Speaker 1: Welcome to the God's I View podcast. I am your host, Trevor.
I wanted to get another episode in the books asap
so that the most recent episode isn't my random theological screed,
which was the last episode. You know, it's just been fun.
I've been arguing with my friend. What's better. I think
for me, a peak male friendship is somebody I can
just argue with about science or theology. I argue with
my boss at work about science, and I argue with
my seventh day I'd be his friend about religion. It's
kind of nice, you know. I feel like Plato or
Socrates just out there arguing. Maybe with that all the
young young male. Was it Socrates up to some shenanigans?
I don't know, but yeah, just just just as nice
to just intellectually joust. That's one of the things I'm
into for some reason. Anyway, those arguments have been going strong,
kind of flushing out what I think about stuff. It's interesting.
I've been in communications with an Orthodox church by me,
probably the most well known Orthodox priest in the internet
space happens to have a church nearby. They've been super nice.
You know what it is though, It's just something about
I'm attracted to the seriousness of it, but it is
kind of shocking for somebody like me, been an atheist
nearly my whole life, never really been to church. I
mean a few times here or there, you know, somebody's
funeral and that's not really a service, or with a
friend whose parents said we had to go a couple
times as a kid. And then I have a few
family members who are more on the evangelical side, so
I've been a few times with them, and that's kind
of just like going to like a concert. You know,
it's not very serious. He can address the same but
there's like protocol at an Orthodox church. There's like stuff
you got to know, and it's very serious, and it
makes me a little uncomfortable. So I don't know if
I'll really work up the courage to go. I want
to see it, you know, it looks beautiful in the
pictures and it's again very serious, which I like, but
I'm also afraid of does that make sense anyway? In
kind of new format for the show, I think I
might play two clips, one more scientific, one more theological,
and kind of historical historically interesting in my opinion. But
first personal anecdote I'm onto some good stuff at work
right now, kind of exploring some really cool hypotheses. I
won't get too into it because it's boring and it's
not the topics we talk about, but just exploring some
interesting side effects of certain types of blood pressure medications,
because here's my thought process, right. You can learn a
lot about a disease that's somewhat unrelated to the intended
treatment effect of different medications just by virtue of what
those medications do and how they work. You know, for example,
there seems to be like certain blood pressure medications on
the surface don't seem related at all, that keep amyloid
and tao, the Alzheimer's disease biomarkers. They keep amyloid soluble,
which is what you want, and they keep tao insoluble,
which is what you want. You want tao in your
neurons healthy and normal, and you want amyloid in your
CSF healthy and normal. Should those twain? Should those two meet,
you know, or whatever the expression is, that's not good.
And there are certain blow pressure medications that prevent that
from happening, but they're in different drug classes. You know.
It's like a drug in this class a drug in
that class, a drug in this class. So my thought
process was, why not figure out what those drugs have
in common? And there is this biological pathway that they
all have in common. So to me, it's like, well,
clearly that's an interesting biological pathway, you know, and no
one's really studied it. And sure enough, I'm looking at
like millions of health records. I'm looking at these big
observational data sets where like five thousand people have had
lumbar punctures and had cerebral spinal fluid pulled out, and
I can go look at their meds, and sure enough,
the ones taking these certain meds do better. And so
it's like, well, if we figure out what that mechanism is,
because clearly it's not like a well established thing that
they do, you know, because the drugs all do different things,
so they have some shared side effect that's beneficial. And
so there's two implications there. One is, you know, all
other things being equal, if the side effects of two
drugs are the same, and it's an older person, especially
if someone's genetically predisposed to Alzheimer's, give them the drug
that will prevent Alzheimer's, you know, assuming they have hypertension,
which most people do so, especially in that agridge. So
so that that's pretty exciting. But then the more exciting
thing is, well, if we figure out that specific pathway,
you know, potentially you could come up with a better
you know whatever drug or biomarker, you know something. It's
something new for the billions and billions of dollars we've
invested into Alzheimer's and come up with zilch. It's very
exciting to have a new idea. And of course my
grants are all linguishing. They all got good scores, but
they're just sitting unpaid. It's an issue anyway. Moving on though,
we're going to uh, we're gonna get into some stuff,
starting with our friend Trent Horn. Now I've got some
I like Trent. It's one of these things, you know,
you become an Internet personality all of a sudden, everyone
needs to have an opinion about you, right, and apparently
I need to have an opinion about this guy. So
I think he's very smart. I think he does a
really good job articulating his positions. I do think he's
kind of inconsistent, and I think one of the ways
he's very good is that he can really kind of
steamroll you. And he's a quick thinker, but he is fair.
I'm not He's not a bully. I'm just saying he
can kind of like ba up, bat up, bat up,
but up. And as far as theology goes, I mean,
it seems pretty cool. I'm not a Catholic, you know,
but everything seems pretty cool that he says makes sense.
But he wades into politics, and I'm okay with that.
I'm okay with waiting into politics. But once you wade
into politics, it's like, I don't know, like you can't
the things you decide to talk about and not talk about.
It's like of telling, you know. And he ownes in
on really specific issues. And there's a lot of political
issues that are that have religious significance, one of them
being war. You know, he doesn't really talk about that
as far as I know. One of them being you know,
corruption and abuse and secret sexual abuse and all this stuff, right,
he doesn't really talk about He he kind of talks
about one thing, which is the trans stuff. And that's okay.
