Speaker 1: The Thinking Atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
an idea.
Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going through.
Speaker 1: The rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If
I tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth,
not because.
Speaker 3: I put my hand on a book and made a wish.
Speaker 1: And working together for a more rational world.
Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness. Truth,
Usian wisdom will come to you that way.
Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
Speaker 2: This is part two of my conversation, a deep dive
by study with Justin de Z of Deconstruction Zone. Justin,
like me, was once a true blue Believer. He is
now a former Christian, but he was a pastor as
a Master's in Divinity and now spends a lot of
time talking about this stuff we're going to talk about today.
The Bible Part one is linked in the description box,
so is Justin's link tree, and a video of the
whole conversation. All of that is in the description box.
So here we go with Part two. Lots of talk
about other uncanonized books I'm thinking of the Book of Enoch.
I'm doing it off the top of the Gospel of Judas,
the Gospel of Thomas, etc. I guess the question is
who canonized the books. They're voted into approval of some kind.
How was that decision made and who made it. That's
a tough one. So the period of canonization is messy.
What I can tell you is that the Hebrew Bible
wasn't canonized until after Jesus's death and the formation of
the Early Christian Church. Some people point towards what they're
going to say is like a council of Jamnia. It's
not really a council.
Speaker 3: There was a like a Hebrew school or Jewish school
at Jamnia, and most people believe that out of that
school they finally said, okay, we need to nail down
what is our canon. So, I mean, we don't have
a lot of documentation from it. We don't really know
about the whole process, who was involved, or how it
came about. We just know that that seems to be
where it happened and when it happened. Now, the early Christians,
interestingly enough, had a very different canon. In fact, if
you read through the early letters from the Church, Fathers
and read through the council notes from the Christians they
treated the Apa, and a lot of them also enoch
as though these are all scripture. I did a documentation
once of the first four hundred years of the Church.
Every single time somebody mentioned one of the Apocrypha, or
quoted from the Apocrypha, or it talked about the Apocrypha.
And what I found was every single one of them
up until the time of Jerome, believed that the Apocrypha
was scripture. They believed that it was given by God,
they believed that it was prophetic, and they believed that
it was inspired by the Holy Spirit. And even Justin
Martyr argued that the Jews took the Apocrypha out of
the canon because it spoke so clearly about Jesus. And
so the early Church had this canon up until Jerome,
where the Apocrypha was a core piece of it. It
wasn't until way way later that people were like, Hey,
maybe I don't know this apocrypha business. And one of
the reasons why that happened was Jerome was tasked to
organize the Old Life in manuscripts, so everyone knows joem
did the Latin Vulgate, but prior to the Vulgate, they
had Latin texts. They were a direct translation of the
Greek septuagen for the Old Testament, and they were a
translation of the Greek New Testament, but they were kind
of a mess. They needed someone to go in and
organize them and collate them and make it like an
official copy. And that's what Jerome did. But in doing so,
he already knew Greek. But he's like, listen, if I'm
going to do this, I really should go back to
the Hebrew manuscripts, not the Greek Old Testament. I should
see what's in the Hebrew. And so what he did
was he went down and learned Hebrew with the Jews
that were still alive that haven't been forcefully baptized yet.
And he was able to ascertain while he was down there,
not just the knowledge of the language, but also he's like, hey, listen,
there's this really weird thing. The Jews don't treat these
apocryphal books as being holy, like they don't include them.
So he was the first one that was like, hey, listen,
if these aren't sacred scriptures to the Jews, maybe they
shouldn't be sacred scripture to us. And that's where we
start to get a little bit of dialogue of like, hey,
are these really part of the Old Testament canon? And
then the early ecumenical councils had to deal with that.
Speaker 2: I don't want to get too far into the weeds,
but I do want to address the Council of Nicia, right,
the nice and Creed. A lot of people say that
this was when many of the books of the Bible
were chosen. Correct me if I'm wrong. As I understand it,
it was actually more an argument about canonical law and
trying to determine other, I don't know, other important parts
of Christianity. But it wasn't the selection of the books
at Nicia. Do I have that right?
Speaker 3: That seems to be the case. In fact, we've got
some councils that do deal with the with the selection
of the books. I'd have to get you a list
of the councils. The Council of Nicea was really more
about They talked about the nature of Jesus, divinity and
the Trinity and things like that. And while they certainly
did kind of talk about the canon, it wasn't it
wasn't made official. And in fact, if you give me
just a second, I'll pull up the councils that you want.
Speaker 2: Well, while you're pulling that up, I mean we're talking
what third century, So this is after the Bible was
or at least some canons were selected. Like do we
know when the first incarnations of the books came together?
We don't have the original manuscripts, but some of the translations.
Do we know when somebody first said, okay, this is it?
Speaker 3: So I think the earliest we could point to as
like something we would classify as like a unified text
are the early manuscripts like the Sinaticus Vaticanis. These are
like really early texts of the Old Testament and the
New Testament in Greek. And if we agree that the
books that were in those documents are officially part of
the Christian canon, but it would include quite a few
books that today we don't think should be in the canon. Now.
Some of the early councils that dealt with this was
the Council of Leadicia. They wanted to include baruk as canonized,
and also the Epistle of Jeremiah. And then we've got
a decree from Pope Damascus in three twenty eight that
likewise wanted to canonize the Book of Wisdom, the Book
of Sirac, the Book of Judas, the Book of Tobit,
and the Maccabees. And then there's the Council of Hippo
in three ninety three that wanted to canonize basically all
of the apocrypha, and then the Council of Carthage in
three ninety seven specifically because there was multiples, they also
wanted to canoni Maccabees and whatnot. So we have these
these early affirmations in the in a lot of the
ecamenical councils, like the the Third Council of Carthage in
four nineteen as well, they give an official list of
canonized books, like they said, okay, these are the official
canon and it includes Tobit, Judas, Ezra, the the additional
Ezra's as well, and also Maccabees and also some some
additional works of Solomon like Wisdom. So like we do
get early councils where they're like, hey, listen, these these
are these are official. But that didn't mean that dialogue
over what was official and did they debated it for
another one thousand years.
