaped them who they were for that culture. And
Speaker 3: if someone comes around and wants to rewrite their history
Speaker 3: and we're looking back on on them our time to
Speaker 3: where we got. Now we have to adjust with that
Speaker 3: new information and if we and I can't help but
Speaker 3: think that there's gonna be some people, just like with
Speaker 3: a Shot of Turn when that was proved to be
Speaker 3: a fake, that they're going to bury their heads in
Speaker 3: the sand and they're gonna put their fears in.
Speaker 1: Their ears, and like.
Speaker 3: I'm hearing you, I want to believe what I want
Speaker 3: to believe, and that's the thing we're going to see again,
Speaker 3: even as this comes out where he's saying, like, I'm
Speaker 3: not saying that some of the texts is for our forgeries.
Speaker 3: There is some legitimate history here, but we have to
Speaker 3: separate it all from what it's authentic versus what people
Speaker 3: kind of threw in over time. If you especially if
Speaker 3: you're a believer, because as a believer, wouldn't you want
Speaker 3: to know the exact truth of your faith?
Speaker 1: Just saying yep, And I think that that brings me
Speaker 1: to one of the quotes that I really loved from him.
Speaker 1: It says, but with forgeries, if you don't pay attention
Speaker 1: and you think they are authentic, then they become part
Speaker 1: of the data set you use to reconstruct the history
Speaker 1: of the Bible. The entire theory is then based on
Speaker 1: data that is false. And I just I love that
Speaker 1: because I think I think that's so powerful. Again, like
Speaker 1: you pointed out, Helen, he this is a man who
Speaker 1: who is a believer. This is a guy that does
Speaker 1: have faith. He's not an atheist, He's not you know,
Speaker 1: an anti theist, none of that. This is somebody that
Speaker 1: truly believes and is wanting the most accurate information because,
Speaker 1: like we always say around here, the more true information
Speaker 1: you have, the better you can understand things, and the
Speaker 1: better decisions you can make and stuff. And like both
Speaker 1: of you pointed out, I think this is just amazing
Speaker 1: because even as somebody who is not religious, it is
Speaker 1: so fascinating to understand the nuances of these cultures better. Right,
Speaker 1: And just just because I thought this was funny, I
Speaker 1: I thought there was a list at one point. And
Speaker 1: by the way, folks, this article is amazing. I mean
Speaker 1: it comes from the Smithsonian magazine. It is It is
Speaker 1: super duper in depth. And every single time we have
Speaker 1: an episode of nonprofits, we always encourage you to read stuff.
Speaker 1: I want to double triple down on this article because
Speaker 1: you will learn quite a lot. But at one point,
Speaker 1: there's there's one section where it talks about a handful
Speaker 1: of the different places that had to admit that they
Speaker 1: had forgeries. Okay, so we've got a Zuza Pacific University
Speaker 1: in southern California, We've got a Southwestern Baptist Theological seminary,
Speaker 1: We've got the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC
Speaker 1: had to announce that its entire collection, entire collection was forgeries.
Speaker 1: That's amazing and we only really have that information because
Speaker 1: of this scholarship, right, I mean, it is so freaking
Speaker 1: cool to me that we were able to discover so
Speaker 1: much and on I'm just I'm excited. I want more
Speaker 1: information to come out on this, you know it. I
Speaker 1: don't know what next cool discoveries will be made, but
Speaker 1: I am I am going to say there are probably
Speaker 1: going to be a heck of a lot still to come. Richard,
Speaker 1: your thoughts, I think, yeah.
Speaker 2: And what I also like is when you find the
Speaker 2: forgery like this, sometimes there'll be a modern, fairly modern forgery,
Speaker 2: but sometimes they won't be. There'll be an addition or
Speaker 2: a change, or a forgery that was done five hundred,
Speaker 2: one thousand, and fifteen hundred years ago. And that's a
Speaker 2: whole new area of study. Who forged you? Why did
Speaker 2: they forward? Where did they come from? How did that
Speaker 2: map onto their culture?
Speaker 3: Later on?
Speaker 2: Are they doing it to map it onto their culture?
Speaker 2: What's going on there? This whole PhDs to be written
Speaker 2: in just that before you get to the new reading
Speaker 2: of the text themselves. And so that's why I love
Speaker 2: this kind of thing. I love extra textural analysis is
Speaker 2: a wonderful thing. I remember once buckered my university days.