I think I kind of agree with him, you know,
I just I don't the selectivity is kind of odd
to me. I don't know, a lot of people don't
like him because he's not political enough, so you can't
make everybody happy. And you know, I don't really like
talking about politics at all for that reason. But I am.
I am actually going to wait and this water ever
so slightly. And this is more just a personal story
than a political opinion. But it will probably turn into
a political opinion at some point in the next five minutes.
But the culture war trans stuff, you know, doesn't really
affect me, you know, like I don't encounter it much.
You know, I work with people who have the pronouns
in the email or whatever. It's fine. I think it's
kind of weird, you know, but you know, trying to
be whatever, get along and and no one's making me
do it, so that's fine, you know what I mean.
That's really my politics. You know. I won't make you
do anything. You don't make me do anything. Once people
start making me do stuff, it's like, all right, now
I have an opinion. Now I'm upset, but you leave
me alone. I'll leave you alone. All good. But I
had a business. My wife had a business. She had
a big warehouse, you know, like five thousand square feet,
and then I was running a little business as well.
We were roasting coffee and I was also working full time,
and like healthcare, I think I've talked on the past
episode all the businesses I've started, I forgot to mention
that one. You know, that's how many there are. Anyway,
So it was roasting coffee, making bottled beverages, and I
needed help. So we decided to hire somebody, and so
we did like the I don't know indeed or whatever,
and someone applied and she did not really interview well,
but she seemed nice. You know, I'm a subt dude.
If you're nice, I'm a sucker. She seemed kind of sad.
You know, she's pretty overweight, you know, just mind so
am I you know, I'm getting better, I'm getting there.
I'm getting back on track. But uh, anyway, man, if
you could have seen me when I was twenty good lord,
good lord. Anyway, anyway, that times change, times are changing. Anyway.
So she's you know, kind of over which seems depressed.
But she seems nice, you know, like she seems kind hearted,
you know, kind of has a shorter haircut, but definitely
a woman. You know, this is like a youngish woman,
twenty two maybe something like that, we hire her. She's
working in the warehouse alone, and I come by every
once in a while, like in between zoom calls and
stuff to do my own thing, like make a delivery
or whatever. And so I come in and I noticed
that she's falling her eyes out, she's crying. I'm leaving
out one detail, which is the day prior I was
training her on how to roast coffee. And I said
to my friend, who was helping her because he's also
a coffee roaster, Hey, why don't you show her how
to do this? And she goes, oh, excuse me. I
go by they them, and I was like, oh, I
never had that experience in real life, you know, I've
only ever heard about this. I was excited. I felt
like an experience, you know. So I was like, of course,
I'm sorry, you know, why don't you show them or whatever?
Which is fine because like sometimes I even talk that
way anyway, you know, like I think I feel like
I've even been corrected as a kid, like anyway, I
mean there's situations where the it doesn't make sense like dramatically,
you know, but okay, whatever, So I say, sure, no problem.
I was kind of caught off guard. I just want
everybody to be happy. I'm that guy. You know. If
you hate me for that, I'm sorry anyway. But as
soon as someone tells me to put the them in
my email or him, he man like, dude, that actually
kind of upsets me. So I have a lot. It's
more about autonomy. That's really my issue anyway. So I say, sure,
no problems. So the next day she's they she I'm
gonna say, she I all forgot, I'm gonna mess it up.
She is crying her eyes out, and I'm like, hey,
is everything going okay? She goes, yeah, I just I'm
having a really hard time with my boyfriend. He's thinking
of breaking up with me because his dad is just
devastated that he came out as homosexual. And now I'm
really confused because here is a woman, an adult woman,
who boyfriend is thinking about breaking up with her because
he came out as gay. So kind of my assumption
is that he's realized he's gay and wants to break
up with this woman to date a man, you know,
but I don't know. These are treacherous waters. I'm like, okay, oh,
I'm so sorry. She goes, yeah, he's never met me.
Oh my god, this is real. You can't make this.
I'm devastated that no one was there with me. I
tell this story. No one else thinks that's as funny
as I do. To me, it's like Seinfeld level, like
just peak absurdity. She goes, yeah, he's never met me,
but you know, his son told him that he's in
a gay relationship. And I'm like, now, I don't understand. Anyway,
I'm gonna cut to the chase because I didn't really
confront her on the issue. I just said I'm so sorry.
But here's what I was able to reverse engineer after
the fact. Right, Okay, So here is a father, you know,
normal father. His son comes to him and goes, Dad,
I'm a gay man. I'm in a gay relationship and
I'm gay. And the dad's like what what? He didn't
handle it? Well, I can't believe it, like I've you've
always been into you know, women. I don't understand. Here's
the thing. He's gay because he's in a relationship with
a non binary person. Do you understand. So here, when
he says he's gay, what he means is he's having Uh,
if there's kids in the car, you know, cover the years,
this is gonna get biologically anatomical. But he's he's having
vaginal sex with a woman, right of vaginal sex in
the vagina, and a woman that came that way from
the factory, right, Like, this is a born a woman
anatomically is still that same, you know, you know, born
a girl, still a woman, an adult woman. You know,
am I'm making sense? Am I making sense? It's the
most typical sexual relationship you can possibly imagine, right, it's
an adult male and an adult woman engaging in consensual
activities with one another. But because the adult woman identifies
as that they them, the son confessed his homosexuality to
his father. Upset. I'm like, you got to give me
this guy's DAS number so I can just explain. Like, listen,
here's what's going on. Your son is very confused. He's
really looking to like have an issue, you know, because
here's what's really going on, your son, an adult man
is having consensual sex with an adult woman. This is
what's actually happening right now, you know, Oh my god. Anyway,
here's the only reason why am I telling this story.