Speaker 2: I would have read the Book of Wisdom just to
see what it said, like, let's turn to the Book
of Wisdom. It sounds you know, that's just me. I'm
speaking here with Justin Deezey of Deconstruction Zone Shameless Plug.
I narrated doctor Joshua Bowen's book Did the Old Testament
endorse slavery? I remember I was talking about this and
somebody's like, oh, yeah, well, what makes him think he
knows what he's talking about? And I'm like, oh, I mean,
he's an a seriologist who speaks and teaches Hebrew and
an Old Testament scholar, but beyond that, he's totally unqualified.
Do you want to talk about this argument by the
apologist that it wasn't slavery, it was merely indentured servitude.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is actually this is one of my
favorite topics. And we talked about this enough before I
dive into that. I would add one more note on
the canonization. Sure, I've forgot about it till just now.
We've got a direct quote in the Bible of the Apocrypha.
So the Book of Enoch is directly quoted in Jude
chapter one, verse fourteen. He quotes from First Enoch chapter
nine and calls them a prophet it says it was
about these that Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesied, saying, see,
the Lord is coming with ten thousands of his holy
ones to execute judgment on all, to convict all the ungodly.
He's saying that this book of Enoch is prophetic from God,
which means if your New Testament says it, you should
believe what the New Testament says. Enoch needs to be
in your cannon. Sorry for the rabbit trail though.
Speaker 2: No, not at all. I'm glad you went there, so
you know, I guess I can add to my slavery question.
Some people say indentured servitude. It was voluntary, they were
paying off debts, it was a work contract. And other
people say, well, God had to condescend to the societies
of the time which incorporated slavery. So you know, it's
either servitude or hey, they had slaves and God was
kind of working with the system that they had. How
would you address either of those?
Speaker 3: Well, it's kind of a trick of which past passages
you want to read. If you ignore a bunch of
passages and only read certain passages, you can get to
this idea that they were just in tcherturbance. It certainly
isn't the case. Though.
Speaker 2: Well, if I may, let's start over at Exodus twenty one,
twenty and twenty one, right about beating your slave. You
can beat your slave and if he regains consciousness within
forty eight hours, Hey, no problem, we'll just start there absolutely.
Speaker 3: So what we find in Exos twenty one, verse twenty
and twenty one is an interesting like we're we're not
going to call it a prohibition, We're just gonna call
it a regulation of like, hey, here's what happens if
you do this, And it says when a slave owner
strikes a male or female slave with a rod and
the slave dies immediately, the owner shall be punished.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: Interesting. Well, first of all, the thing to note is
that this is most likely just a Hebrew slave. The
entire chapter is dealing with Hebrew slaves. It doesn't say
anthing about foreign slaves here, so we're not sure if
this applied to foreign slaves or not, but it's not critical.
The next verse is really interesting. So the reason why
in verse twenty the man is going to be avenged,
most likely is because he's Hebrew, Like, you wouldn't avenge
the killing of a foreigner. You would avenge the killing
of a Hebrew because he's one of your own kin.
And if you beat him so severely that it literally
says in the Hebrew, if he dies under your hand,
meaning while you're beating them. If you beat him so
severely that they die while you're beating them, then you're
in trouble. You just committed murder. But if the slave
survives a day or two, there's no punishment, for the
slave is the owner's property. And this is really important.
The hebertext uses the verb a mod which literally means
to stand or survive. Some older translations used to say
if they if they are revived after a day or two,
but that's not really what it says. What both these
passages talking about a slave that dies say says if
they survive for a day or two, which means they
don't live they die after a day or two, It
says there's no punishment because he is the owner's property.
So what that means is there's a presumption of innocence
where you can't tie the death of this slave to
the beating that it received because it was a couple
days later. And so this is even if you think
that the Bible is only doing indentured serviantude. The idea
that you can beat a slave so severely that if
it dies in a couple of days, you won't be
punished for it as horrific even if you only think
it's temporary. Now, as you pointed out in Exus twenty one,
it's not temporary. In fact, there are two different slaves
that we find in Excess twenty one that are one
Hebrew and two permanent. In verse two, we learn about
a temporary male Hebrew slave because when you buy a
male Hebrew slave, he shall serve you for six years,
but in the seventh year he shall go out a
free person without debt. Awesome. That's an indentured servant says.
If he comes in single, he shall go out single.
If he comes and married, then his wife shall go
out with him. Interesting sounds like more indentured servitude. Verse
four is where you get the fun stuff. If his
master gives him a wife, which is in his ability
to do, the woman doesn't have to consent. She's property.
If his master gives them a wife and she bears
them sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall
be her masters and he shall go out alone.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 3: Interesting, So an owner can choose to breed the women
in his household the slaves like livestock, and if they
produce children, that woman and her children remain property of
the master. They don't get to go free. Even if
they get married to this guy and have children, they
don't get to go when that guy goes free. They're
still permanent property. So God one commands permanent property in
verse four. And then he tricks you. If you're like,
if you get this woman, and you're like, listen, I
don't want to leave my family, well then you can
play to be a permanent slave to this master. What
a horrific solution like that. He could have done ten
other things. He could have said, well, let him go free.
He could have said, well, I don't know, make them
work another seven years. He didn't do any of that.
He said, nope, if you want to be with your
wife and your children, you have to be permanent slaves.
So there's a second instance of saying do permanent slavery.
Verse seven we get another instance. This says, when a
man sells his daughter as a slave, which you could do.
You can just sell your daughter as a slave or
your son as a slave does, he shall serve. She
shall not go out as the male slaves do. So
when the woman goes and gets sold into servitude, he
serves perpetually. She doesn't get to go free. Well why
would that be the case, Well, it's clear because in
the passage she becomes somebody's concubine. In the ancient Near East,
when you sold somebody as a slave, her her body
was yours, her sexual reproduction was yours. She didn't have autonomy.
