Hiding God

It’s a squishy little situation, but definitely don’t sing on an airplane.

I think the thesis of all that is good and holy, the thesis of this episode is just don’t sing on an airplane, man. Yeah.

Hey everybody, I’m Dan McClellan.

And I’m Dan Beecher.

And this is Data Over Dogma, 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. It’s a dark day here in Salt Lake City as we look out over a temperature inversion, which if you don’t know what that is, you can look it up.

Yeah, lucky you.

Yeah, we live in Beijing now when it comes to air pollution. So that’s always fun.

I think somebody said South Jordan, which is the city right northeast-ish of me, had like the worst air quality in the country last week. And then like Davis County, Salt Lake City sometimes has among the worst air quality in the world.

Um, so yeah, it’s an issue.

So smoke them if you got them, I guess. I don’t know.

You don’t have a choice. We’re all—.

Yeah, exactly. Uh, how are you?

Uh, I’m doing all right. I’m, uh, I’m about ready to, um, to dart off to sunny San Diego to spend a few days, uh, away from the inversion with my with my kids who have a 4-day weekend.

You lucky son of a gun.

Yeah. So there’s no Comic-Con to be had, but there’s still plenty of sun, sand, and surf.

So yeah, between Comic-Con and whenever the SBL meeting happens there in San Diego for you, this will be a trip where you don’t have to hover around that convention center.

Yeah, probably won’t even walk by it. I mean, well, you know what, I like to go on runs in the morning and I run down by the— along the boardwalk past the aircraft carrier and all that kind of stuff. So I will probably end up running past the convention center. But yeah, I will not. I’ll just look wistfully at it and wish there were comic book nerds descending upon the— or Bible nerds.

Nerds of one stripe or another. Yeah, I’m sure that the crossover is is not just you. The Venn diagram includes more than just Dan McClellan. Anyway, coming up on today’s show, we got a couple of fun ones for you. I didn’t plan our first one very well, because I thought I maybe should save it for Purim. But no, we’re going to talk about— or do a chapter and verse about the Book of Esther , which is pretty interesting. I had never read Esther, and now I have. And then in the second half of the show, we’re going to talk about public displays of religiosity and Jesus and whether that would have been kosher for, you know, according to the New Testament. Pros and cons.

Yeah, yeah. Going to do a little point-counterpoint.

Yeah, exactly.

And I’ll be Jane.

You’re the ignorant person.

Yes, yes, person is exactly what Chevy Chase said.

What? Dan Aykroyd.

Dan Aykroyd. Oh my gosh, did I say Chevy Chase?

Yes, indeed. Sorry, I got to wash my mouth out with soap now, especially if Joel McHale is listening.

All right, he played Chevy Chase in a movie.

Let’s move on and we’ll do our chapter and verse. And I suppose this week’s chapter and verse is like a whole book. It’s many chapters and many verses.

10 Chapters.

Or 9 chapters and a bit.

And a bit.

With a remainder of 3.

An epilogue.

Yes. Depending on which version you’re looking at. And we’ll get to that down the road a piece.

Yeah. You hinted at that to me before we— just before we went on. And I was like, wait, what?

What? What?

So, uh, so yeah, um, we should— we just start with, with what I— with the story, the basic story.

Well, let’s introduce it, where it comes from and all that kind of stuff, where it sits in the biblical canon. Yeah, um, it’s— the setting is, uh, the reign of, uh, a Persian king they call Ahasuerus in the text. This is probably supposed to be Xerxes I. And so the setting is between 485 to 465 BCE, somewhere in there.

Which means it’s no longer the days of Xerxes. Yeah.

It continually says like, this is in the 12th month of his reign, or this is, you know, whatever. Yeah.

And, and it’s probably written in the- oh, I don’t know, or maybe late 400s, early 300s BCE. Before the whole, you know, subject to a larger empire starts to become a lot more deadly, which is what happens in the Greco-Roman period with the Hellenistic rulers and the Seleucids and the Ptolemies and all of those folks. And so it has a kind of odd approach to how Jewish folks need to relate to the larger empire, and we’ll talk a little bit more about that. But we have a Hebrew version and a Greek version, and the Greek version is the Septuagint version. So it’s a Greek translation, and it’s significant- not significantly, it’s 107 verses longer than the Hebrew. And one of the most famous things about the Book of Esther is what it is lacking, which is what?

It doesn’t have God in it.

No references whatsoever to God until you get to the Greek version.

Interesting.

So yeah, they add references to God in the Greek version, but in the Hebrew version, there are no references to God. Now, I think most scholars would say that the text is kind of expecting you to find God in the background. The readership is, you know, if you’re Jewish, obviously You’re like, where is God in this? Okay, God is orchestrating things behind the scenes. So there’s probably a degree to which the author is kind of intentionally doing this as a rhetorical way of saying, you know, we find God in the events that happen around us and not necessarily in, you know, bam, in-your-face kind of ways that other texts in the Bible represent God’s interactions with humanity.

I mean, what I can see, because having read it just recently, I did not see any, even a wink or a nudge nudge towards- like, this feels like a very straightforward telling of a story. And I know that, like, you know, the Jewish holiday of Purim is based on this and is all about this. And in their celebrating of Purim, they discuss the- the Jewish people discuss God’s hand in all of this. And so yes, obviously, that is part of the tradition. But it is surprising how many opportunities there were to obviously state overtly that God was a part of this. And, and that’s just not there.

Yeah. Here, and I’m gonna flip the tables a little bit. So God is not in Esther.