I have no idea why I'm telling this story anyway,
But it does have an interesting ending. Our business closed
down as it inevitably would, and I treated this individual
with the utmost respect and dignity, Thank you very much.
I actually kind of felt I don't know, I felt
I was confused. I was confused by the situation because
I think you could argue I'm not arguing this, so
don't send me any emails. This is not me talking.
This is a hypothetical person making this argument. You could
argue that it isn't necessarily correct or good or even
in the person's interest to a firm certain psychological issues.
Now I'm not saying that gender identity is a psychological issue,
but let's use some other examples that are clearly psychological issues,
like anorexia, okay, or multiple personality disorder. Right, if someone
comes to you that you you learn they have multiple
personality disorders? What what is the right thing to do? Morally, medically? Everything?
It is? Okay, Hey, listen, this happens. But we need
to deal with this. You know, we need to talk
to a professional, and we need to we need to
sort of incorporate these personalities. We need to get you
back on track. You're one person with one personality, you know,
or anorexia, like, hey, we understand you're struggling with this
and you feel fat, but you're not. You're actually significantly
underweight and you're doing long term damage to your body.
So we need to get you some food, right, You
would never affirm those things, like imagine, imagine an anorex
that came to you and it's like, I feel fat,
like I identify as fat. You'd be psychotic to say, yeah,
you know what, I support that you are fat. You
are fat, amen, sister, you know, and in fact, here's
a pill that will further suppress your hunger so that
you more closely resemble you know, the way you feel.
Because because you feel fat and you're trying to get skinnier,
so the right thing to do is affirm you here's
a GLP one agonist semaglue tide ozempic and uh yeah,
we got to get you scale. You need to lose
some weight. You know, it would just be crazy anyway,
some people, not me, Absolutely not me. How dare you
even insinuate this is what I'm saying because I'm not.
But some people out there, bigots might say that about
you know, if you're confused, you feel certain way you
could say, well, really, the only appropriate thing to do
is to kind of coach this person like, well, no,
you know that's that's not the case. You know, this
is this is how you're born. And you know, it
is true that within each gender there is sort of
a spectrum, right, there are more masculine and more feminine men.
They're even gay men, which is a separate topic. But
there is sort of the spectrum. But that spectrum does
not transcend anatomy, right, And we would never try to
change your physiology or actually change your anatomical structure surgically
to to make that happen, unless unless there really is
some kind of like sexual dimorphism thing going on. Some
people are born with unclear genitalia, you know, so that
would be a different thing. But the vast majority that's
not the case. Wow, we're really going into it. I
wasn't expecting to do this. Why am I doing this? Oh?
I think just to finish the story, which is I
ran into her recently beautiful adult woman, long hair, you know,
wearing female clothes instead of male clothes, saying she and
her and me and my boyfriend, you know, like complete
just complete resolution, you know what I mean, Just so
much happier, so happy, and it's like, well, yeah, it's
clearly like you were going through something, you know, and
it's sad and you should be comforted. That's why I
don't believe in being mean. I see a lot of
people who are mean to this group of people. I
don't think that's the way to go. I think these
people are you know, they're suffering. Now. They can't upset
people to hear that, right, So I generally try to
avoid the topic. But here we are, here we are.
Why am I talking about this? Oh? Just because this
is a topic. Trent also like, so I do agree
with him. I just think it's weird to only talk
about like but here, I just did it. I just
did it. Oh am, I'm a hypocrite, you know the
you know the this is the line. I've said this before.
But the reason I don't go to church is because
it's filled with hypocrites. And then the rejoinder is, yes,
but there's room for one more. Okay, that will be
the segue too. Talking about today's clip, did you guys
think the story was funny at least? Like do you
see the absurd humor in it? Like the boy crying
telling his boomer dad like, Dad, I'm a gay man.
And the dad's like, oh, son, why you know, I
just wanted a grandson. And what's his name? Oh? Well
his name is Tiffany. And and he's like, Tiffany, is
that his stay your name? No, no, that's their name. Okay?
And uh howl? How old is he? Well? Uh, it's
they don't go by he Actually, you know, they were
assigned female at birth and they go by they assigned
female at birth, you say, and so they've they've had
a like a transition surgery. No, no, no, totally you know,
biologically female, but identifies it. Okay, Okay, So what you're
telling me, son, is you are in a gay relationship
with a woman. No, Dad, I'm in a gay relationship
with a non binary person. Good Lord, No wonder the boomers.
The boomers hate my generation, so confusing. Anyway, today's episode
is what is God's Name? Unrelated to what I've been
talking about for the last twenty minutes, here we go.
Speaker 2: Did you know that God's name is so sacred that
Catholics aren't allowed to say it in certain contexts? So
in today's episode, we'll examine the three thousand year old
mystery of God's name, when it can and can't be said,
and which religious groups still misunderstand God's name and identity today. Now,
right off the bat, you should know God's personal name
isn't God, just as the President's personal name isn't mister President.