Speaker 2: I remember going to Trinity College and finding a book
Speaker 2: and open in it and there was a page folded
Speaker 2: though it was a very very old book, and I
Speaker 2: know that the person who folded that page was a
Speaker 2: young lad called Isaac Newton. And I remember going, oh,
Speaker 2: and suddenly the guy who read the book was as
Speaker 2: important as the book. So that kind of stuff, it
Speaker 2: really fascinates me, this history of this guy who used
Speaker 2: to go and fold all the pages over so he
Speaker 2: could find certain words in them, being Isaac, it's great.
Speaker 2: It's a great way to go and having something more concrete.
Speaker 2: And yes he's a person of faith. But here's a
Speaker 2: weird thing. Not everybody who's religious is a bibiolity. Not
Speaker 2: everyone who's religious, absolutely, you know, doesn't want to know
Speaker 2: the truth. You know, it could be argued, and this
Speaker 2: is a longer conversation, but it could be argued that
Speaker 2: the reason we have empiricism is because a bunch of
Speaker 2: religious people when you know that America continent, well, Aristotle
Speaker 2: in the Bible didn't mean it, which means we've got
Speaker 2: a problem with our brain. So we need to work
Speaker 2: out a way of seeing the truth of God in
Speaker 2: nature without using our brains and without reading that book.
Speaker 2: So do we do it? Well, we'll test things and
Speaker 2: see if it matches a prediction. And that's kind of
Speaker 2: your Francis Baker than people did that. There are them
Speaker 2: out there. It's amazing. There's a world of religious, rational
Speaker 2: people that's kind of all weird things they but there
Speaker 2: are and he's a great example of that. Yeah, he's
Speaker 2: a person of faith, but he wants to know what
Speaker 2: the truth of these things. He wants to get to
Speaker 2: the bottom of it. And yes there's one little area
Speaker 2: that he's kind of compartmentalizing, but he's a I don't
Speaker 2: mind that so long as he's true to the science
Speaker 2: and he doesn't try and comment to me or anything
Speaker 2: or force his beliefs and everybody else. So it's great.
Speaker 2: It's great as a person whose background is for primarily history. Yeah,
Speaker 2: as you can see, I don't care at all, not bothered.
Speaker 3: I just love what you said though about like the
Speaker 3: Isaac Unon thing, like knowing he had full Like there's
Speaker 3: something very like I don't I'm using this term, but
Speaker 3: I mean like magical, but I don't mean magical, but
Speaker 3: there's just something about that idea that like generations before
Speaker 3: us had these really incredible ideas, uh, and that brought
Speaker 3: us into modern society. Like it gives me chills, Like
Speaker 3: that's like, that's like my jammy jam jams because because
Speaker 3: I think as secularists and atheist, because we know life
Speaker 3: is finite, we somehow get a little cynical. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: I think it we need to take a moment as
Speaker 3: as as human beings to kind of take a step
Speaker 3: back and go, you know what, we got here because
Speaker 3: of people before us that had good ideas and they
Speaker 3: wanted to push humans forward and society forward and culture forward,
Speaker 3: and let let like Okay, I'm gonna call him leglass
Speaker 3: because it has the one I keep saying in my head.
Speaker 3: Fuck tolkn okay, it's just embedded in there. But he
Speaker 3: is one of these people as a scholar and someone
Speaker 3: that was going to follow the evidence that what he did,
Speaker 3: And I think that's I think that's really cool. Like
Speaker 3: I just even like, you know, we will have we
Speaker 3: can have a discussion about faith. But like if I
Speaker 3: could be in his lab and watch his work like
Speaker 3: I might, I would have like a big brain orgasm,
Speaker 3: Like I get really impressed. So, yeah, this type of
Speaker 3: stuff that I love.
Speaker 1: Yeah, honestly, there's there's just so many cool things. Like seriously,
Speaker 1: like a third of the a third of this whole
Speaker 1: article I think is just talking about how cool of
Speaker 1: a duty is, which is like true.
Speaker 2: It's like true.
Speaker 1: It's like every single time I read the next thing,
Speaker 1: I'm like, damn, Mike, like chill, like save something for
Speaker 1: the rest of us, you know, like calm down, man, Yeah.
Speaker 2: But I'm on the steak. You mount and jam with him.