With apologies to Monty Matier, whose whole podcast is flipping tables.

Yes. I thought you were going to say with apologies to Jesus. Well, but I guess I would have to have said overturn tables. But anyway, God does not appear in Esther. Guess where Esther does not appear? Did you find this out?

No, no.

At all? The Dead Sea Scrolls. Oh, you have fragments of every single text from the Hebrew Bible and then some among the Dead Sea Scrolls, except for Megillot Esther. Uh, it is just- or Megillat Esther, excuse me. Uh, it is just not there. Now, there, there’s a possibility that, uh, some scholars would say, well, it probably would have been a part of the, uh, a scroll containing other books. So we can’t say that they definitely were like, we don’t do Esther here. But there isn’t a hint of Esther anywhere in the Dead Sea Scrolls. And one of the funniest things that I recall related to the Book of Esther is there’s a website called thetorah.com, which does a lot of fun public scholarship-type articles. In fact, I’ve published one with thetorah.com, but several years ago, I want to say 2018 or something like that, they published, uh, an article saying newly deciphered Qumran scroll revealed to be Megillat Esther.

And it created a lot of buzz, uh-huh, until people remembered what day it was.

Oh no, it was-.

Because it was, it was an April Fool’s joke.

Oh my gosh.

Yes. Uh, and then the, like, the, the subtitle is The Discovery Upends Decades of Research Addressing the Question of Why the Book of Esther is Missing from Qumran. Uh, and yeah, there, there’s some— it’s a funny little story. But, uh, I remember when that happened.

Why do scholars think it’s missing from Qumran? That seems really, uh, important.

Well, the— it’s a short book, one, and when you think about it, uh, if we take the Hebrew Bible as a whole, only about 20% of the actual text of the Hebrew Bible is preserved in the scrolls.

We, you know, like the Great Isaiah Scroll is one of the only ones where we have every last verse. And that’s a pretty, that’s a pretty amazing preservation event there. And so just by the numbers, it’s such a tiny, tiny portion of the entire text of the Hebrew Bible that it’s not a huge surprise. But some scholars think maybe it’s because it doesn’t mention God. Maybe they were like, ooh, not you.

Because— or just didn’t include it among the holy texts and just thought it was an interesting story that wasn’t like— that didn’t need to be preserved as scripture. As scripture.

Yeah, that’s a possibility. There’s also the argument that the folks who occupied Qumran were kind of separatists and didn’t like the— they didn’t like the temple authority, the folks who were running the temple. They thought they were corrupt and illegitimate. And they also didn’t like folks who got along with the powers that be, or were. And so maybe the fact that it kind of is about cooperation and being nice to imperial overlords, maybe that turned them off too. There are a lot of theories. Some make better sense than others, but the reality is that we don’t know. We don’t even know if it is just an accident of preservation. Yeah. But yeah, I think that is an interesting thing to note about the Book of Esther . The two main characters in the Book of Esther , Esther and Mordecai, scholars suggest it’s likely that their names are actually based on Ishtar and Marduk.

The— oh yeah, that they are, um, have filtered down from Akkadian, probably into Aramaic, uh, and then into Hebrew.

So are you saying that the characters are based on that, or just the names are based on that?

Just the names are based on that. Because they’re set in Persia, that would have been around where those deities would have been significant. And so they just give the characters names that are based on that culture, or at least the culture that pre-existed the Persian Empire.

Right. So possibly what you’re saying, if I can just wrap my head around it, is that whoever the author of Esther was needed Persian-sounding names and just went to the only deities they could think of. The only Persian names that they could think of and were like, okay, Ishtar and Marduk.

Yeah, something like that. Something like that.

And because this is not thought to be a historical story.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This. This is not historical. This is. These are. These are kind of like court tales.

And when you read it, that’s kind of the flavor it has. Like, it sounds a lot like some of the things from Daniel. It sounds a lot like some of the apocryphal stuff that we’ve read. There’s always somebody who overhears some kind of plot and then has to foil the enemies and all that kind of stuff.

And it’s so overblown. It’s such a huge thing. It’s never like— it’s not like some minor thing, like, oh, those two guys, or it’s like all of the everybody.

Yeah, yeah. And it’s always, it’s always some, some middle management dude who wants to, who’s plotting to get rid of, of the Jewish people as a whole and stuff like that. Like this has, this has that kind of that flavor. And yeah, these are just non, non-historical stories.

It’s, it’s 100% Jafar.

Yeah, it straight up is. And we start with the king who gets annoyed with his wife, one of them anyway, the main wife, and institutes basically a Persia’s Got Talent to see who’s going to win the hand of the king.

Yeah, he gets annoyed with her because— yeah, I got hung up on it. I had to look it up because she won’t come in in her crown and be sort of paraded around in front of everybody.

Yeah, uh, he’s something like that.

He thinks she’s real pretty. Uh, and I, I kept reading it going, did I miss something? Is she supposed to parade around naked, or why is she refusing this? But she refuses it.

And he hates her for it.

Well, she’s, she’s like Lesley Gore. And if you don’t know who Lesley Gore is, what kind of childhood did you have? You don’t own me. I’m not just one of your many toys, right?

Which is a misnomer when you’re talking to the king. I feel like when you are the wife of the king.

Yeah, but she does say, um, but when we’re— and when we go out, um, don’t put me on display, right? So yeah, she Lesley Gores, um, the king, and he gets, um, he’s highly offended by this.

And so she is gone, as you said, is out. Yeah, so it’s time, it’s time to find a new hot lady.