The word God comes from an Old German word meaning
the invoked one. Now, a believer can use the title
God as a kind of name and refer to God
in that way, such as in the Liturgy of the
Hours when we pray, Oh God, come to my assistance,
Oh Lord, make haste to help me. But scripture reveals
God's personal name in Exodus chapter three, when it describes
Moses encountering God in the burning bush. It says, then
Moses said to God, if I come to the people
of Israel and say to them, the God of your
father's has sent me to you, and they ask me,
what is his name, what shall I say to them?
God said to Moses, I am who I am, And
he said, say this to the people of Israel, I
am has sent me to you.
Speaker 1: The Friend. So I think that is kind of interesting,
because we had that those two episodes we did on
whether or not Jesus claim to be God. So the
actual name that's given to Moses by God is I Am.
I Am, And so I think that's fascinating. I can't
explain why exactly, but to me that is fascinating. He says,
what is your name? And the name is Bean, like
Bean is what I am. I do notice a lot
of like kind of new age collective consciousness. People sort
of use this like the Kingdom of Heaven is within
you that Jesus talks about, and to kind of say
like that we are all a peace of God. And
I don't think that's totally wrong, right, because God breathes
his breath into dust to make us in the Garden story,
so it kind of implies there is something from God
in us, and that's reiterated throughout the Bible. When you die,
you give up the ghosts and it goes back to
God until the resurrection. Now this is a theological hot
topic actually what I just said, but believe it there.
But I didn't realize that the name Yahweh, which is
kind of traditionally thought of as the name of the
of God in the Old Testament, might actually come We'll
let Trent explain it, but might actually come from the
same word. So it could be that God's name really
is just I am being itself. Right. It's possible. Now
we don't know that for sure, but we'll let's let trin.
Speaker 2: Exwain he ay as I am who I am is
aah aa and Hebrew. In verse fifteen, the word rendered
i am comes from four consonants rendered yh wh in English.
Speaker 1: So the word that means I am is the word
that we what's it called the something a graham yhwh.
There's a name for it, but you know there's no vowels,
but we think you pronounce it yahweh. It's the name
is actually just I am, you know. And it's okay
to say names in your language like in English, you know,
because I am is Hebrew. You know yhwh ancient Hebrew.
But you know it has a different, different name in Greek,
you know. Or what? Actually, no, I don't I think
yahweh never gets I think it always is just. I
don't know. We'll let try and explain. But but the
point is, like, you know, we don't say here in America,
we don't say at an eye, which means lord. We
say lord. You know, we don't say dios we say God,
and so I think it is kind of just cool
to just say I am, like like that's God's name,
you know, like God's name is just the act of being,
like just ah, I need a better word for it,
you know, because his name, because I am is that's
like a statement, that's a I'm sure there's a better
literary term for it. Is that a preposition? No, I
don't know, but it doesn't. It's not a moniker, like,
it's not like sarah, you know. It Actually it means something.
And so I think it would be totally acceptable to
just think of God's name as I am, which I
think is really really cool.
Speaker 2: Most scholars believe this word naa come from the same
root haya, which means to be. In John A fifty eight,
Jesus uses the divine name to describe himself because he says, truly, truly,
I say to you. Before Abraham was I am or
in Greek ago ame. In earlier parts of the Old Testament,
God's personal name was spoken frequently, but after the Babylonian Captivity,
Jewish people became much more hesitant to say God's name
for fear of breaking the second commandment, you shall not
take the name of the Lord, your God in vain,
for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes
his name in vain. The Talmud records a tradition that
the high priest only uttered God's name once a year
during Yam Kapor, the day of Atonement. When the Hebrew
Bible was translated into Greek, the word curios or lord
was often used in place of the divine name. By
the time of Jesus Ministry, this was a widespread practice,
with the Hebrew word for Lord, Adonai, replacing God's name
when scripture was read aloud. This became universal practice among
Jews after the destruction of the Temple in eighty seventy,
and in the medieval period, Jewish scribes added the vowel
points for Adonai to yh wh to remind readers to
say Adonai and not God's name. Christian scholars, who weren't
familiar with this notation, thought the consonants and vowels belong together,
so when they translated it into Latin, we would get
God's name as yhwh, the vowels ah oh i, leading
to the word Yahovah or Jehovah. Though the spelling gets interesting,
as you may remember in this scene from Indiana Jones
in the Last Crusade where Indy has to step on
stones to spell God's name to get to the Holy Grail, Jovah.
Speaker 1: But in the latinow for a bit, Jehovah begins with
an eye. Oh, we gotta help the YouTube by answering
one question, and we're not gonna do it.
Speaker 2: Indian ends up correcting his error and spells Jehovah with
an eye because, as is Dad correctly noted, Latin used
an eye because the letter J did not exist until
the seventeenth.
Speaker 1: I think this is kind of wild that Jehovah is
actually not see this is I to me, this makes
sense because it's always struck me as odd that God
would have a personal name. I mean, he's this incomprehensible,
unfathomable force that just brought order out of chaos, and
he spoke time and space into existence, and he's got
a name like he's got a moniker, he's got a
Hebrew moniker that can be translated to English. I mean no,
he's like the essence itself. He is the act of being.
So I think this is cool, Like I kind of
like learning that his name might just be I am.
And it's kind of interesting if you read the passage,
because it's like Moses is like, what do I call you?
And he just goes, I am what I am? You know,
I'm God. He doesn't say God, but that's how we
would describe what he's saying, right, God is a symbol
we would use for like incomprehensible, unlike ineffable, what I means, right,
And so he just goes, I am what I am?