But it says if she does not please her master,
who designated her for himself, then he shall let her
be redeemed. So he can just buy a slave and
then decide to you know, to go into her. This
wasn't what she didn't ask for this, And we find
other passages. There's a passage in Leviticus where if you
sleep with another man's slave, you have to pay him
restitution if you took her virginity. Interesting, if you take
the virginity of somebody else's slave, whether it's forced or not,
you have to pay the fine for a property crime.
Because that woman that you purchased, most of her value,
a lot of her value is in her virginity, not
just in her ability to work, but also in her virginity.
And this was common in the Encienteer East. If you
read a lot of the engineers during slave contracts, we
got a bunch from the ancient city of Mari that
talk about women being both adopted and purchased so that
they can become wives of somebody else. So you could
literally adopt a baby girl with the intention of one
day this girl will marry so and so. Like, we
need a wife for so and so, there's not one
in the family, so we're going to go adopt this
child and raise it so it will be the wife
of so and so. And they did the same thing
with slaves. If there was we had a young man
that needed a wife and there was no near kin
or no one suitable for them, because you wanted to
keep it within the family so that you didn't cause divisions.
Well what do you do. Will you go buy a
slave girl who has no other option, and you make
her marry this young man. Women were just bought and
sold like property. So when you see concubines in the
Hebrew Bible, they're not that much different than sex slaves.
Speaker 2: Is there a tribal distinction, then I mean the difference
between chattel and debt slaves. Did that usually come down
to whether they were Israeliance or whether they were foreigners.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the biggest distinction. So what we find in
the Hebrew Bible is that there's a whole different set
of laws for foreigners and non foreigners. So, for example,
you can't charge interest on a loan to an Israelite.
You can charge interest on a loan to a foreigner.
If you are owed money by an Israelite, you can't
at any point just walk up and say today, I
need all my money back. You're like, you can't just
go in exact the money because you want it. But
if a foreigner owes you money, you can decide on
your own when you want when you go and exact
that money, and if they don't have your money, you
do the Bob Moss treatment to them. But we find
also in Leviticus twenty five a very clear instance of
God saying, listen, your fellow Israelites, don't don't enslave them.
It's literally talking about men, which we'll touch on, but
he's like, don't enslave your fellow Israelite brethren. Enslave these
foreigners instead. And why is that the case? Ah, Because
the Israelites they're my slaves, They're God's slaves. Right. So
in verse thirty nine does if any who are dependent
on you become so impoverished that they sell themselves to you,
you shall not make them service slaves. Gotcha?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: They shall re The main with you is hired or
bound laborers a Hebrew like a shakir in Hebrew is
somebody who works for money. But they still they still
are bound to you, even though they're getting paid. Says
they shall remain with you as hired or bound laborers.
Say They'll serve with you until the year of Jubilee.
Then then their children shall go free out from your authority.
They shall go back to their own family and return
to their ancestral property. For they are my slaves who
I brought out of Egypt. And they shall not be
sold as slaves are sold. But you shall not rule
over them with harshness, and you shall fear your God.
As for the male and female slaves whom you will have. Now,
some translations say may which is interesting. The literal Hebrew
text doesn't say may have. It says of the ones
that will be to you. That's the direct literal translation
of the slaves that will be to you, meaning the
slaves that you will have. It says you may acquire
them from among the aliens residing with you, and from
their families who are with you, who have been born
in your land. They may be your property Hebrew ahuza.
Here it refers to actual movable property, like property that
you own as a possession. It is yours. It's not temporary.
It says you may keep them as a possession for
your children after you, for them to inherit as property forever.
So it says that they become your property Alam forever.
And so what this means is that there's just a
different classification for foreigners. You don't have to treat foreigners
with the same level of kindness that you treat your
own brethren, which is why it says in the same verse,
verse forty six says, but as for your fellow Israelites,
no one shall rule over the other with harshness. So
what we're learning here then is that, listen, you can't
be harsh to your fellow brethren. But it doesn't say
anything about the foreigners. If you want to be harsh
towards the foreigners. You know, be my guest, you can
do that. And God doesn't seem to care that much
about the foreigners being slaves, because even in the Messianic promise,
So if you go to Treteau Isaiah third Isaiah, we
find in chapter sixty this really interesting restoration promise. For
like the New Age does the nation and kingdom that
shall not serve you shall perish. Those nations shall be
utterly laid waste. So God's holy vision is for eventually
all the nations to serve the nation of Israel. This
is not a God that cares if people are enslaved.
Speaker 2: More with Justin d Z. Next, I want to continue
with women in the Bible. I don't know how many
times I've heard people say that God says you must
honor women, and I'm like, have you read the Old
and New Testament. We're going to get into more of
than next. Your support on paidreon makes such a big difference.
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dot com. Slash Seth Andrew's continuing our Bible study now
with Justin d Z of deconstruction zone. Speaking again to
women as property in the Old Testament, reminded of numbers.
It's Moses's army, and I'm going after the Midianites and
the virgins taken as plunder right. And then I think
Moses got pissed off because not everyone was slaughtered. I'm
doing this from memory. You want to take me there justin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So God wants to do vengeance against the midi
Nites for what happened at Pure So basically, some women
induced the Israelite men to fornicate and to worship foreign gods,
and God's like, listen, we need to avenge. What he
means by avenge is we gotta go wipe them out.
And this is typically this follows what we find in Deuteronomy.
And Deuteronomy God says, if somebody from another neighboring town
induces you to worship their deities, and you prostitute yourself
to their deities, well you go and you genocide the
entire town. You wipe them all out. So we find
that happening in number thirty one. Now what is interesting
is it looks like the Israelite warriors were like, I
don't know, maybe we don't have to do a complete genocide.
Maybe we can save the women and children, which is
what you're allowed to do according to Deuteronomy chapter twenty
In Deuteronomy chapter twenty one, so they're like, I don't know,
maybe we preserve some of these women or some of
the children too. And Moses says, nope, he is mad.
In verse thirteen, it says Moses eliers or the priests,
and all the leaders of the congregation went to meet
them outside of the camp. And Moses became angry at
the officers of the army. Well, why is he angry?
