Don't Get Cross With Me

So when you go to the Trump rally and you see the people wheeling around their full cross, that is historically inaccurate and they should know better.

It’s also symbolically inaccurate, but that’s okay. That’s a question for another time.

Hey everybody, I’m Dan McClellan.

And I’m Dan Beecher.

And you are listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion. And we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan?

Things are good, man. Today, as of today, as we record, so, you know, a week and a half ago for all y’all, we won a Signal Award today.

Signal Award. Yeah, we got the, the gold. Uh, there were, there were a few golds in our category, but we also had the added distinction of, uh, winning the listener’s choice award in our category of religion.

That’s you guys. You guys did that. So thanks. Yes, thanks to everyone who voted for us.

And absolutely.

And we won a major award. A major award.

And we were talking about how we need to get the— there are medals, well, trophies that can be requested that we have to pay for because, you know, there are a lot of winners. I imagine they’re like, can’t be. Can’t be sending these out to everybody. So, uh, so anyway, hopefully in the near future, for those of you who are watching the, uh, the YouTube video, you will see these awards, these trophies in the background.

Yeah, yeah, we’re very fancy, you guys. And I don’t know if you know this, but we are fancy boys.

And as of your hearing of this podcast, I will also hopefully successfully be on the other side of a dreaded procedure that afflicts men of a certain age, specifically 45.

Thank God you mentioned the colonoscopy. I think that that’s a very important thing for us. But if you’re watching on the YouTube, you will see Dan take swigs of a very bright yellow concoction that is, I understand, to be a lemon-lime sports drink mixed with the most hate mixed with some stuff that, um, well, we don’t need to talk about.

I, I, I read these instructions again and again and again and again and again, and then when I’m ready to do the thing, I look back and I’m like, I just want to double check. Yes, it does say dump an entire bottle of Miralax into this bottle of Gatorade. That’s 7 doses of Miralax, and, and I got to down like 3 of those. So, um, so Dan’s gonna be clean as a whistle, everybody. Oh yeah, there’s gonna be whistling going on for sure, um, afterwards, not before. No, no whistling at all before. Um, yeah, no rolling the dice.

Uh, it’s a procedure that, that I, as an older man than you, are already know. So anyway, those of you who are of middle age will relate. The rest of you have lots to look forward to. One of the things that you have to look forward to is the rest of our show, which we promise will be not overburdened with colonoscopy talk.

Though I can’t make the same promise.

The occasional quip. The occasional quip. But yeah, we won’t belabor the point. We won’t belabor the point.

Yeah. Our afterparty, the bonus content for our patrons, I can’t make any promises. We’ll see. We’ll see. But we got a lot to talk about on this show because today— so our astute listeners will remember that a couple weeks ago we talked about the Star of David and how that became the symbol of Judaism and then of the nation of Israel and blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah seems insensitive.

Yeah, but we didn’t— yes, we yada yada’d the rest of it, right?

Yeah, exactly. However, so one of the things that we— one bit of feedback that we got was, hey, why don’t we talk about the cross? So our first segment is going to be about crucifixion and the symbol of the cross. And then we are going to move on to a chapter and verse out of Ecclesiastes that’s got some stuff to do with, like, when— I don’t know, it’s got a lot to do with a lot. And it might pertain to the abortion question. It might pertain to a bunch of stuff. It might not. We’re just going to have to see.

We’ll see. Yeah, it’s a— it’s an odd little duck that we found swimming around in the— in the pond of our— of our desperation for a topic to talk about. No, I actually made a video this morning where I briefly addressed it and I was like, that would be fun to talk about.

In a bit more detail.

Yeah. Dan is constantly scooping our show on his other social media channels. It’s fine. I’m not mad about it at all. All right, well, let’s get on with History’s Mysteries. And the mystery this week is crucifixion. Now, there’s a lot of questions surrounding crucifixion. It is— definitely there’s one crucifixion that is most famous, and that is that of the guy next to Jesus. No, I’m just kidding. It’s of Jesus.