Uh, and one of the hottest, or, or perhaps the hottest, happens to be the not-daughter of Mordecai.

There’s such a weird, uh, detail. Mordecai’s cousin, who he’s raising because her parents both died. Okay, I guess you got to, you got to paint a picture. You got to—.

Well, yeah. And you got to have these kinds of things. Like, think of every Disney movie you’ve ever seen. There’s always like Frozen. The two parents go off and die or are supposed to be dead or something like that. And the sister’s got to raise the other. So it’s, it’s, it’s just that, that genre. And there’s no evil stepmother.

Yeah. So, so there’s— yeah. So you’ve got Mordecai is clearly, though, though her cousin clearly older. She is a young and exceptionally hot person and is taken to the king. The king like-a what he see, and they’re off to the races.

She’s— she is now head— she’s now crowned the queen, not just— not just one of the— one of the cadre of women. But crowned the queen specifically.

Not just in the harem, but she is the new queen. And then chapter 2, verse 18, then the king gave a great banquet to all of his officials and ministers, Esther’s banquet. He also granted a holiday to the provinces and gave gifts with royal liberality. So yeah, this is another feature of a lot of these stories where the king always is kind of just always kind of superlatively demeanored. It’s always like, or, oh, everybody gets gifts.

And he does that constantly throughout this. He’s like, if he likes someone, he’s like, hey, ask for something, I’ll give you anything up to half of my kingdom.

Which, yeah, we’ve heard before constantly.

Yeah, exactly.

And, and just, um, you know, apropos of nothing, Mordecai is just like, that’s cool. Wait a minute, I overhear something.

Yeah. Oh, and we should— we should say that early on, Mordecai told Esther, ixnay on the ooh-jay. Do not let them know that you are a Jew because we’re not— we’re not— I guess we’re not that popular. I don’t know what it is.

Evidently not, because he doesn’t—.

Yeah, he doesn’t present— it doesn’t present a real open reason why. Just don’t tell— don’t talk about that part. Yeah, that we’re Jewish.

So there’s that.

And then he’s— when the virgins were being gathered together, Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate. I don’t know if there’s anything to read into that, but Esther had not revealed her kindred or her people as Mordecai had charged her, for Esther obeyed Mordecai just as when she was brought up by him. And then, in those days, while Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate, Bigtan or Bigthan, I don’t know how we’re supposed to pronounce. I didn’t look at the Hebrew.

I’m now going to have to name a character in something Bigtan.

And Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs who guarded the threshold of the king, became angry and conspired to kill Ahasuerus. And so Mordecai hears this and he’s like, oh, well, here’s an opportunity to get into the the good graces. Uh, so, uh, goes to tell Queen Esther about this plot to, uh, to kill the king.

And, uh, when the plot— if the affair was investigated and found to be so, both men were hung on the pole. Uh, it was recorded in the book of the annals in the presence of the king.

So pins in both of those thoughts, hanging on the pole and those annals, because that’s going to become It’s so funny, because as you’re reading it, there are these little moments that you’re like, okay, it was recorded in the book.

Well, and this is part of the early historical texts, like you’ve got in Samuel and Kings, you’ve got these references. Is this not written in the book of of Deuteronomy and stuff like this. So although they didn’t say Deuteronomy, right? And then we have the introduction of another character, Haman, who is an Agagite, which is supposed—

Gesundheit!

Which is from— basically he’s a descendant of the Amalekites.

And so of course, of course, yes, we have to vilify an Amalekite here. That old canard. Yeah. We’re going to trot that one out. So we’ve got our, you know, ancient feud is born anew in this conflict between the descendants of the Judahites and the descendants of the Amalekites. Right.

So this is our Jafar character. This guy is just an evil, ambitious to evil levels guy who also hates the Jews for no good reason. Other than his dad also hated the house of Israel.

And this is another feature of how these stories work. The king is always like, man, I really like you. You’re really cool. I also really like this guy over here who’s going to try to kill all of you guys. I don’t know what to do about this, but I’m just going to keep— I’m going to lean into it. Where in fact, we’re going to promote the evil guy, and he gets promoted. I think he gets his own banquet or feast as well.

There’s a lot of banqueting in this book.

Yeah, that’s a big part of what they did back then, just because everybody had plenty of food, I guess.

I guess, or they didn’t, and this was a way to show off extravagance or something.

Yeah, and so they plot, and in chapter 3, Haman said to King Ahasuerus, There is a certain people scattered and separated among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom. Their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king’s laws, so that it is not appropriate for the king to tolerate them.

Well, we should— sorry, one hates to interrupt, but we should also mention that because you skipped a little moment, which is that everybody was bowing and showing obeisance to Haman. Oh yeah, and, and Mordecai didn’t.

Yeah, yeah. So more— so yeah, so yeah, that could be the, the source of all this. I didn’t get a harrumph out of that guy.

That’s right, exactly.

Yes. Um, and so he, uh, he plots to, uh, decide on a random day months in the future by rolling some dice, right? Um, that they cast lots.

And that’s— and the word for the lots is Purim, or Pur is the singular, right? Right. So that’s, that’s where the Jewish holiday gets its name.

Yeah. And they’re going to basically slaughter them, commit genocide. We’re just— there’s— we got this ethnic group that, you know, one of them looked at me sideways. Didn’t bow, and now we’re going to get rid of them all. And the king was like, cool. Yeah. Authorize.

King takes no convincing whatsoever. It is just instantly like, oh, you want to do that? Here’s my ring. Go ahead and write letters on my behalf. Do whatever you got to do.