Does the verse sixteen, and these women here on Balem's
advice made the Israelites act treacherously against the Lord in
the affair of pure so that the plague came among
the congregation of the Lord. Now, therefore, kill every male
among the little ones, and kill every woman who is
known a man by sleeping with them. So what we
find it doesn't say women the and the ones being
killed are children. They're referred to in Hebrew as hataf,
that means the children. Verse eighteen says, but among the
young girls, these are children, girls, child girls. In fact,
I believe in the nuke in the King James, it says,
children girls says, but the young girls who have not
known a man by sleeping with him, keep alive for yourself.
So he say, okay, we're gonna save these girls, well
for the like the warriors and the people of Israel.
And I mean, what do you think that they're gonna
they're gonna do with them? Right, Well, you might. There's
two problems that the apologist is gonna out. They're going
to say, well, Moses said to do this, not God.
Well that's wrong if you keep reading. They're also going
to say, well, they weren't used as war brides. Well,
that's also preposterous because their virginity wouldn't be in question.
If they just wanted slaves, they would have kept the
little boys alive and they wouldn't care about their virginity.
And also we're going to touch on Judges twenty one,
which will fix this up. But also God in verse
thirty two chimes in right, says, then Moses and aliars
are the priest did as the Lord commanded Moses, and
then we get the command that Lord gave them, says
the plunder remaining from the spoils that the troops had
taken totaled six hundred and seventy five thousand sheep, seventy
two thousand oxen, sixty one thousand donkeys, and thirty two
thousand persons, in all women who have not known a
man by sleeping with him. So now we learn that
the plunder that God commanded them to take includes the
women who didn't know a man. And then what happens.
They get divided up. They're given to the soldiers, and
it tells you that some of them, unfortunately, it appears
they may actually have gotten sacrificed as well. There's some
debate as to whether or not they actually got sacrificed,
but it says they also separated the portion as God
commanded for the troops in verse forty two. So if
God is saying, listen, take these little virgin girls and
hand them out to the troops, what do you think
they're doing with them? What do you think these young,
bloodthirsty warrior men are doing with these little virgin children girls? Well,
we don't have to guess. Judges twenty one describes exactly
what we would expect. In Judges twenty one, they're dealing
with the fact that the Benjaminites don't have any women
to marry because the rest of the Israelites made a
pledge not to give daughters to them because of what
happened to the Levites concubine the bench. Knightes, there's a
whole story starting in chapter nineteen about the Levi andis concubine,
but it results in this pledge that might mean that
Benjamin's going to get wiped out from the land of
Israel because they don't have any girls to intermarry with.
So they devise a plan. How do we fix this problem?
Says now, the Israelites sworn at Mizpod no one shall
give his daughter to marriage to Benjamin. And the people
came to Bethel and sat there until evening before God.
They lived up their voices and wept bitterly. So now
they're pleading before God. God, give us an answer with
this Benjamin situation. And they said, Oh, Lord, God of Israel,
why does it come to pass that today we should
be one tribe lacking in Israel. On the next day,
the people got up early and built an altar there
and offered burnt offerings and sacrifices as well. Being Then
the Israelites said, who out of all the tribes of
Israel did not come up to the assembly of the Lord.
They're like, Okay, who didn't actually go to battle with us?
Is there a tribe that didn't go to battle with
us that we can hate? And he says that one
shall be put to death? So they're like, Ah, if
there's a tribe that didn't actually go to war with us,
they're not really part of us. We're gonna put them
to death, says But the Israelites had compassion for Benjamin
and their cans and said, one tribe is cut off
from Israel today, what shall we do for the wives
of those who are left? Since we have sworn by
the Lord that we will not give any of them
our daughters in marriage. Then they said, is there anyone
from the tribes of Israel who did not come up
with the Lord to Mispa. It turned out that no
one from Jabesh Gilead had come up to the camp
to the assembly, So like, ah, gotcha, we found a
tribe that didn't go to war with us, So what
are we going to do about it? So they're like,
We're gonna go and massacre this tribe and take their women. Says,
this is what they shall do. Every male and every
woman who is laying with a male, you shall devote
to destruction. So anyone who's not a virgin, kill them,
wipe them out, says And they found among the inhabitants
of Jabesh four hundred young virgins who had never slept
with a man, and brought them to the camp at Shiloh,
which is in the land of Canaan. So here we
already know that the Israelites are out there looking for young,
little virgin girls that they can slaughter their families and
take as captive wives. This is a practice that they did.
It's a practice that everybody else in the ancient nearest
was doing. And that's why number thirty one. Almost all
scholars agree that these women would have been taken as
slaves and concubine, and Deuteronomy twenty one allows it. Deuteronomy
twenty one says, if you take a woman captive, and
you find among the captives a hotty toddy, and you
want to make your your wife, you can take her
into your house, clipper and nails, shave her head, letter,
mourn for thirty days for her dying or her dead
mother and father, and then you can go into her.
So this is just acceptable behavior for the Israelites.
Speaker 2: It's also somebody in my community raised it's kind of
a graphic question. But how was it determined whether or
not the young girls were virgins? And my brain doesn't
even want to go there. Right, Interesting you mentioned Deuteronomy
twenty one because it says that if the soldier ends
up not being happy with the woman he just kidnapped
and totally altered her appearance, he can sort of release
her like a stray cat. Oh hey, thanks anyway, have
a nice life, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And this really defeats the bad apologetic of well
this was saving the women. God was concerned about these
women and wanted to preserve them. Well that's not true.
If by preserving them he was like providing for them
through this war marriage, well then he wouldn't have said, hey,
if they don't please you, you can just send them away. Right.
If this was really about protecting the women, he could
have said, Okay, set up a fund, take a tax,
put a safety net together, and take care of these
women and children that came from the battle because they've
got nothing to depend on. But he doesn't do that.
He says, hey, if you see a hot one. By
the way, that's the category if you see a hot one.
He didn't say all the women. It's like, if you
see a hot one, Hayker, you can have her, but listen,
if she doesn't please you, you can let her go. Right,
So he certainly wasn't concerned with like helping the women out.