So let’s briefly talk about sort of the history of that thing that they did, that method of execution that the Romans had. Yeah. And what it was, why did they do it? I don’t know. It’s such a weird thing to do.

Yeah, a particularly brutal method of execution that around the time of Jesus, probably was reserved for sedition, for insurrectionists, things like that. This wasn’t your, you know, you got caught stealing a loaf of bread at the market, then you get crucified. It was for brigandry, but mainly for people who are challenging the state. And because it is a way to hang you up and put you on display as—.

Yeah, it’s meant to be an ignominious demise.

Yes, absolutely. It’s meant to be a spectacle. It’s meant to be conspicuous as well. And it seems to start with the Romans. The Persians may have in some way inspired what was going on, but it’s somewhat related to impalement. And then there’s impalement, and then there was something else that went on with the Greeks, it seems, where there was a— people would be um, like clasped, chained something to just a board.

And then left out and exposed so that animals would come and—.

Oh gosh.

Yeah. And so the, um, crucifixion is, is perhaps an outgrowth, uh, of this.

But we have— it, it’s done in different ways, and, and this is what I think is, is fascinating. It’s been a while, but I made a video a bit ago about why we think Jesus was crucified on a lowercase t-shaped instrument, right? Because there is a tradition that identifies as Christian that understands stavros, which is the Greek word that is so commonly translated cross. It could just be a pole. Okay, so a stavros could be used to impale somebody, or perhaps their hands would be in some way affixed to the pole above their head together, whether nailed or lashed or whatever. And so there are some folks who point out that the New Testament doesn’t really indicate one way or another if Jesus was crucified on this T-shaped cross or on something else.

And the earliest depictions we have of crucifixion, we actually have a couple of graffiti that one dates to around 130-ish CE and the other one dates to around 200 CE.

And the earlier one, it’s called the Puteoli Graffito, and it depicts some poor person named Alcimilla who is up on top of a T-shaped instrument and a lowercase t. Lowercase, it seems to be. Yeah. Now the, the, the top, the, the vertical bar doesn’t extend significantly beyond the— okay, the crossbeam, the patibulum, if you’re nasty.

And I am.

That’s the Latin name for the crossbar.

But it definitely depicts this person with their arms outstretched on a T-shaped cross. But that’s coming about 100 years after Jesus. Right. And it’s definitely not Jesus on that cross. The next one from around 200 CE is Jesus. And this is the Alexamenos Graffito, where this was like scratched in the walls of what was probably a barracks where soldiers were stationed. And they’re making fun of some dude who’s another soldier named Alexamenos, because this name also occurs in like another room elsewhere in the building.

But yeah, not a popular dude, evidently. No, it was a pretty sick burn because it has him in kind of a prayer posture in front of somebody who is on a cross. Again, a lowercase t-shaped cross. Only with the head of an ass. And then there is an inscription that says, “Alexamenos worships his god.” Okay. And so it’s kind of like, “Look at you worshiping your donkey-headed crucified god.” Yeah, I think I remember us mentioning that on a previous episode.

Yeah. That’s okay. So at very least from then, from that time, it seemed that crucifixion was a cross thing.

Yeah, but we do have some indications that what is described in the New Testament is describing an upright beam and then your cross beam, the patibulum. We can go back into, I think this is from around the 1st century, there’s a text called the Oneirocritica, which is basically dream interpretation, by some dude named Artemidorus.

The crucifix itself is not just an upright beam, right? And if we’re attaching something with nails and it looks like the mast of a ship, what do a lot of ships have in this time period? An upright beam and a crossbeam that the sail hangs from. Right. So it sounds like this person who I—and I wish I could remember better when this dated to—it’s either right around the time of Jesus or a century or two before it. But yeah, that seems to suggest that we’ve got a T-shaped cross and we’ve got some depictions of people who are being—they had their arms outstretched and are lashed to a crossbeam. But the crossbeam is not like—they’re not hanging hung up on a big pole. They’re standing on the ground, but the crossbeam has poles on each side. So it’s kind of like the stocks, only you’re stood up and your arms are straight out in front of you. But there are some texts that talk about how the person would carry the cross, their stauros, to the place where it would be set up so that they’re up there just, you know, kind of hanging there.