Yeah. I trust you implicitly. So the king’s secretaries were summoned 13th day of the first month, and an edict ‘According to all that Haman commanded was written to the king’s satraps and to the governors over all the provinces and to the officials of all the peoples, every province in its own script and every people in its own language. ’ And then you’ve got the text of that. And a copy was to be proclaimed, and couriers went quickly by order of the king, and the decree was issued in the citadel of Susa, which would be in Anatolia.

Um, I don’t even know what Anatolia is. You didn’t narrow it down for me.

Did I?

But I just— I, half the time when I read these place names, I’m just— I just let them sort of wash over me because I don’t know where anything is.

No, I was wrong. That’s not Anatolia. Woof! That was— I was, I was way off. What was I thinking? Anatolia for— no, it’s, uh, it’s in the, the mountains that are just to the east of Mesopotamia. Which would be where Iran is, which would be where Persia is. Why did I think Anatolia? Somebody’s going to make a video about how I screwed that one up, but don’t worry, I’m already aware that I screwed that one up.

Yeah, I know. They just made the video and then they came back and saw you correct yourself and went, no, dang it.

Post the video anyway.

I might as well.

Yeah, because I did screw up. Uh, and, and now we got a problem. So, uh, Mordecai happens to learn about all of this, uh, and, you know, obviously because, because the, the letters went out, everybody knows about it now.

Everybody, like, this is like, now, oh no, all of the Jews are, you know, 6 months from now, or 12, I think, I think 11 months from now or something, because it goes, it’s in the 12th month and we’re in the first month or whatever. Anyway, in a few months we’re all going to be murdered.

Yeah. And so Mordecai puts on the sackcloth and the ashes and goes up to the entrance of the king’s gate. And it seems like Mordecai is just kind of a, just kind of a loiterer. He’s just hanging around in places.

Yeah, it’s his favorite place.

Yeah. And I don’t know if anybody knows who he is. Apart from Haman not liking that he didn’t bow. But yeah, he just kind of loiters around and he gets a message to Esther that she’s got to figure out a way to do something about this. But it’s against the law to approach the king if you have not been summoned. Right. So Esther’s taken on an awful lot of risk.

Yeah, she makes sure she says, hey, you, I’m gonna take this risk, but you go home and fast and have everybody you know fast for 3 days. And I’ll have all of my people fast for 3 days, all of my servants and everything. Yeah, she doesn’t mention that she’s gonna fast, but I assume she does.

Well, and yeah, or not.

3 days is not too long. But yeah, see, and then there’s the famous line. I’ll go to the king though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish. So she’s accepting her fate. And something interesting, you have— this is kind of a theme in literature from around this time period. Like, you see it in the Book of Daniel as well, where they’re going to get thrown into— I can’t remember if it’s the the furnace or the lion’s den. But he’s like, we know that God will save us, but if not, we’re still not going to do the thing.

So be it.

So yeah, it’s kind of a, we have faith, but we’re prepared to face our end because that is more important to us.

Was this— sorry, was this written around the same time as Daniel? Is that—.

It probably is probably written around the same time that the court tales parts of the Book of Daniel is written. Because you got— because Daniel is, is these little court vignettes, right? And then you’ve got the apocalyptic visions and, and things like that. And the apocalyptic visions are probably what’s coming from around the time of the, you know, the middle of the 2nd century BCE, around Antiochus IV Epiphanes. But the court tales probably are coming from a little earlier. Some people say, yeah, it could be as early as the late 6th century BCE, maybe Persian period, some of these little stories that have close parallels to what’s going on here. And then we get Esther’s banquet. So she comes in to the king, and the king doesn’t seem to be aware that there’s a law prohibiting approaching him, or maybe he’s, uh, the king knows, but he thinks she’s hot and he accepts her coming in.

Yeah, that’s pretty privileged right there.

Yeah, he does the, he does the, uh, the scepter thing. She says earlier that like if he points at her with his golden scepter, oh yeah, she’s good to go.

And so he does that, uh, yeah, he, he accepts her, she’s good to go, so she comes in. Taps his scepter. I think that’s probably a euphemism, but, uh, and then—.

And touch it, I say.

And then, uh, and then she’s good, and he— and he’s just pleased as punch that she’s there, and he’s just— he just says, hey, what do you want? I’ll give you anything.

What do you want? Just thinking about you.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And so, uh, we have this petition: if I’ve won the king’s favor, and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and fulfill my request, let the king and Haman come tomorrow to the banquet that I will prepare for them, and then I will do as the king has said. So the trap has been set.

Let’s do another one. We’re going to tomorrow.

Got to string this out. Yeah. And each time counting on the king being in a giving mood.

Yeah. It just seems like you’re pushing your luck at that point. And then you’ve got the thing.

Yeah. And then you’ve got Haman is like out strolling around just like, I love being evil. And sees Mordecai, and it says that Mordecai didn’t tremble or anything before him, and he was like, “That guy’s not trembling.” Like, “Oh, I’m gonna get—” And so wants even more to have Mordecai executed.

Yeah, I mean, and this is interesting because this is between the two feasts, the two banquets. Yeah. And I mean, I think it’s clear that Haman doesn’t know the relationship between Mordecai and Esther. So Haman is—on the night, you know, the night between the two things, he’s just mad at Mordecai and is like, “You know what, we’re going to have him killed. We’re just going to do it.”

Yeah. And the guy, he’s not—

He keeps going to his friends and being like, ah, I hate Mordecai. Yeah. And his friends are all mean girls and they’re all like, well, you know what? You should just have him killed. I think you really should. Yeah.