If they was concerned about that, then he wouldn't have
commanded them to murder all of their children.
Speaker 2: Let's do some bullets real fast. I mean, let's just
skip through some other examples of why the Old and
or New Testament fall apart under scrutiny.
Speaker 3: I think one of the most overlooked issues between the
Old Testament and the New Testament is like this idea
of the afterlife, heaven, hell, and how do we go
from one to the other. Right, So, in the Hebrew Bible,
we don't really have a hell. We've got shei old.
It's like the realm of the dead, where everybody goes,
there's no distinction. And there's this idea like there's going
to be a resurrection at some point. Possibly we find
this in the Book of Isaiah, find it in Daniel
chapter twelve. This idea that like the righteous the truly
righteous will be vindicated eventually and will rise. We even
find it in the Book of Job. So there is
this idea that some people will come out of sheiol
and possibly if Daniel's true, some others will come out
of Siole, but they'll be punished. But there's not this
idea that like, hey, listen, like if you follow this
law and you're you're not like you fail, like you're
not perfect, well, now God has to light you on
firefall of eternity. That's just not the case. In fact,
the ancient conception was that while righteousness was living according
to the law, the goal is that your righteousness needs
to exceed your unrighteousness. It's like putting your righteousness on
a scale and weighing it against your unrighteousness. As long
as your unrighteousness didn't outweigh your righteousness, like you were
going to have a positive afterlife. And so we find
this in you know, ancient neuristern texts, We find it
in Egyptian literature. It's a common thing, and so that's
kind of the Old Testament conception. In fact, even in
the in the Ecclesiastes Solomon, if you think Solomon wrote it,
is like, listen, the dead know nothing. Whoever is writing
Ecclesiastes doesn't know. He doesn't believe in an afterlife, that's
for sure. That's why everything is vanity. So that's like
a huge problem because the New Testament is built on
this idea that there's a hell. If you're not perfect,
you're going there. God's got a torture for all eternity.
But it doesn't matter if you're righteous, doesn't matter if
you're a good person. If you don't want to go
to hell, you have to believe in this sky carcass
and the nonsense that he preached. You'll never find anything
like that in the Hebrew Bible.
Speaker 2: It is a great point, right, It's only was it
Christopher Hitchins who said it wasn't until gentle Jesus, meek
and mild that we saw this threat of eternal torture.
The apologists like to go back and forth on whether
or not it's a literal hell, but I always good
back to Matthew twenty five, Right, depart, you who are
cursed into a lake of everlasting fire, prepared for the
devil and his angels. How do apologist try to get
around that? It's a tough one.
Speaker 3: So you've pointed out one of the contradictions in the
New Testament. So Paul and Jesus are both guilty of
this where they're like, they say, listen, unless you believe
in me, right, you're going to hell. But then Paul's
on this whole trick of like, well, it's by belief alone,
it's by faith alone, right, But then he goes on
and he's like, also in one Corinthian sixty nine, if
you commit all these sins, you're going to hell. Also
in Revelation twenty one Versus seven and eight, if you
commit these sins, you're going to hell. And Jesus himself
talked about various sins. If you commit these sins like
the unforgivable sin, you know you're going to hell. And
some of the most famous passages, like in Matthew five,
he says like, hey, listen, if your eye causes you
to lust, pluck it out. If your arm causes you
to sin, cut it off, because it's better to to
go into the kingdom missing one, he remembers, and to
have your whole body thrown into hell. So if that's
the case, like if if committing sins means that you're
you could go to hell. Then, like this whole like
salvation by faith alone, just it doesn't check out. If
it's by faith alone, it doesn't matter what sin you commit.
You can commit any sin other than the unforgivable sin
and can still go to heaven. But though that contradicts
directly Jesus is his own words, like you said in
Matthew twenty five, is a depart from me. You workers
of iniquity? Well, I mean, if you're a worker of iniquity,
who isn't everybody's a worker of iniquity? Right? So it's
an interesting it's an interesting new Destmer problem. How could
be by faith alone? But also if you're a worker
of iniquity, which we all are. Romans three twenty three
says everyone has fallen short of glory of God, Well,
then nobody goes to happen apparently.
Speaker 2: Well, it's another doctrinal debate, right James. Chapter two says
faith without works is dead. So wait a minute. I
might say by faith, but if I don't have works,
then my faith is nullified. And then what about the
people who have a deathbed conversion and didn't have time
to do good works? Is that faith nullified. Right the
apologist squabble over that one as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it goes back to this whole nonsense of
like faith verse works. You know, James famously said that
faith of that works is dead. I think James is
writing and responding to Pauline doctrine. And I don't think
Paul really knew what Jesus taught most of the time,
maybe some of it, which is why he had this
faith by works or of faith, not by works. But
Jesus would have contradicted it if Jesus lived after Paul. Jesus
would have thought Paul was an idiot. Jesus himself, in
Matthew five, literally says the exact opposite of Paul. Paul
says in Pheesians, chapter two, verse fourteen fifteen that Jesus
abolished the law in all of its commandments. But that
certainly couldn't be the case because it's a direct contradiction
of Matthew five seventeen through nineteen, where Jesus. I don't
think Jesus made the following the law like the only
thing you have to do to obtain salvation. He obviously
thinks that you have to believe in him he says,
no man comes to the Father except through me. But
Jesus did not abolish the law word for word, bar
for bar. He contradicts Ephesian chapter two and says, I've
come not to abolish, but to fulfill. Well, fulfill doesn't
mean abolish, doesn't mean it goes away. If you think
fulfilled says that the law goes away, then that just
means abolish. And he said I didn't come to abolish,
That means fulfilled must mean like, actually bring it to completion,
but not make it go away. Now, most scholars will
tell you that when Jesus says fulfill, what he really
means is, I'm bringing the law to a more complete form.