Right.

And so the depiction of Jesus as having to carry his cross fits with some texts that we have in Greek as well as in Latin that talk about people being forced to carry their patibulum to the place of crucifixion.

So they’re not—

So when you see the full cross, when you see these goofballs carrying a full cross with wheels on the end so it’s easier, that’s not what it was like. It was just the crossbeam that he would have carried.

So I see.

Yes. So when you go to the Trump rally and you see the people wheeling around their full cross, that is historically inaccurate and they should know better. And for a bunch of reasons they should.

It’s also symbolically inaccurate, but that’s okay. That’s a question for another time.

Yes. And so, yeah, I think scholars are pretty secure in the conclusion that, yeah, Jesus was probably crucified on a T-shaped cross. Additionally, you have Pilate puts the sign above his head that is supposed to read, you know, Jesus Christ, King of the Jews. And then you have—it’s supposed to be in Aramaic and in Latin and Greek. And you couldn’t really have a place for that above Jesus’s head if his arms are up above his head, particularly if you’ve got that whole thing written out in three different languages.

It’s a big sign. “Jesus, hold this for us. We just need you to—your arms are—your hands are already up there.”

“Will you just hold this sign?” Or they could have been like, “We could just nail the sign through his hands.” Yeah, you’re already using a nail.

You’ve got—okay. We’re getting darn close to blasphemy here. We’re going to be offending people if we’re not too careful, which we do anyway.

Yeah, that’s kind of our policy. It’s true. It’s the SOP. So the cross is already by the end of the 2nd, beginning of the 3rd century CE becoming something that is associated with Christianity. Like, you don’t take the time to inscribe a cross with Jesus with the head of an ass hanging on it, if that’s not immediately recognizable as, hey, that’s that one dude that everybody worships.

Yeah. And that’s interesting because it does seem like the point of crucifixion was for it to be sort of deliberately shameful and public. So it sounds like there was evidence that even early Christians were sort of taking that and owning that symbol as something that was not necessarily something to be proud of, but something that martyred their guy. It was the symbol of his martyrdom.

Well, and it’s a way to appropriate it, to kind of flip the script on the people who would understand it as shameful. Yeah.

But so rather than a symbol of humiliation or defeat or whatever it becomes. And I think I read something—tell me about this—I think I read something about early Judaism having a—if you were to be executed in shame, you would be hung from a tree.

Oh, so there’s a passage in Deuteronomy that talks about hanging criminals, but it says if the—I think it says if the next day is the Sabbath, you got to take them down before nightfall because cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.

And the word for tree in Hebrew, eitz, can mean tree, but it can also just mean wood or something made out of wood. So when you get into the New Testament, I think it’s Paul who brings this up. But he is using the Greek, which is also ambiguous. The word for tree can also just mean wooden thing or wood. And so there’s some ambiguity there regarding, you know, you squint at Jesus on a cross and hey, it becomes a wooden thing, it becomes wood. It can overlap with this idea of being hung on a tree. So there is a degree to which the New Testament is like, you thought it was a curse, but you know, Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! You can rent the whole seat, but you’ll only need the edge. Because the defeat, the symbol of defeat has been turned into the symbol of victory.

And there are other earlier symbols that seem to be more prominent than the cross in early Christianity. The fish, because the word in Greek for fish, ichthys, is an acronym for Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior. Okay, so that’s— so ichthys is an acronym for that, and then the symbol of the fish does that. And then you could also draw a circle and then have some lines dividing up the circle to make it look like a loaf of bread, and you can trace the letters iota, chi, theta—or theta, excuse me—uh, upsilon, and uh, sigma to spell out ichthys. And then, uh, there— an anchor was a, uh, a prominent symbol in early Christianity.