And then it like almost like just appealing to the
fact that there's this little human in front of him
looking for like a Matt or a Steve, you know
whatever the Hebrew version is of that name, like what
you know what, he's just looking for a moniker. He goes,
you know what, tell him, tell him I am sent
to you, And it just sounds like just some mysterious
like timeless ancient power is just like condescending to Moses,
like just tell him I'm being itself, you know, like
how else how else would you describe it? And I
just think it's cool. And then I think it's funny
that Jehovah is maybe just like a misinterpretation of Yahweh
or yhwh In century before that time, Latin used an I,
even for names like Julius Caesar. In fifteen twenty four,
Gian Giorgio Trasina proposed an elongated eye to represent jay sounds,
though it took a while for his idea to catch on,
as can be seen in the first fifteen ninety seven
edition of Romeo and Juliet being spelled with an I,
and the sixteen eleven edition of the King James Bible
spelled Jehovah with an I, but by sixteen twenty nine
the KJV rendered Jehovah with a jay as we know
it today, but most Bibles in Church history followed the
Jewish tradition of not translating God's name and instead used
the word Lord or Dominus in Latin. After the Reformation,
Protestant scholars attempted to go back to the sources for
their biblical studies and believed Jehovah was the correct pronunciation
of the divine name. However, by the late eighteen hundred,
scholars like Wilhelm Gesenius used archaeology, textual study, and early
Christian sources to show the divine name sounded more like
Yahweh than Jehovah, and now scholars have settled on Yahweh
being closer to the original pronunciation. But in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, one group group was still
firmly committed to God's name being pronounced Jehovah, and you
can probably guess which group I'm talking about. In eighteen
seventy four, Charles Tays Russell, a self described Bible student,
taught that several Christian doctrines on hell and the soul
were wrong and that Christ had invisibly returned to Earth
in eighteen seventy four. By eighteen eighty two, Russell had
published Zion's Watchtower, which openly denied the Trinity, saying the
incomprehensible doctrine of Trinity was of papal decree, now without
any foundation in scripture. Russell's text also frequently refers to
the true God as Jehovah, who exists apart from Christ,
who is not the one true God but merely a
God or an exalted creature. In nineteen thirty one, the
organization's president, Joseph Rutherford, changed the group's name to the
Jehovah's Witnesses. In order to distinguish them from other competing
Bible student groups. According to the Jovah's Witnesses, it is
important not only to know but also to use that name.
Why because the Bible tells us everyone who calls the
name of Jehovah will be saved. But Romans ten thirteen,
the verse this author references, does not say everyone who
calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved. It
says everyone who calls on the name of the Lord
will be saved, or in Greek, everyone who calls on
the name of the courier will be saved. The name
Jehovah or any variation of that name like Yahweh, is
not found in any New Testament manuscripts, which brings us
to one of the oddest features of the Jehovah's Witnesses
New World Translation of the Bible. Whenever the word Lord
or curios is found in the New Testament, the New
World Translation renders it Jehovah, with a few curious exceptions.
Look how the New World Translation renders Romans ten. For
if you publicly declare with your mouth that Jesus's Lord,
and exercise faith in your heart that God raised him
up from the dead. You will be saved. For everyone
who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved.
If the New World translation were consistent, it would render
Romans ten nine this way. For if you publicly declare
with your mouth that Jesus is Jehovah, and exercise faith
in your heart that God raised him up from the dead,
you will be saved. But the Jehovah's witnesses translation can't do.
I was having a conversation with my friend today about like,
the way you translate things there is I'm not one
of these people who thinks, like, oh, the Bible has
been translated a million different times and it's not reliable.
I don't think that at all. I think that's silly.
I think that's uh. You know, as far as two
thousand year old books for the New Testament go, there
is no more reliable document than the New Testament in
that category of ancient ancient books. However, the interpretation, the
way that certain words are chosen to be translated it
it does mean a lot, especially when the same word
is translated differently, sometimes even in the same sentence, like that,
you know, lord or whatever. The original Greek is is
Lord in one spot and Jehovah and another spot? And
it's because the translators go, well earlier, this is clearly
a title. So let's say Lord, whereas here to name,
so let's say Jehovah. But this is sort of this
is only implied. You know, this is sort of editorializing.
And I had a long conversation because there's probably the
most controversial sentence in the Bible for inter denominational debate.
Is I got to google the full thing? Do you
know what it is? Can you guess? Can you guess?
It has to do with Peter? It has to do
with Peter. Sorry, I'm just stalling for time. Okay, let's
do Matthew sixteen seventeen. Is that it? Yes? Okay, this
isn't right though, this is NIV, which should be good. Right.
Oh no, no, this is it? This is it? Okay,
I was on the wrong passage. Okay, So we're gonna
start with Matthew sixteen seventeen. Jesus replied, Simon is just declared.
You know that he is who he says he is. Right,
So Jesus replies, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah?
For this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood,
but but my Father in Heaven. And then Matthew sixteen eighteen,
what is this website doing? Okay? And I tell you
that you are Peter, and on this rock I will
build my church, and the gates of Hades will not
overcome it. I will give you the keys of the
Kingdom of Heaven. So Catholics and Orthodox see this as
like a declaration. And the reason is because Peter, or
the Greek Petros or the Aramaics, I think it's Kephis
means rock. And so oh, there's a little footnote here.