Speaker 1: Right, It's like you have a ten minute jam session
Speaker 1: and then just be like yeah, so what do you
Speaker 1: think about the mesha stele A, Like what are your
Speaker 1: thoughts on that? Where where did you go with the Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean honestly, this is this is some incredible, incredible
Speaker 1: stuff to me, and this is where I love to
Speaker 1: direct my attention. You know, I don't, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't care so much for what the internet, you know,
Speaker 1: the apologist, the the shit they say, just kind of
Speaker 1: teasing where we're going next from here. But these are
Speaker 1: the type of people that I love listening to, right,
Speaker 1: Somebody like Dale C. Allison, you know, just a true scholar,
Speaker 1: a believer, yes, but somebody that that does the work
Speaker 1: and looks at it critically and is willing to provide
Speaker 1: their sources, you know, give you the evidence so that
Speaker 1: you can see it too, And isn't just coming up
Speaker 1: with these wild fanciful conclusions and so forth just because
Speaker 1: they want to. Like Richard said, yeah, you're gonna notice
Speaker 1: that there seems to be kind of a piece of
Speaker 1: it where they just kind of compartmentalize the stuff. And
Speaker 1: that's fine.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think that that destroys the scholarship in any way,
Speaker 1: shape or form. Because of the fact that we are
Speaker 1: going about this in a rigorous method and we do
Speaker 1: have that data to back it up, right, we can
Speaker 1: make the predictions, we can find those freaking things when
Speaker 1: we go look for them. That's huge. And just the
Speaker 1: more that we do on that, the more we are
Speaker 1: gonna understand this. And I really do believe that as
Speaker 1: we present more and more of this information to the
Speaker 1: average believer, I think they're going to start shifting a
Speaker 1: little in their world. I think this stuff really takes
Speaker 1: hold for a lot of people. I can't tell you
Speaker 1: how many friends of mine right that are that are
Speaker 1: atheist or agnostic now, And and they would say to
Speaker 1: me things like, yeah, it's because I thought all of
Speaker 1: this history stuff was true, that I was such a
Speaker 1: big believer, and then as I started looking into it
Speaker 1: and I found out, hey, some of this doesn't really
Speaker 1: match up with a historical timeline that really that really
Speaker 1: was the first crack. I love it, honestly, and and again,
Speaker 1: even if even if it doesn't cause a mass amount
Speaker 1: of people to step away from their faith, I just
Speaker 1: love the fact that we do have, you know, critical
Speaker 1: scholarship on something that for so long we we really
Speaker 1: didn't have, especially not at this level. So again, just hardcore,
Speaker 1: hardcore want to suggest to everybody out there, read this.
Speaker 3: It is so fascinating. Yeah, it's it's so good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, truly, it's it's and again it's like really
Speaker 4: it's kind of just worth it just to hear about Michael,
Speaker 4: like just hear all the cool stuff that he does,
Speaker 4: like not even the not even the tech stuff with
Speaker 4: the Dead Sea scrolls.
Speaker 3: But anyway, apparently he's a snappy dresser.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exciting.
Speaker 1: He probably beats me for for the best hair award.
Speaker 1: I really I don't feel like I know. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like I feel bad about having to get it up,
Speaker 1: but game got a record.
Speaker 3: I mean, you and j Mike are just competing for
Speaker 3: best hair at this point, so.
Speaker 1: I think we're both losing in the category. That's all right,
Speaker 1: Well we'll get there one of these things. But any
Speaker 1: other thoughts y'all before before we go on and round
Speaker 1: out this with a little bit of our our old
Speaker 1: friend Helen or Richard.
Speaker 2: The only thought to me is actually, in some way
Speaker 2: is a positive thing having someone of faith doing this
Speaker 2: kind of research, because there's one criticism that can be
Speaker 2: taken away from the theist, which is you're just an atheist.
Speaker 2: You would say that, we can't say that to him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good point, good point, Helen.
Speaker 3: Anything else? Yeah, And like I'm just going to reiterate
Speaker 3: I said four, Like, I love the fact that he
Speaker 3: just followed the evidence. You know, he was and the
Speaker 3: person of faith and he wanted to know because of
Speaker 3: that more about his faith. And he didn't stop looking.
Speaker 3: And I think that's wonderful. Like I like, i I'm like, oh, humanity, yay,
Speaker 3: good feeling. So I just think it's fantastic because this
Speaker 3: article is a trip and so and that gives me
Speaker 3: hope from humanity like people like him, like he's a
Speaker 3: person of faith, that he's doing he's doing the God's work.
Speaker 2: That's right, That is right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and again, seriously, I'll read this, read this article,
Speaker 4: take the time.
Speaker 1: It is super worth it. But you know, unfortunately, as happens,
Speaker 1: we have to eventually say goodbye, and we're getting close
Speaker 1: to that time. But before we do, let me tell
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