Like I'm giving you like the law is basic, right,
I'm giving you the dressed up version. I'm giving you
the hard stuff. Right, I'm taking the law of Moses
that I'm I'm making it full. That's why if you
look at how he changed it in the same chapter,
he doesn't say not to follow the law. He makes
it harder. He adds to the law, which is a
violation of Deuteronomy four Versus one and two. But that's
neither here nor there. That's why Jesus goes on to say,
for truly, I tell you, until heaven and earth passed away,
not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will
pass away from the law until all is accomplished. And
some Christians will quit reading there, But they need to
read the next verse. Therefore, whoever that's anybody whoever breaks
one of the least of these commandments and teaches others
to do the same, will be called least in the
Kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them
will be called great in the kingom of Heaven. So,
according to Jesus, if you want to be great in
the Kingdom of Heaven, you got to follow the law.
That's why, when the ritual ruler comes to him and says,
what must I do to inherit eternal life, he says,
follow the commandments. When he heals the leper, he says,
go present yourself at the temple according to the law
of Moses. Jesus in the Gospels say a single word
about the law going away, and he ends Matthew twenty
eight by telling the disciples, go and teach people all
that I have commanded you. Well, he commanded you to
follow the law which means Jesus's telling you to go
teach people to follow the law.
Speaker 2: It's also interesting to watch the New Covenant believers who
have essentially written off the entire Old Testament ten commandments.
They want the ten Commandments hung through about our culture
and the du well, hang on. If the New Covenant
trumped the Old and the Old is now obsolete because
it was a different time blah blah blah, then how
much of the Old Testament have you just written off?
And how would God feel about that? Right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the double edged sword that the Christian has
to deal with. If you want to say that the
law was done away with, then that means all of
the law. If you're going to use Jesus's words to
get rid of the law, then you can't subdivide it
and say, well except for these ones, these ones that
I like, even though the tenth Commandment they hate because
it includes slavery. Like, there's nothing in the Bible that
secctions off the law into different categories. In the Hebrew Bible.
The best you'll get is there's a mention in the
Hebrew Bible of the decalogue as like the ten these
ten commandments are a little bit unique. But the New
Testament doesn't do that. The New Testament never says that
you should follow the ten commandments, only you'll never find
it there. In fact, even the two most important commands
from Matthew twenty two, Jesus says to love the Lord
you got with all your mineheart and soul. That's Deuteronomy six'.
Five then he, says love your neighbor as yourself As
leviticus nineteen. Eighteen neither one of them part of the Ten.
Commandments so to be, clear the two most important commandments
are not part of the, ten which means you can't
then go and, say, Well jesus wants you to follow
only the ten. Commandments, well that can't be. True the
two most important ones don't even come from the. Ten
and if you look at the rich young, ruler the
last thing he tells the rich young ruler is to
follow a commandment that's not part of the ten. Commandments
so just following the ten. Amendments it's not a rubric
That jesus lays. Out this is something That christians have
to invent because they're, like oh, gosh if we get
rid of all the, LAWS i guess we don't have
any moral.
Speaker 2: Structure you've been so generous with your. TIME i want
to get back, to like maybe one or two more
of your greatest. HITS i do want to address. Something
there is a fallacious argument THAT i hear some atheists,
make and some believers get into. THIS i know some
more progressive pastors say That jesus never condemned. Homosexuals of
course we get into, well if you're right off The Old,
covenant then That's leviticus and its condemnation of gay, people.
Etc but The New testament never does. That that's not.
Accurate you get Into. ROMANS i think it's In, Carinthians. Firs.
Timothy there's a lot there are. Scriptures Not jesus didn't
say the, words but there are scriptures against abominations quote
unquote unnatural, acts men lying with, men women lying with.
Women so The New testament does condemn. HOMOSEXUALITY i think
it's important to draw that distinction and, say you, know
you can't say it's ONLY O t And jesus was
all light and. Love that's, fair isn't? It justin it's
totally as.
Speaker 3: Fair let's imagine for a second that you're A christian
and you believe That leviticus does condemn, homosexuality and that
the destruction Of, soadakamorra Despite ezekiel saying that it was about,
hospitality that you, know homosexuality was part of the, problem
WHICH i actually agree with. THAT i think part of
the description of The sodomites and also those From gibbea
during The levites concubine. Story the reason why they describe
them specifically as wanting to sexualize the men is because
they believe that that was an indicator of. Evil, so
but imagine for a second that that's just now part
of The Old testament. Law, well if you Believe jesus's, words,
Well jesus says to follow The Old testament, law as
we just, discussed which means you can't just throw the
law away and, say well that's, old we don't care
about that, anymore because he's said to follow. It. Now
the other problem you have Is. Paul paul literally says
In First corinthians chapter six that the male better is
going to not inherit the, kingdom meaning a man who
shares a bed with another. Man that seems to be,
problematic and we get a similar situation In romans chapter,
one where he talks about homosexuality engaging in unnatural, lusts
and he, says even the. Women, now it was common
for men sometimes In Roman Greco roman culture to engage
in sexual acts with other, men but women, less so
it was seen as like a special form of, debauchery
like because it was more. Rare and So paul that's
like his. Capstone he's, like even the women exchange natural
relations with men for other. Women So paul's, like, nah,
man this is not. Good SO i know there's a
big effort in the church and with liberal scholars to
make homosexually homosexual stuff go. Away they, say, well it's
not exactly the way it is. Today they're not really
talking about consensual loving, relationships or they're just talking about the.
Act there's so many things you can do to make
it go. Away to, me this is a. COPE i get.
IT i read the scholar. LITERATURE i know there's an
argument to be made. HERE i know there, Is but
from an atheist, Standpoint i'm reading this book from WHAT
i know about the ancient. Culture i'm, saying, listen they
thought homosexuality was a. Sin that's why it's demonized in The.
Bible rather than trying to make it go. Away just
throw The bible, out get rid of. It you don't
need it's not helping. You rather than trying to say
words don't mean. Words just get rid of the. Book
you don't need.
Speaker 2: It you Mentioned. SODOM i go back To genesis. Nineteen,
Right lot one of the heroes of The Old, testament
and he's got the two male angels in his house
as his, guests and the man Of sodom rise up
because they want to have homosexual relations with the male.