I was going to compare it to current events and be like, he’s just so angry that somebody is not respecting his authority with the deference that he thinks his authority merits. And yeah, the—what happens in the middle is kind of a pivot point for the story because you can actually see you’ve got the king of Persia’s greatness, you’ve got Haman elevated over and against Mordecai elevated, you’ve got a decree to kill all the Jewish folks, and then you’ve got a decree that allows them to defend themselves. And so it’s kind of two opposite ends of the story converging on the center piece, which is chapter 6, which is where the king honors Mordecai. He couldn’t sleep and he wakes up and he’s just like, hey, bring me that book about all the cool stuff that happened.

Read me a story from, you know, from last month or whatever.

Yeah, just pick a random anything. Maybe it involves a guy named Mordecai. I don’t know. And he recalls, oh yeah, Mordecai.

And this is like the, uh, the most well-disposed king of all time. He’s just like, you’re—hey, what do you want? Can I make you happy? Let me—

Well, basically, I mean, he says, hey, did we give that guy anything? That guy that saved my life? You remember when he saved my life and he told us about that plot against me? Did we ever give him anything or not?

I thought we wrote that down to do something about that. So then they’re like, okay. “It’s a good thing that I woke up and decided to read some stuff.” Yeah.

“What should I give him? I can’t decide what to give him. Who’s out in the hall? Is there anybody out in the hall that can just decide what to give Mordecai?” And Haman happens to be out there. And so they bring Haman in and he says, “What should I give to someone who’s deserving of honor?” And it literally—I love that there’s a moment where it literally says his inner dialogue, his inner monologue. Or not Mordecai, sorry, Haman. Haman. It has Haman’s inner monologue. He says that he thinks to himself, oh, he must be talking about me, so I will say what I think I should get. Yeah. And then he says, you know, bring out all of the best clothes that you used to wear and a horse with a crown on it and a parade and, uh, you know, a platinum or an Amex Black Card or something, and give all of that to this supposed guy.

Yeah. And the king’s like, great, why don’t you take all those things and give it to Mordecai? Which is a lovely bit of humiliation for him.

You know, that guy who kind of loiters around the the palace.

Yeah, the guy, you’ll find him out in front of– out of the gate. That’s all he does these days.

You can’t miss him. If you hear the bees, you’ve gone too far.

I don’t know what that means, but okay.

It’s from The Office, uh, where Dwight’s given directions to get to like a farm or something. He’s like, turn left when you hear the bees.

Okay, so, uh, so Haman not only doesn’t get to Mordecai, but he has to present him with clothes, which– It’s all reversal of fortune.

Right, right, right. He thinks he’s getting this, but actually he’s getting this. He plans this, but actually he gets hoisted by his own petard, provided petard means impaling stake. Right.

And it is true because he had built a 50-cubit-tall pole that he was going to kill Mordecai on.

But then did you look up how long 50 cubits is? 75 feet. Yeah. It’s very tall. Depending on the type of cubit. But yeah, that’s a, like what, this is a grotesque villain who’s just like, I just want to see him sliding down a 75-foot-tall pole because he’s been impaled.

This is Joffrey Baratheon levels of evil.

Yeah. Vlad the Impaler levels of sickness.

So then the next night, Esther, or the next day, Esther has her second feast, her second banquet, and Haman and the king are there. And that’s when she pulls the trigger and says, “Hey.” Springs it on him.

“This guy hates my people. Guess what? PS, I’m a Jew. This guy hates all of us and wants us all dead. I prefer not, if you please.” Yes. Who has again, once again, offered her everything up to half his kingdom. Yeah. And apparently that is totally within the bounds of up to half my kingdom because the king has zero problem just murdering the crap out of this guy.

And yeah, he– and but he asks, who is this? Who did this? And yeah, and she, uh, she levels the finger at Haman, this wicked Haman. And then Haman was terrified, and the king rose from the feast in wrath and went to the palace garden. But Haman stayed to beg his life from Queen Esther, for he saw that the king had determined to destroy him. And then, uh, and, and he’s basically– he seems to have just gone off to I don’t know, just kind of vent for a while, need to blow off some steam.

He went to his mad room. Yeah. And just sat there stewing for a little bit.

Yeah, punched some pillows, broke some coffee cups. When he returned from the palace garden to the banquet hall, Haman had thrown himself on the couch where Esther was reclining. And the king said, “Will he even violate the queen in my presence in my own house?” Um, so timing was bad. Yeah, for Haman. And as the words left the mouth of the king, they covered Haman’s face. Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs in attendance on the king, said, look, the very pole that Haman has prepared for Mordecai, whose word saved the king, stands at Haman’s house 50 cubits high. And the king said, hang him on that. So they hung Haman on the pole that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the anger of the king abated. So again, reversal of fortune.

Yeah. Yeah. And then the king–.

But that doesn’t solve the problem because there was no legislation that, that had been written and passed and signed off on.

Yeah. And, and, and couriers had sent it to all of the hundreds, however many provinces in the satrapies and everything.

Yes. But while he exercises all power, he does not exercise all power because he cannot undo a decree of the king, which is kind of silly. But isn’t that what’s in, yeah, in Aladdin at the end? He’s like, “Well, am I the Sultan or am I the Sultan?” Or something like that. And then decrees that from now on the princess can marry whoever she wants. So he should logically have that authority, but by no less a standard than Disney’s Aladdin. So yeah, I mean, honestly, as long as that is historical. But so they decide we’re going to write up a contra thing or order. Yes, that’s what the word I was grasping for. Which basically says that the Jewish people can defend themselves, which I didn’t think the earlier decree had said, by the way, Jewish folks are not allowed to lift a finger.