Interesting.

And then the, uh, the chi rho monogram, right? Looks like the X with the big tall—.

With a P sort of standing proud, but it’s actually a rho, which is the R sound in Greek, right?

Yeah. And that would be the first two letters of Christos. Which the chi rho— So those were probably more prominent than the cross, but there is indication that people would trace a cross on their forehead when they’re praying and stuff like that.

Oh, interesting.

So the cross is there, but we don’t have really—.

It’s in the mix of Christian symbols, but it’s not the prominent one. When does it start to become— It is very strange to me that the instrument of this man’s death becomes the symbol for the entire religion. It seems like that is the other guy’s symbol. You know what I mean? That’s the bad guy’s symbol. Yeah. So how did it arise to to such prominence? Do you have a sense of that?

I think it probably has to do with Constantine.

And oh, okay.

Because there’s the famous legend of the Battle of Milvian Bridge, or Milvian Bridge. I am just pronouncing everything wrong today. Of Milvian Bridge, where he’s supposed to have seen a sign of a cross or the chi rho or both. And to have heard the voice, “in this sign, conquer.” And so that is, uh, and you know, is what is supposed to have inspired his, his victory there. And then that leads to the Edict of Milan in 313 CE, which decriminalizes Christianity. And then the chi rho and the cross become, uh, symbols of imperial power.

I guess that’s— it makes sense to some extent that, like, you know, I’m thinking of it as the, as the symbol of the bad guys. Well, who are the bad guys?

You know what I mean? In this case, the bad guys. And then the bad guys are like, you know, they embrace Christianity, and suddenly, yeah, I can— suddenly their symbol, the one that’s most closely associated with Rome in the Christian sort of narrative, becomes the symbol that they go with. That’s really fascinating.

Yeah. And it’s kind of— it— as you have folks like Irenaeus and others talking about the symbolism of the cross as a sign of victory and things like this. And so imperial victory then going, “Aha, sign of the cross.” It becomes kind of a different kind of symbol of victory, but something that is apropos for Christianity’s marriage to imperial power. And the use of symbolism to project that power, that victory that the Roman Empire was so concerned to put on display for others. So I think that’s probably what results in the popularity of the cross as a symbol for Christianity that eclipses the other stuff, the fish and all of that, until you had the invention of the car, which allows you to create the bumper sticker, which allows you to put the, you know, that costly signaling on your car until you then get feet and—.

Yeah, yeah.

Darwin fish.

That fish grows feet and then suddenly, yeah. Yeah.

So I think that’s probably what’s going on with the use of that symbol. And yeah, it has a weird history within Christianity. You have some groups that don’t use it. The tradition that you were getting out of around the time I was getting into it, or shortly before, the Latter-day Saint tradition does not use the cross anymore.

That’s right.

There was a time in its history where the cross was an important symbol, right? And there was a campaign to get rid of that.

Interestingly, yeah, I remember in church talking about, like, hearing people very proudly talk about why we don’t use the cross and why, you know, how that makes us actually better Christians than the other Christians who who do use the symbol of Jesus’s death for his thing. And yeah, that was always a little weird to me. But sure, I mean, I’m the one making that argument now, so I suppose.

Well, and I think it reveals one of the issues with symbolism is symbolism means whatever people think it means.

Right.

And so if you want to change it, you can change it.

And, you know, you’ve— I think it was probably President Hinckley, Latter-day Saints president and prophet, who said, well, we— why don’t you use the cross? Oh, well, we choose to focus on Jesus, Jesus’s life, Jesus as alive rather than the method of his death. And so that’s, that’s as a contemporary rationalization, great. But Latter-day Saints started off using it, right? Used it for many, many years. So it meant something different back then to them. And, you know, you can go— I remember, it’s kind of a little off track, but when I was 18 or 19, I forget how old I was, I spent a summer in Germany, in Austria, in Slovakia, in Switzerland, traveling around with my brother and my grandmother. And she arranged for us to attend a high school in Vienna. For a day.