Angels and what Does lot. Do he's, like, ah, crap, no, no,
no we don't want. That let me protect my guests,
HERE i have two virgin. Daughters let me throw them
out the door to, you and then you can do
whatever you want with. Him and Yet lot still remained
a biblical hero of the. Story right.
Speaker 3: Yeah in, fact if you Read jude And Tewod, Peter
lot is lauded as like a righteous. Man if you
go To Second, peter chapter, TWO i believe it talks About. Lot.
Yeah down in verse six seven and, eight it, says
if he Rescued, lot a righteous man really distressed by
the debauchery of. Lawlessness, wait what a righteous. MAN i
mean you. Can you can offer your virgin daughters as
playtoys to these barbarians and you're a righteous. Man that's.
Crazy the funniest thing about that, story, too which people,
forget is remember how the story. Resolves the angels strike
the men outside of the house, blind which Means lot
could have just asked the angels to do something for
him like HE i THINK i personally think That lot
knew that they weren't just, men even though it refers
to him as. MEN i think A lot probably knew
they were, special knew they were, angels and so like
A lot could have been, like, Hey, god is there
anything we could do about? This but that's not what he.
Did he, Did i'm going to offer my. Daughters the
other problem is the. Angels they knew that they were,
angels they knew that they had special. Power they could
have stepped in Before lot offered his, daughters and, like
we got, it A lot just Killed just sit over, here.
Right so the whole story is.
Speaker 2: Bananas you've Got god watching the whole thing go, down
so beyond the power of the, Angels god could have, said,
hey none of this, right none of these Shenanigans i'm
going to stop the whole, thing and our last, SEGMENT
i Asked justin if there's anything else he wants to
talk about some of the stuff that's in his wheelhouse
and on his mind in regard to The bible that's.
Coming i'm just. Second lots of free thought events on
the conference calendar already for twenty twenty, six and more
are coming in all the. Time so, far it's Me
Forrest valkei And Gutzig Gibbon march seventh And, tulsa The
Western Canadian Reason conference In calgary first weekend In. May
coming Up august twenty first through the twenty, third It's
Baja khan In, Sarnia, ontario and Then Rocket City reason In, Huntsville,
alabama third weekend In. October details on all of this
with links and everything at The thinkingatheist dot com slash.
Events Our bible study continues now with my special Guest
justin de Z. Any final example thoughts before we put
a punctuation mark on, It BEFORE i let you, Go, Justin.
Speaker 3: I've got a lot of hours of debate footage and
videos of me talking about How jesus fulfilled exactly zero messianic.
Prophecies So i'm not going to go over that. Today
there's dozens of videos of me on the internet doing.
That BUT i do want to go over one of
my favorite topics in The bible THAT i don't think
it's enough, love, namely like the cosmology of The bible
is absolute. Bananas they have no idea what the real
cosmos is, like and they depict a cosmos that is, small.
Localized there's a flat Disc earth with a dome over
top of, it And god lives on the dome and
that's part of the. Sky some of the newer translations
just say. It it just says, dome like The nabre THE,
NASRV nrsv, Says god, said let there be a dome
in the midst of the, water and let it separate
water from. Waters So god made a dome and it
separated the waters that were under the dome and the
waters that were above the. Dome And god called the dome.
Sky how Sham iam In hebrew and The hebrews, understood
according to The, bible That god lived at the top
of the, dome like he walked on top of the.
Dome and we've got passages Describing god walking on the,
dome and they described it as being. Hard In, job
he says it's hard like a cast metal. Mirror That's
job thirty, Seven verse eighteen says it's hard as a molten. Mirror,
Okay so we got this hard dome And god lives
up there according To psalm one fifty verse one and
says also In job verse twenty two, fourteen thick clouds
in wrap. Him So god's in the clouds so that
he does not see and he walks on the dome Of.
Heaven what you can walk on The dome Of? Heaven, well,
yeah because it's a, hard lean, dome which is why
when A zehiel goes up to visit the, dome he,
says like it's it looks like. Sapphire and we get
something as well In access twenty four when the elders
go up on the mountain and they Visit, god they
see like something like sapphire under his. Feet so we
just we have all these references to this idea that
there's a dome over the, earth and it says that
the stars are up in. There If genesis one Says
god set them in the dome of the sky and
gave light upon The, earth referring to like the celestial.
Bodies so according to The, bible the celestial bodies are
like up at the bottom of the, Dome it, says
the birds fly across the face of the. Dome god
lives on top of the dome and walks on the
top of the. Dome and the only problem they have
to solve is, like, well how does how Does god
live on top of the dome the dome if there's
water up? There, well the rabbis tell you in The,
tulmud there's a, gap there's an air gap created By god's,
spirit and the water is above the air, gap And
god lives in that air gap between the water and
between the, dome and that was their.
Speaker 2: Cosmology doesn't the dome also play into the genesis flood? Myth,
right because there was water somehow above the dome in,
space and then apparently the water On earth and the
water from above the firmament combined to flood The. EARTH
i Think i'm remembering that.
Speaker 3: Correctly, so, yeah the windows Of, heaven you, know open
up this idea that the dome had like windows or
doors in it that could let like atmospheric stuff, down
like rain or snow that was definitely up in. There
and if you're in the ancient world and you look,
up you're, like, well why is the sky? Blue, well
because there's water up, there that's why the sky is.
Blue and there's a. Dome if you just stand on
a high hill and turn, around it's obviously a dome.
Shape and that's what they. Believe and we get in
some later, literature like in The book Of, enoch we
get like a really good description of what we find
in the. Dome in, Fact i've GOT i have a
whiteboard with. ME i don't know IF i have my
whiteboard up. Here but so Basically enoch is, like, listen the.
Sun the sun travels around the, earth, right how is that?
Gonna how's that? Happening? Right so he's, like, listen we've
got this dome and the dome at the at the
base of, it where it meets the, earth well there's.