You just got to sit and take it. Yeah. But apparently that was a very important bit of the decree, or it was important, and not only– it didn’t just send a message to the Jews that they could defend themselves, But it also sent a message to all of the local magistrates and satraps and all of this sort of thing that, yes, the king is now not mad at these people, and maybe it would be a good idea not to come too hard at them.

Yes, we are now a pro-Jewish empire. Yeah. And so, yeah, choose your position wisely. And then chapter 9 narrates the destruction of the enemies of the Jews. So there are some people who decide, you know what, I’m going to go for it anyway.

I got to do what the decree told me to do.

Yeah, yeah. We don’t have an indication how, you know, if there were Hamans and Mordecais in all the different satraps where somebody was just like, I hate that guy. And then a courier shows up and it’s like, guess what, we’re gonna— we’re gonna let you kill all the Jewish people. And one guy’s like, jackpot, because I don’t— yeah, that guy over there. Yeah. Um, and, uh, yeah, they are able to, uh, strike down all the enemies with the sword, slaughtering and destroying them, and did as they pleased to those who hated them. Again, reversal of fortune. It was supposed to be everybody else slaughtering the people they hated, namely the Jewish folks. Instead, the Jewish folks get to do some slaughtering of their own.

Yes. I mean, you’re not going to walk away with no slaughter. That would be so boring. It’d be disappointing. Yeah.

You would think that when the second decree came around, a lot of people are like, you know what, I’m just going to slow my roll.

Let’s just chill.

I’m going to have a Coke and a smile. Yeah. I’m going to sit a few plays out. And, you know, just not take part in maybe dying.

So, you know, they killed a whole bunch of people and the Jews win and Mordecai is now the right-hand man of the king and gets to take over the bad guy’s house. And yeah, so I love how immediately, because Mordecai is the one who sent out all of the letters that are like, here’s the new decree, which is the Jews can defend themselves and and everybody else should probably chill. And the king just hands him his ring. The king’s just like, oh, you’re the new guy today? Here, have my authority. Have all of my authority. You’re great.

Yeah. And then they institute the Feast of Purim. Yeah. Which is a wonderful tradition. And there are those who suggest that this was a festival that had been celebrated for a while, probably has obscure origins, or maybe, um, not so favorable origins. But this, this story may have been written to function as an etiology for, uh, for the celebration of, of Purim.

Can I just say why that makes a lot of sense to me?

Why that makes a lot of sense to you?

Because they named one of their holidays after gambling. And it seems to me that it very much could have been just like, this is our day when we have a fun little gamble, everybody. And then somebody came along and was like, maybe that’s not the best reason to have a holiday.

Well, and the dice, literally it’s lots, and casting lots was a means of divination. Oh, right. Yeah. And so it is not unlikely, not out of the realm of plausibility, that this holiday originates in a divinatory tradition. Yeah. And so they were— maybe they were like, can we think of another reason we would be hitting the craps, hitting the rolling dice, hitting the casting lots? Well, what if we had a story where the villain cast lots? Yeah. And so maybe that’s what’s going on here.

They ruined a perfectly good divination holiday and made it— but as it turns out, in my very, very brief, please forgive, looking up of what happens at Purim, it’s Jewish Halloween and they all dress up in costumes and that sounds fun. So there you go. They’re having a good time. Yeah, it was a good time.

They read the Megillat Esther, the scroll of Esther. You got gift exchanges, you’ve got donating to the poor. I’m sure there’s good food involved. That’s always involved.

Hopefully it’s not bitter herbs because that’s questionable. But yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, you say always good food involved. Sometimes there’s bad food involved.

Yeah. Well, Touche. But that’s supposed to remind you of how bitter life in Egypt was so that you don’t start dreaming about how nice things were when we were enslaved in Egypt. Yeah.

But anywho, we got to move on. We are so— Are we behind? Oh, geez. We’re running hot. We’re running heavy here. So there you go. That’s Esther for you. That’s your primer. So that when March rolls around and it’s Purim, you’ll be ready to rock and roll with your Jewish friends. I know that I learned a lot from that. And no God, so fascinating in that respect. So let’s move on to our Taking Issue.

Recently there was too much Taco Bell. That’ll, that’ll ruin it. That’ll be—

That’s one way a lot of people— I have a little more sympathy for that than for this. That’s not a thing that they’re choosing. That’s not there. I mean, you know, you chose to go to Taco Bell. Don’t do that before a flight. But in this case, what we’re talking about is a young man who decided on the plane to get up with his guitar and sing some praise music, favor a captive crowd with his favorite songs of Jesus. And that, in my mind, is what hell will feel like if there is such a place. And you can refer to our episode on that if you want to. Yeah. But yeah, that’s my idea of— it’s certainly very few people’s idea of an effective means of proselytizing. I will tell you that right now.

Yeah, it seems to be more a means of creating enemies, yeah, than anything else.

And if you see the videos of it and you look at the faces of the people around you—

Enemy, enemy, enemy.

Yeah, they might as well just have like little things pop up above their head. I’m an enemy now. Yeah, that’s— but this kind of stuff happens on the reg all the time and is very clearly encouraged by a lot of pastors, by a lot of, you know, worship leaders. Yeah.