Which was an unusual experience. It was surreal, to say the least. But there was one part where one of the students, they were like, yeah, let’s ask him questions. And this is half going on in German and half going on in English because my German was better back then, but it still wasn’t all that great. They were like, what’s different?

Their English was fine.

Their English was fine. Yeah. Somebody asked, what are differences between the high school that you went to and this school? And I was like, well, the crucifix on the wall is one, but also the Playboy calendar over here is a— there was a calendar that had like lingerie models hanging on the opposite wall. I was like, both of these are just alien to me. But, um, yeah, that was, um, that was a fun experience. Gym was, was weird because, uh, if I recall, we went, uh, and played tennis on top of a building. They had, they had tennis courts built on top of a, a building in, in Vienna.

Try not to hit the balls too far afield.

They had big nets to make sure that, uh, that we didn’t. But yeah, my brother and I, that’s all we wanted to do, just see who could, who could hit one the, the furthest, get to the cathedral or something. But, um, The— there’s an interesting thing about the crucifix because it’s not just the cross, it’s the cross with Jesus hanging on it, and it is used as an icon. It is used as something that is involved in worship.

Which, you know, these days on Twitter, the Protestants are all in a huff about— well, mainly the evangelicals— they’re all in a huff about Catholicism. And yeah, that’s one of the main things that they talk about, the, the iconic use of the crucifix. And there are some people who will compare it to a story in the Book of Numbers where there are these fiery serpents that bite a bunch of Israelites and they’re dying off. And then God tells Moses, take a pole, right? And then put a bronze serpent on the pole. And everybody—.

You know, one of those bronze serpents that you have laying around. Just grab one.

The junk drawer is full of the animal kingdom in bronze. So just pick elephant, serpent, serpent. So that’s a lizard.

Yeah. Oh, serpent. Okay, there’s a serpent. Okay.

Um, and put it on the pole, and then whoever looks at it will be healed. Yeah. And, and this is, this is functioning as a divine image because it’s basically manifesting the power, the presence, the authority, the agency of the deity, and in this instance, in order to heal.

So like, and we’ve talked a little bit before about using the Bible as an icon, right? Like, you know, somebody’s always gonna whine about it, but I mean, if that helps them focus their faith, if that ties what they believe into the macro narrative that we find laid out in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament, if that, you know, ties the room together, as the great poet once said. I don’t see any reason to get upset about that. So yeah, that’s how it’s functioning. It has precedence in Scripture. And, you know, using material media is something that goes on in the New Testament as well. It’s not really different from that.

And it’s not like we don’t see evangelicals, like, praying towards images of Jesus, you know what I mean? We do see that. We see that all the time.

So, or genuflecting or bowing or something.

There will be a cross behind them or something like that.

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it is. But yeah, it makes sense to me that to use a symbol to sort of focus yourself. And so yeah, when you see, you know, you go into a Catholic cathedral or whatever, and somebody’s looking up at an image of Jesus on the cross and praying. Yeah, that makes sense. That’s a— it’s just, it’s just a place to put your focus.

Yeah. And as we’ve discussed before, it’s, it’s not much different from somebody talking to a headstone in a cemetery as if they’re, they’re talking with their deceased loved one. It is intuitive. It is natural. It’s how human cognition works. So, so lay off.

And if you ask them, it’s not like they’re gonna say that they expect that thing to climb off the wall and, and bless them or whatever, you know what I mean? They know that that’s not— that that’s not the guy. Yeah, that’s just, uh, that’s just the image. That’s just the symbol. Yeah. All right, well, there you go. Uh, it’s, it’s one of, uh, the, the cross, one of history’s mysteries, uh, explained, revealed. Here on the show.

Well, and there are books and books and books more that could be written on the history and the usage of that symbol. But hopefully that was a good cursory overview of—.