Windows so he's he's, like, listen the sun goes like,
This it goes across the bottom of the dome out
the window below the, earth back in another window in
the cross the face of the dome. Again and so
that's How enoch is trying to figure out how does
The sun go around The earth if The earth is
encased in a dome like obviously there's windows in, it
and so ancient cosmology is just.
Speaker 2: Wild all, right final, Question i'm going to send everybody
to your page because we could go on or, not
and let me ask a final question that would take
three weeks to properly, answer Because i'm kind of an asshole.
Justin but one of the things that we talk about
is how much Of yahweh as a, god how many
of the stories of The Old testament are borrowed from earlier,
cultures perhaps earlier, religions other gods and. Mythologies AND i
know many don't call it plagiarism because there were sort
of genre, gods there were genre flood, stories. Etc so
many religions were expected to have certain types of tales
in their. Scriptures but do you get in at all
too how much of this stuff is not?
Speaker 3: Original SO i used TO i personally don't find that
it's helpful in the deconstruction, work Although i've written a
lot of articles on my website over the years about,
this and the first eleven chapters are typically referred to
as a primeval history and what you'll find in the
first eleven chapters Of genesis is almost every story in,
there almost everyone has A babylonian Or sumerian. Counterpart even The,
tower there's A sumerian story about people coming together to
build a mound and they all spoke the same, language
and then the gods looked. Down it was, like, nope
not going to have, that and they they impeded the
work of building the, mound and then they scattered the
people in their. Language like everything, there everything's copied from babylon,
mythology even the creation Of adam And. Eve in babylon,
mythology they took the clay of the earth and molded
into a, human and Then god put his breath into
it and also blood into. It so there's two divine
things inside of every. Human one is. Blood that's Why
leviticus says that the life is in the, blood and
two is the, spirit the wind Of. God that's why
when we, die you, know the spirit leaves. Us we're
no longer not breathing. Anymore so it's like we're basically
just like dirt, bags and we're being animated by, life
and that life comes from The. Gods that means part
of the gods are living in, us and that's what
animates our, dirt, bags the blood and the wind Of.
God and you'll find that in The babylonian, literature and
so like just, everything like this idea that entities came
down and made it with humans and created. Giants it's
in The babylonian. Literature this idea of like a sacred
tree in the garden and snakes robbing the humanity of.
Immortality that's the epic Of gilgamesh and the epic Of.
Gogomesh he goes like basically the edge of known existence
to Find utnapishtam to figure out how he can become,
immortal and in doing so he discovers as a plant
at the bottom of the sea Of. Death he dives
down into, it gets the plant and is on the
shore of the of the water when a snake comes
and snags the plant of immortality away from, him and
then he never gets to be.
Speaker 2: Immortal gilgamesh, too and then like the flood, story, right
the gods become irritated with humankind and decide to flood
the whole damn planet to.
Speaker 3: Do, yeah we've got four different editions of the flood
narrative at least prior to the biblical, version and so
were they, Copying, yeah obviously they're obviously. Copying the other thing,
too is like the idea of the. Boat that's super.
Common every flood narrative has like somebody with a boat
that is like being preserved via the. Boat why The
god sent the flood, changes that's one thing that. Changes
and the creation of humankind and the relationship To god
is a little bit. Different like the gods in The
babylonian narratives are like annoyed by the humans because they're
making too much noise down, Here, like, hey we created
these humans to do our work for, us but they're
actually making a whole bunch of, noise and so maybe
we should just wipe them. Out that's a little bit
different in the. Story one thing that's not different, though
is that humans were created to do the work Of.
God so like even In genesis it says That adam
was placed in the, garden like typical translation will say
something like to work the garden or to tend to the,
garden but actually used as the same root word for,
slave so it is an evid so Like adam is
a slave in the, garden which matches the biblical narrative
where humans are created to kind of Do god's.
Speaker 2: Work we can talk all, night we can talk to
sundown and probably to. Sunrise this is my. Jam where
do people find you and your? WORK i want to
make sure they have a chance to see some of
your long form productions. There, yeah thanks for.
Speaker 3: Asking So i've got a TikTok channel in two YouTube,
channels And i'll explain WHY i have two YouTube. Channels
i've got one that is dedicated to just. Debates it's
CALLED Dz, debates where it's literally just old, school you,
know horizontal, format just me doing. Debates i've also got another,
channel my main, channel which is Called Deconstruction, zone and
it's got my, debates most of them in vertical, format
and also got all kinds of other. Stuff i've got
educational content. There i've got interviews over. There i'm doing
some interviews right now with people who are like Ex
mormon and getting into The mormon. Lore AND i even
got some shorts THAT i post. There SOMETIMES i have
a short THAT i put on Like instagram or on
TikTok THAT i really like That i'll throw up on
that channel as, well so it's kind of my catch all.
Channel then on TikTok it's deconstruction Dot, zone which is
kind of WHERE i got my. START i have started
A facebook and An instagram for people who don't do
YouTube and. TikTok you can find me at basically the
same handles at Deconstruction, zone AND i do have a link.
Tree if you go to my YouTube page or my TikTok,
Page i'll have a link. Tree it's all my. Links
you can find me in whatever social media you're interested.
Speaker 2: In i'll throw the link tree in the description box
for ease. Debates it's. Funny this is just an ASSIGN
i had an email from somebody In Kent hoven's camp
otherwise known as inmates zero six four or five threeho one,
seven and they Said kenthoven is interested in having you
Debate god on his. Channel AND i looked at the
email AND i clicked, reply AND i, said thank you
so much for the. INVITATION i would rather put a
campfire out with my face yours In Christ Seth, andrews
AND i clicked send AND i have not heard. Back so,
anyway the apologist who wanted to Debate, god you. Know
sometimes it's, fun sometimes it's. Not i'm sure you've seen.
Both justin thank you so much for a compelling. Conversation
we got to do this, again So i'll have my
people call your people or vice.
Speaker 3: Versa, okay, well thanks for having. ME i really appreciate
it and looking forward to more. Conversations let's do.
Speaker 1: It Follow The Thanking atheist On facebook And twitter for
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