So it’s— it seems to me to be part of this notion. And we talked about this when we had April A’Joy on. You’ll recall she talked about growing up where, where they were expected to like preach to their servers when they’re in a restaurant and try to get them to pray with them. Yeah. And, you know, they— so they could put a little notch in their belt. And so it seems to me that the idea is related to those kinds of costly signals, public displays of piety, not so much because people think they’re actually going to be effective at all, but just because for them it crosses something off their personal checklist.

But, well, I mean, and you’ve talked about costly signaling as being a sort of I would imagine actually a valuable part of the religious experience.

Yeah, well, it’s a valuable part of all kinds of social institutions and interactions and identities. You have to find ways to determine whether or not you can trust and get along with other people in your social group. And so social identities just tend to kind of create these these means of signaling to each other. And this is, I think this is more credibility-enhancing displays. So costly signaling, that’s where you’re willing to put on display your incurring of some kind of cost, whether it’s time, money, physical effort, physical pain, even clothing. Or yeah, yeah, they’re, I’m willing to do this in order to show the other member of the in-group that I’m willing to toe the line. Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see what you’re saying.

Yeah. But, and, and there are minimum expectations, but then you can ratchet up the cost in order to show them I’m not just meeting the minimum expectation, I’m going well above and beyond. Okay. And, and a good example for my own faith community, uh, our, our current, uh, president of the church, Russell M. Nelson, when he, uh, acceded to—

That is not your current president of of the church.

Did I? Oh my gosh. Oh gosh. Okay. Our previous president of the church, Russell Nelson.

He’s barely passed away. It’s understandable. You are correct. I just wanted to make sure that we got that correct.

And yeah, thank you for being a better Mormon than I am. And, but yes. And he, when he became president of the church, one of the things he said was that the name Mormon, using that as a designator, as a name, as a nickname, was a victory for Satan. And so this became kind of a way to draw boundaries and to say, are you a good Mormon or a bad Mormon? And based on whether or not—

Yes, if you use that phrase, you’re one of the bad ones.

Yeah, if you use the word Mormon as a designator for yourself or for others, that’s bad. And so to say Latter-day Saint or to say the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints instead of the LDS Church or the Mormon Church is a means to incur a syllabic cost. Yeah. To put on display that you are willing to go out of your way to signal fidelity to this new expectation. And I’ve got an edited volume that should be coming out later this year called Mormonism in 5 Minutes with Equinox Press, where we have a paper in there about this whole, what do you call the church thing and why.

Sure, sure. And usually it’s not just because they were protesting it.

No, no, they were doing something very bad.

Yes. But when their in-group talks about them, it is, look what they were willing to do because of how much they care about the sanctity of human life. Right. They are so committed to the cause that they’re willing to go to jail. And that is another example of costly signaling. And yeah, this is just something that is natural to all social identities. But we do see some criticism of this in that book that, what is it called? The New Testament.

Yeah. Yes. From one of those lesser-known characters, that Jesus fellow.

Yeah, one of those hippie-dippy woo-woo folks.

Um, yeah, it does seem like there are, there are, uh, sufficient— this was part of like what raised my eyebrow is that it seems like there are a lot of verses, especially when in the Gospels, and especially talking, you know, red-letter verses, stuff that you have Jesus saying that are like, you know, Sermon on the Mount, they’re criticizing the Pharisees for their outward shows, for their big, bold outward shows of their religiosity.

Yeah, chapter 6 has a couple of really good verses. So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets so that they may be praised of others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. I think this is actually phenomenally insightful because it’s pointing out what is the point of doing that. It is so that you increase your access to power and resources, so you advance your standing in the social group. Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners so that they may be seen of others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. And whenever you fast, do not look somber like the hypocrites, for they mark their faces to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. So you’ve got a pretty clear, repeated multiple times, condemnation of folks who put their piety on display in order to be seen of others and to be rewarded through the advancing their standing within the in-group.

And I talked about this one time when I was at Ferrum College in Virginia, in the presentation or the Q&A afterwards, I got a question about this. And then somebody stood up and they were like, so I’m not supposed to live my religion in public? And it’s like, okay, so now we’ve got two sides to this issue. Right? What is the reason you’re doing it? Are you doing it so that you can put on display to others that you’re one of the good ones? Is that so that you can benefit yourself? Or are you doing it because you feel that this— you’re setting a good example maybe for others? Or you’re— you’ve got people in your immediate orbit, your kids or something like that, you’re trying to set a good example for, or that’s just the manifestation of your faith that you feel the need to do that kind of thing. I think there are pure motivations for doing that kind of thing.

Well, and there’s also the idea that is presented elsewhere in the New Testament that you’re supposed to go forth and proclaim the gospel, and you know, to every nation and every blah blah blah and every airplane and every small, you know, tight enclosed space.

Uh, that, that would be the Great Commission at the end of Matthew 28 . That’s where Jesus says to disciple all the nations. Yeah. And, and yeah, that’s, that’s the other thing. Shouldn’t I be trying to spread the gospel? And I think you can have— I think the behavior is not always necessarily because somebody’s a hypocrite. But I think they need to really seriously consider why they’re doing things, because that impulse to do that is not something that you reason yourself into. That impulse is intuitive, that’s subconscious, and you may rationalize it any one of a number of different ways. And another example of how folks rationalize it, in James chapter 2, you’ve got where I think that James is directly disagreeing with Paul about the role of faith and works. Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness, and he was called the friend of God.