Yes, exactly.

Why we think it looked the way it did and how it’s been used.

All right, let’s move on to our chapter and verse. And This week’s lesson is from Ecclesiastes chapter 11.

Chapter 11. Yeah, this is an odd one. This is not one that people are going to be like, oh yeah, we— my pastor preached about that last week. Nobody’s pastor has ever preached about this passage.

About this?

So I don’t even know that I know anything about Ecclesiastes. I don’t even know what the word Ecclesiastes means.

Well, the Hebrew is qohelet. So that should clear things up for you.

But thank you for doing that, because I was unclear, and now it’s all come clear to me.

So yes, Ecclesiastes is where we get the wonderful song, “To everything turn, turn, turn, there is a season.” Yeah, and I’m pretty sure I’ve butchered those lyrics, but there’s a It was probably written in— it’s attributed, I think it’s attributed to Solomon, which it obviously isn’t actually written by Solomon, but it is probably written in the 3rd century BCE. So it was probably written in the Hellenistic period.

You see some, there are some loanwords from Aramaic, a couple that seem to be Greek. So it— and it is addressing some more Greek themes, but it is the chapter 11, verse 5, is just talking about the mysteries of God. And verse 5 says— I’m going to read it in a few different translations. First, in the King James Version.

The Lord’s version. ‘As thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child, even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.

What is the way of the Spirit? I’m pretty sure that that was a kung fu movie, wasn’t it? The Way of the Spirit?

Uh, well, it is, uh, derech ha-ruach, uh, in, in Hebrew. So, uh, the way of the Spirit.

That was, um, oh, I’m trying to remember the name of the, uh, uh, the kung fu movies from Bob’s Burgers, and I have totally blanked on the Hawk and Chick movies. Hawk and Chick, yes, um, and the seaweed monster. Um, so that’s a, that’s a pretty traditional translation of that. However, the first two clauses could also be put together into one clause, and this is what the NRSV-UE does, because it says, just as you do not know how the breath comes to the bones in the mother’s womb, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.

That is very different.

Very different. Yeah. And it all depends on whether or not you want to, you know, put a comma or a semicolon or an em dash if you’re nasty. I get told all the time, people will be like, hey, “Just be careful using the em dash because people will think you’re using AI.” It’s like, screw AI. I’ve been using an em dash since the internet started. I will not have this.

I am an old school em dasher, and that Johnny-come-lately ChatGPT can go em dash itself away.

Good recovery. Way to stick the landing there. Thank you. But this is an interesting passage because, um, I’ve talked a lot in the past about how, uh, the mainstream Jewish position on ensoulment, on fetal personhood, is that the fetus doesn’t become a person until it draws its first breath, until birth, basically, right? But that’s not entirely accurate for the entire Hebrew Bible because in Greco-Roman period Judaism there was influence from Greek philosophy toward, uh, this Aristotelian notion of ensoulment, where the soul entered the body once the fetus had become fully developed. And the evidence of that was the quickening, where the mother can feel the fetus moving independently in her womb. And so if we take the NRSV-UE’s reading, “just as you do not know how the breath comes to the bones in the mother’s womb” would suggest this is a reference to the quickening, where the fetus moving independently is compared to breath coming to its bones.

And so breath is being used synonymous for life here. It’s coming to life, meaning breath is coming to its bones. And so I think it’s an interesting intersection of the pre-existing view that breath is the fundamental constituent element of life meeting the new Greek philosophically, um, influenced view that the quickening is an indication of life. And so we’re talking about the quickening as breath coming to the bones in the mother’s womb. If that’s how this passage is to be interpreted, I think that’s an interesting—that would be one of the only occurrences in all the Hebrew Bible of a position on fetal personhood that differs from the traditional Jewish perspective that the human life begins at birth, at the drawing of the first breath.

Right. Can I just add an interesting wrinkle to the mix?

Wrinkle it.

Because I too looked at multiple different translations.