What controversial thing does this say? Yeah, oh, it says
the Greek word for Peter means rock. So what's interesting
is is Peter it was not like Peter is today, right,
Like there's not ten Peters in your town. It is.
It's a name that literally means rock. So you could
read the sentence two other ways. You could read it.
And I tell so Jesus is changing his name from Simon,
and he goes. I tell you that you are Peter,
and on this rock or sorry, and on this Peter,
I will build my church. It's the same word. This
is the point. And so if you call it, you
can do it as a moniker in one spot and
as an actual object in another spot. But it's the
same word. So you could say I, and I tell
you that you are Rock, and on this rock I
will build my church. Or you can say, and I
tell you that you are Peter, and on this Peter,
I will build my church. Or you can say, and
I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock,
I will build my church. And so Catholics and Orthodox
understandably see this as like Jesus saying, Peter, I'm giving
you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, and you
are forming my church on earth, and the gates of
Hell will not prevail against it. And because Catholics and
Orthodox can sort of trace their Apostolic secession back to
these this group of disciples, they feel like one of
them is the church that Jesus established on earth. Every
other Christian group feels like, no, that's not right. You know,
this is just like an expression or And it's funny
because it is the group who like literally, you know,
they they care much more deeply about the literal words
of the Bible than that would be the claim that
the Catholics do, but they say, no, he's talking about
Peter's Declaration of Faith, because the sentence prior Peter says
you are the Messiah, the son of the Living God,
and Jesus says, it's that type of it's that type
of thinking, you know, it's that type of thought upon
which I will build my church. But I think the
more natural reading is blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah.
For this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood,
but but my Father in Heaven, and I tell you
that you are Peter Rock. And on this rock I
will build my church, and the gates of Hades will
not overcome it. And I will give you, Peter, not
some like non descript spiritual energy or like a vibe.
I will give you, Peter, the keys to the Kingdom
of Heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound
in heaven. So anyway, so that is like the big
that's the big Catholic Protestant Orthodox divide for those who
don't know my opinion. My opinion is that it's hard
for me to believe that Jesus's church popped up in
the sixteenth century, right because clearly Jesus is establishing a
church right here in thirty AD in this passage, right,
if you take this all literally, he's establishing a church
right here in this moment. In those apostles, they go
out and they found churches all over the Roman Empire,
and the religion spreads, and that church continues today. It
didn't go away, right, It's still here. And so there's
only two organizations that technically fit that description that went
from this moment to today, and that's the Catholic and
Orthodox Church, because they have Apostolic secession all the way
back to the first Apostles, and they were there, they
were the churches during this time, and then the Protestants came,
you know, much later in the sixteenth century, I think,
and so I think it makes sense like the Catholic
Church was doing the wrong thing. I think we all agree, right,
a lot of problems, and so they wanted to reform it.
That's why it was called the Protestant Reformation. But I
think the point is they didn't reform it. They started
their own church. So therefore it's not the church that
goes back anyway, not that man, is there anyone. I'm
not offending tonight. I just think it's interesting, it's cool.
It's history. This is where we come from, man, this
is where the Western world comes from. A paragraph right here.
It's pretty cool, all right. Anyway, back to our cool
clip from Drendham. Sorry too that because Jehovah's witnesses deny
Jesus is the true God. Oh my God, that whole
story just came from the fact that that Jehovah witness
translation translates Jehovah inconsistently.
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry God, or that he is Jehovah, even
though the New Testament identifies Jesus with the god called
Yahweh in the Old Testament. In John chapter twelve, John
describes how some of the people's unbelief fulfilled the prophecy
of the suffering servant in Isaiah fifty three, Lord who
has believed our report? And to whom has the arm
of the Lord been revealed? John twelve forty one then
says Isaiah said this because he saw his glory and
spoke of him. The pronouns his and him ow too
in Greek refer to Jesus, but the incident John is
referring to is found in Isaiah chapter six, where Isaiah
has a vision of God of Yahweh on his throne.
That means John is saying that Jesus is the enthroned
God that Isaiah saw, and so Jesus is fully God
and fully man. Another non Christian group that makes a
mistake about Jehovah are Mormons. In the Book of Mormon,
Nephi is an Israelite who emigrates to the Americas and
delivers various teachings in a text called Second Nephi. About
one third of the text, or thirteen chapters, are direct
copying of Isaiah and what appears to be the translation
of Isaiah found in the King James Bible, which was
published almost two thousand years after Nephi allegedly lived. In
the original Hebrew, Isaiah twelve to two says yah or
Yahweh is my strength, while Second Phi twenty two to
two says Jehovah is my strength, matching the King James version.
I'll let you decide if this is because Joseph Smith
just wanted his translation to sound like the vernacular of
his time, so he chose not to use yah Yahweh
as some Mormons claim, or if he just borrowed straight
from Isaiah and didn't translate anything as.
Speaker 1: This is like the first version of forgetting to delete
your prompt response from chat GPT on your fake essay,
Like you have this beautiful essay about you know, the
great war, World War One, and then at the end
it says, let me know if you'd like a slightly
more elaborate approach, maybe with some bullet points highlighting the
key events of the war, you leave it in. You know,
this is Joseph Smith getting caught, getting caught doing that
much much earlier.