NIV, which I would expect—

Oh, don’t bring up the NIV.

Hang on.

Just kidding.

Go ahead. Hang on with me. Hang with me here, because I would expect NIV, if there is an option to signal fetal personhood, I would expect NIV to run toward that option.

But they don’t.

NIV instead has it as, “as you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God.” Yeah. And that’s, that’s fascinating. That’s, that’s about as far—that A, does not mention spirit, B, does not mention breath. Yeah, but it—but makes it a totally different thing unrelated to the fetus thing. Just like, you know, all we are is dust in the wind, man.

Until you can paint with all the colors of the wind, you do not know God’s ways. And yeah, the—so the word that they’re—you said they rendered wind?

Yeah, they—as you do not know the path of the wind.

Yeah, so that would— that’s ruach, which can fundamentally— it refers to wind or breath.

And spirit was conceptualized as kind of related to breath, wind, because you can’t see it, but it’s moving around. Uh, and so you have all those different words used, uh, to refer to spirit, breath, wind. But what’s interesting is it says the path of haruach, which means the Spirit. So it could be the Spirit of God, like a fire is burning. It could be a reference to that, or it could just be, you know, the Spirit that enters the fetus’s body and makes the bones come to life. Because when we go to Ezekiel, we go to Ezekiel 37 , the valley of dry bones. It’s, uh, it’s usually translated breath. It’s— I, I’m almost positive it’s ruach there, but it’s usually translated when the breath enters the bones.

Uh, but it’s talking about— it could be the spirit. Let me see what, uh, NRSV-UE says here. In Ezekiel, yeah, Ezekiel 37:9 , then he said to me, prophesy to the breath, prophesy mortal, and say to the breath, thus says the Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live. So the valley of dry bones is going to have sinew and muscle and flesh, you know, go creep to it and then the ruach. And is that ruach? Yeah, that’s how ruach is going to enliven things. So, um, but yeah, they, they go with breath there in, uh, the NRSV-UE. And I imagine— yeah, NET says breath, KJV says breath. I imagine your, your dirty little NIV is gonna say, uh, same breath as well. But I don’t have I, for some reason, I don’t have the NIV in my Accordance.

Okay. Uh, they probably were like, yeah, don’t, don’t, we know better than that. Yeah, you don’t want to.

I just, you know, it’s, it’s so interesting. I, you, you know, we con— we talk constantly about how, uh, how translation makes, like, the, the task of translation and how it’s, and, and the task of interpretation. And it’s just interesting to me, because every now and then you and I will see someone in a comment section or someone online talking about how I’m, I’m the real kind of Christian. I don’t interpret the Bible. I just believe the Bible.

Yeah, just listen to what it says.

And it’s like, when there are 3 totally valid interpretations, or totally, or totally like, understandable reasons why you would say spirit, wind, breath. And those can mean 3 wildly different things. You know, is it the way of the spirit? Or is it the way— or is how the breath comes into the bones in your mother’s womb? It just seems like it’s so obvious. And what’s really funny is that most of those people who are like, I don’t believe in interpreting the Bible. Yeah, they’re KJV people, like straight down the line. They’re hardcore KJV. So to tell them, oh, well, the NRSV-UE would give you some ammo in the abortion fight, that’s an interesting thing to tell them. But they may not, you know, but they’re KJV people. They can’t.

Yeah, it’s funny when you’ll— because every now and then you’ll see somebody’s preaching, somebody’s making a you know, a TikTok video or something like that, and they will furtively switch translations. And it’s fun to see them getting called out for that. Yeah, because they’ll realize that, oh, this translation over here is good for what I’m saying in this part of the verse, but the next verse I need to be in this other translation over here. So sometimes they will just very quietly switch translations. For precisely that reason. But yeah, and with the ruach, that goes all the way back to Genesis 1 . How do you translate Genesis 1:2 , where you’ve got the ruach Elohim, which in the King James Version is the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters? But that could be a divine wind, That could be God’s breath.