Speaker 2: Non Mormon scholars claim in nineteen sixteen, the Mormon Presidency
officially taught that quote among the spirit children of Elohem,
the firstborn was and is Jehovah or Jesus Christ, to
whom all others are juniors. Mormons are correct that Jesus
Christ is Jehovah or Yahweh. Where they air is that
they do not believe Yahweh is the only divine being.
They believe the Hebrew term Elohem, which also means God,
refers to a different being than Jehovah. As I noted
in my episode on whether Mormons are atheists, Mormonism can
best described as a kind of heno theism that recognizes
multiple divine beings exist, but only one of them deserves
the highest form of worship. In contrast, Christian Monothy the whole.
Speaker 1: Yahweh maybe just meaning to be or being itself or
I am. It might kind of clarify some of the
confusion about the Trinity. And as a recently religious person,
I'm probably not in the position to like dispense the
Trinitarian theology. So you know, take this with a grain
of salt. But if you think about the Father in
Heaven as being this like kind of like formless, just
raw being itself, you know, just completely incomprehensible to us,
and then Jesus being that same spirit but incarnate in
a human body. So it is it is just like truth.
It is the essence of true and being and logic.
That's so. John describes it as the logos in human form,
so fully God yes, fully human yes, and you know,
coexistent eternal being. And then the Holy Spirit being like
the aspect of being itself that animates humans or at
least humans that are have been blessed with the Holy Spirit.
I guess I don't know, Man, Trinity stuff gets a
little confusing, But I don't know if it were really simple,
i'd sort of be suspicious of it. But I don't know.
What do you think.
Speaker 2: Gism believes there is only one divine being who exists
as three distinct persons, each of whom is worthy of
the highest form of worship. That's why the Mormon Book
of Abraham describes the Gods plural organizing the world. Whereas
genis one to one, says God Eloheim created the world.
The verse uses the singular verb barrah to note that
only one being engages in this creation, even though Eloheim
has plural elements to it, similar to the plural of
majesty given to ancient kings who would speak of themselves
with plural pronouns, also known as the royal wei. This
whole area is technically closed while we're trimming we candy
tree department.
Speaker 1: See, there is a reason I brought up pronouns earlier.
It was all an elaborate segue to this video. Oh gosh, no,
we have an air conditioning commercial. Guys. I'm excited to report.
I haven't talked about this on this show, but I've
been building. Fuck, I've been building. What I've been telling
my wife is an office for her. It's really actually beautiful.
It's just like kit building. It's an outbuilding and we
live on a hill and there's retaining walls. So I
had to dig this insane trench to get power and
internet out there. But I did it because I just
want my wife to keep loving me. And this is
what I've found. This is this is a little bit
of advice for the young men out there. If you
would like to be with a woman that's out of
your leak like I am, you should try to be
like incredibly useful. I've determined that this is a big
thing for women. I didn't I didn't know this, so
I just became useful by accident. But if you could
be like incredibly useful, which can take many different forms,
you know, can this can manifest itself in many different arenas.
But if you can figure out a way to be
of use, it's quite quite helpful. So anyway, built a
office for her. But I think you know what I
think it's it's this air conditioned, is dark, it's got
cool art on the wall. It's very it's very it's
got the vibes. You know. Sure would be a good
little recording studio for a YouTube channel, you know, what
I mean. You know what I mean. I can't do
YouTube right now because I got this lame little MacBook
camera and it's a mess. I'm sitting like in a
nook off my kitchen right now. You'd be able to
see my dishes stacked up behind me, so would not work.
But but the little outbuilding that I told my wife
is her office is looking pretty good. I can see
it out my window right now. Podcast Studio Alpha is
calling my name anyway. Sorry, that segue or that little
way of killing time. All the commercial plade was unnecessarily long.
Here we go, just meet today, So you just meant
like the royally. Yep, that's right.
Speaker 2: However, the division of Eloheim and Yahweh into separate beings
does not explain how the Hebrew Bible treats them as
being interchangeable. This includes Exous twenty verse two, which says
I am Yahweh your eloheka a form of Elohem, and
Deuteronomy four thirty five, which says yahwehj Elohim or Yahweh
is Elohim. Now, it is true that early in Biblical history,
the term Yahweh referred to the God who rescued as
people from Egypt, while El or Elohim referred to the
supreme deity of the Canaanites. So in that sense they
were considered separate beings. But eventually God's people recognize that
these different names referred to the same being, the one
supreme creator of all things. What the Canaanites called El,
the Israelites knew is Yahweh. In fact, the name Israel
means El rules. This is like when Saint Paul said
the God he preached was what the Athenians called the
unknown God. It also helps explain how Christians can say
Muslims worship God even though Muslims don't completely understand God.
According to Old Testaments scholar Mark Smith, although the Bible
fiercely criticizes other pagan deities like ball Quote, there are
no biblical polemics against El. At an early point, Israelite
tradition identified L with Yahweh, or presupposed this equation. In
his book, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan, writes,
it is interesting that the Old Testament has no qualms
in equating Yahweh with L, something which stands in market
contrast to its vehement opposition to ball Let alone the
equation of Yahweh with ball This must reflect a favorable
judgment on L's characteristic attributes as supreme deity, creator, God,
and one possessed of wisdom. L was deemed wholly fit
to be equated with Yahweh. Day goes on to say
that Yahweh was not a Canaanite deity, but was introduced
to the land of Canaan and originally came from the
region of Media, which corresponds to Moses learning God's name
in Media, since he fled there after killing the Egyptian.
So to summarize, in scripture, words like Elohem refer to God.