It could be the Spirit of God. It could be interpreted in a variety of different ways. And so what are you going to— and the NRSV-UE says, “While a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” Interesting. Yeah, translation makes a big difference. And when folks who do not understand the complexities of translation philosophy, or even of picking your source text. How did you come up with the source text you’re using? You know, because when you look at Ecclesiastes 5 , the— or excuse me, Ecclesiastes 11:5 , some of the cantillation marks might indicate that— might push you in the direction of one interpretation over and against another. Whereas if you ignore the cantillation marks, you might be led in the direction of a different interpretation. So all those decisions—.

Cantillation marks meaning the diacritics in the Hebrew? Is that what we’re talking about?

So the Hebrew, the Masoretic Text, it has the vowels. Those are dots and dashes that are written above and below. And then you have the dagesh, which is a dot that’s put in the middle of characters. But then you also have in the Masoretic tradition, what are called cantillation marks, usually. And these are indications of how singers are going to intone. Oh, right. And also cantors.

Yeah. And they also associate words together. Like, you’ll see disjunctive or conjunctive marks indicating we’re taking this word with the next one and stuff like that. So So that can influence how one interprets it as well.

And then, you know, you might go look at the Septuagint. What does the Septuagint have to say here? That would be as close as we can get to an ancient commentary, you know, a 3rd or 2nd century BCE commentary on the Hebrew. So usually we can understand this is how at least whoever translated this understood this text in the 3rd or 2nd century BCE, which gets us a little closer to when it was originally written, or at least with Ecclesiastes, you know, maybe it was the dude’s neighbor.

Who translated it, because it’s already— Ecclesiastes and Daniel are probably the two latest texts, right, in the entire Hebrew Bible. Ecclesiastes is probably 3rd century, Daniel middle of the 2nd century. But, um, I, I think it is fascinating to see, maybe again, depending on how you translate it, a little window into this Greco-Roman influence on— or yeah, Greco-Roman influence on Jewish understandings of ensoulment. And then, you know, the Septuagint translation of Exodus 21 indicates that, and Philo’s discussion of ensoulment indicates that. So I think it’s just another interesting piece of the puzzle.

Yeah, yeah, I think I love that. I think that that’s really fascinating.

All right, well, friends, thank you for joining us. If you would like to become a part of getting this show off the ground every week, uh, the way— there are a couple ways you can do that. You can go to Apple, uh, you might— however you’re listening to us, if it’s Apple Podcasts, if it’s Spotify, if it’s whatever, uh, maybe it has a place for you to give us 5 stars. That’d be great. Remember, even if you think we’re a 4-star show, you have to give us 5 because you’re canceling out people who hate us and give us 1 star without even listening to the show. So give us that extra star just for, just for the cancellation thing. Yeah.

And that, that does happen. That even happened on my book. Somebody gave me a 1-star review on, on Goodreads or something. And somebody was like, what didn’t you like about it? They responded, I don’t know, I didn’t read it.

Right. So this is what happens. This is what we’re up against, people. So, so it’s, it’s nice if you can give us 5 stars. We appreciate that. Also, if you’ve got a little bit of coin jingling around in the pockets and you think maybe I can give that to the boys, go ahead and go to patreon.com/dataoverdogma where you can become, you know, you can get access to an ad-free version of every show. You can, uh, get access to the after party, uh, at the correct level. Uh, and that gives you, uh, bonus content every week that we like to do. Uh, and you know, we’re looking into doing some, some meetups with some people. We’re going to see what happens.

Maybe it, maybe a Discord or something like that.

Yeah. Who knows? You never, I, you won’t see me on the Discord cause I don’t understand that. And I hate it. So I’m an old— I’m a grumpy old man and I’m not gonna do it. Anyway, uh, thank you all so much for joining us, and thanks to Roger Gowdy for editing. We’ll talk to you again next week.

Bye, everybody.

Don't Get Cross With Me

Segments

The Transcript

Scripture Index

Terminology