But the name God revealed to Moses sounded more like
Yahweh than Jehovah, which was the result of misunderstanding medieval
Hebrew renderings of the divine name. But in knowing God's name,
we also have a sacred responsibility to treat that name
with the utmost respect. The Catechism says this, among all
the words of revelation, there is one which is unique,
the revealed name of God. God confides his name to
those who believe in him. He reveals himself to them
in his personal mystery. The gift of a name belongs
to the order of trust and intimacy. The Lord's name
is holy for this reason, man must not abuse it.
Catholics aren't always prohibited from referring to God as Yahweh.
Since I've said God's name numerous times in this video
and nothing bad has happened. Hilarious, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
But the Church has sought to preserve the reverence of
the divine name when it's used in the liturgy, and
to maintain continuity with the tradition of how it is
treated in that context. In two thousand and eight, the
Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship gave an instruction for how
the name of God should be used in the public
worship of God. It recounted how Christian Biblical tradition, going
all the way through the contemporary Latin Vulgate, did not
translate the divine name, but rendered it some equival of
the word Lord. The letter says this practice was related
to remaining faithful to the Church's tradition from the beginning
that the sacred tetragrammaton was never pronounced in the Christian context.
Speaker 1: Tetragrammaton. That's what I was trying to remember tetra for
grammaton tetra grammaton next.
Speaker 2: Nor translated into any of the languages into which the
Bible was translated. The congregation then said, in liturgical celebrations,
in songs and prayers, the name of God in the
form of the tetragramraton yhwh is neither to be used
or pronounced. It then instructs it alternatives like God or
Lord be used instead. Now it's important to remember that
it's not intrinsically wrong to utter God's name. God never
said his name can't be uttered, only that it can't
be uttered in vain. Moreover, a person can utter the
name Lord in vain if their heart is set on
doing that. But the people of God can develop customs
to encourage holy behavior, and one of those customs was
to not treat God's personal name like any other name
we might proclaim in the contexts of the literary Other
commentaries have noticed what is.
Speaker 1: Happening, All right, I think that's good. I was going
to play another clip, but I'm kind of tired. I
told too many stories tonight. Hopefully I didn't offend everyone.
You know, it's funny, sane pro Catholic stuff. I will say,
I'm kind of more attracted to Orthodoxy because I think
the pope thing is a little weird, and I think
celibate priests is a little bit weird. And both churches
have an equal apostolic claim. So one of them is
the church that Jesus established. I think. I think that's
pretty clear. Obviously, you know, half the Christian world disagrees,
but it seems like one of them is probably the
true Church that Jesus established. But I will I will
say nothing pisss off. I've learned. This is new to me.
I'm learning this in real time. Nothing upsets Christians more
than you being Catholic, because I'm not Catholic. I'm not.
But I have been talking to my friend, and I've
been an atheist the whole time I've been friends with him.
He's a convicted Seventh day Adventist, which is technically a Protestant,
although he doesn't really identify that way. Anyone anyone in
rebellion to the one true Roman Church. The Catholics would
say is in protest and therefore as a Protestant, but
he doesn't see that way anyway. He's been an Adventist
I've been an atheist the whole time we've known each other,
and then I've I've I've changed changed my ways. He's
very supportive, but now I'm starting to talk to him
about Catholic and Orthodox stuff, and he's so mad. He
is so mad at me. He's way madder at me
for that than he ever was about may be an atheist.
So it is just kind of funny. I don't know,
what do I know? You know, a year from now,
I might be singing a different tune. But we'll see.
I just to me, it seems like the natural reading.
But anyway, we'll leave it there. But so hopefully I
haven't alienated you all. I'm convinced there's probably only five
people in the world who could listen to the show
and actually not be offended by something. So if you're
not offended, give yourself a pat on the back. That's
very impressive. You're a resilient, open minded spirit. All right, everybody.
Hopefully soon I'll be podcasting from the studio. Oh, it
looks good out there. It's got his own air conditioning
and heater. I could crank it down to sixty very
exciting fast internet Ethernet all the way out there, could happen,
could be doing YouTube soon. I have to clean up
my act a little bit. If you can see my face,
I have to be a little bit nicer. Last disclaimer,
sorry to be annoying. I hope this isn't annoying, but
I you know, the trans stuff is very controversial. I
don't know, man, I don't know. I'm not a hater.
I think I kind of shared. You probably can guess
kind of my sense of things, but you know, I'm
not a hater. It's a relatively new phenomenon. Can we
admit that, at least at the scale that it's at.
And technically, if you really really wanted to confuse a
person who is very supportive of like medically and surgically
transitioning people, I think you could say that they are
and this is I think is true. They're actually potentially
systematically performing a genocide against homosexual individuals. And the reason is,
what little evidence there is on this topic is that
most people who experience gender dys for you as a child,
will grow into a gay adult. And so if you,
if you were to systematically affirm these impulses and children,
you would technically eradicate eradicate homosexuality. So what you say is,
are you trying to give those Republicans what they want?
Is that what you're trying to do? Monster? I love
arguments like that that kind of give you a new
perspective on things. I don't know why I brought this up.
I shouldn't have anyway. Email me, tell me where I've
gone wrong. Send your hate mail directly to me. I
I enjoy it. I'll take it seriously. I'll read it.
I'll respond, I'll say sorry, it's okay, go ahead, talk
to you later. Stay safe out there. God bless