Now what some people will do is they’ll point to that, they’ll go to verse 18. But someone will say, you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith apart from works, and I by my works will show you my faith. Faith. And I think they put the proverbial cart before the horse by suggesting that the good works are the outcome of the actual faith. And they’ll say that this is so everybody can tell who has actual faith. And I find this bizarre because it’s like, I didn’t think the gospel of Jesus was about proving to other members of the group that you have faith. Like, if that’s what faith is for, to demonstrate your faith to another member of the in-group. That seems kind of peculiar. It seems like trying to get around the, the contradiction, or at least the disagreement about the role of faith and works, has generated this rationalization of faith as primarily a costly signal, as primarily a way to show others that you are part of the in-group.

And I don’t think the folks who appeal to that reading of what’s going on in James have thought very hard about the relationship of that rationalization and the notion that, well, my good works are just to show other people that I have faith, and what Jesus condemns in Matthew chapter 6. And you know, there are nuances. This is all contextual, and I recognize that motivations can be very, very different. But at least think hard about this. Yeah. Think hard about what is it that is promoting this, because when you get up on a plane to piss off dozens of people because you want to put on display how much you love Jesus, um, I think the motivations are, are on one side of that spectrum, uh, of motivations.

I mean, I look, I, I don’t claim to know what the motivation is of that young guy to do that. I believe probably that that was just— that was also a very uncomfortable thing for him to do. And he clearly had a reason that he thought it was important, you know, that he was obeying a commandment, that he was doing something good for his religion by doing it. I just don’t think he thought about, is it good? Or did you just What, you know, do you just think, is there just sort of an argument that could be made that it’s good? And I think, you know, you were talking about Matthew 6 , and that moment about the hypocrites praying in the streets and in the synagogues, so that they may be seen by others. And, you know, I’ve put this out there and had people say, well, yeah, but that’s just about what’s in their hearts. That’s about their disposition.

And if they’re doing it so that they can be seen by others, then that’s bad. But if they’re doing it for a good reason, like so that it’s, you know, inspiring to others, or so that is blah, blah, blah, then maybe that’s an okay thing. And I think that’s an okay argument if you choose not to keep reading the next verse. Because the very next verse says, but whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Yeah, there is a pro— there’s a literal, like, next step, which is like, no, do this quietly and on your own.

And I think the person who gets up to do that. I have no doubt that they were nervous about it. I mean, I have been a proselytizing missionary in another country where I had to go create a street display and stand in the town square.

You did? They made you do that?

Oh, wow.

Well, it was just one of the things we could do, and it was like, okay, I could go walk around knocking on doors or I could do this. And I was like, I’m going to do this this time. So I know the feeling, but But what it so frequently does is it just ends up entrenching people in the identities they’re already a part of.

Because the folks who are already conservative Christians are going to enjoy it and be like, yeah, preach. And then the people who are not are going to be like, this is why I don’t like Christians. And so it really— you’re just curating your standing for the in-group and cementing the identity politics. And so it’s one of the things that I’ve always—.

One of the objections I’ve always had to, you know, there are guys, for instance, just as an example, and I’m sure we’ve all seen them. If you’re in the US or, you know, probably the UK, other places, there are these guys who go to every religious event that isn’t their thing. You know, they come to General Conference of the Mormon Church and hold up big signs. And they hold, hold up these big signs that are all about, you’re a sinner if you do this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this.

Because if you haven’t, and they obviously haven’t ever at any of these events, yeah, then clearly they’re not actually doing any. Then, then clearly what they’re doing is not good. Like, I don’t see how you could make the case. Yeah. Other than, like you say, it’s a costly signaling, or it’s a— it makes them, you know, have whatever feel they’re after, whatever. Yeah. You know, I want to— I was going to say warm fuzzy, but I don’t know, dark prickly that they want because they’re clearly just there to antagonize. And, and, and yeah, I did it, you know, I guess they can go back to their home church and talk about the evils of the world, and how bad everybody but us is, because they yell at me when I go out. And all I’m trying to do is tell them how good Jesus is. So, so they’re obviously bad.

That’s, and that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy there, right?

And right, it seems designed to do just that.

Yeah. So you don’t know what a lot of people have going on in their own closets, how they’re praying in secret, and how they live their religion. I get a lot of flack. People demand that I put on display my religiosity on my social media channels all the time, and it’s like, that’s not what it’s for. And you don’t get to have access to my moments of piety because that’s private. Because I think that is one, what if you follow what Jesus says, at least in the Gospel of Matthew , and I think you can find sentiments like this in several parts of the New Testament, I try not to do those things in order to be seen of others. I take that seriously. And just saying it is a way that I kind of signal to other people, you know, that, look, I do it right. So it’s hard to escape that kind of thing. What are the motivations for doing that?

Because even if you do have spent a lifetime doing that and then you go, I want some recognition for doing it right, it’s like suddenly you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. So yeah, it’s a squishy little situation, but definitely don’t sing on an airplane. I think, I think the thesis of all that is good and holy, the thesis of this episode is just don’t sing on an airplane, man. Yeah, yeah, just sit down and watch your, your, the, the screen that is on the back of the seat in front of you, unless you’re flying on an awful airline that requires you use your phone because they don’t want to put screens on the back of the seats, in which case just stare at your phone. Like a normal person, leave everybody else alone, play some Candy Crush, and, and, and maybe—.

And heck, you could sit in your chair and pray. You could do that if you want to. Nobody’s stopping you.

Yeah, in your mind, your own private little closet in your mind. Yeah.

Um, it’s just— yeah, uh, I, I just think it’s very interesting. I think I, I, I see current, especially conservative, especially evangelical American Christianity going in this direction of being loud and in your face and just a whole bunch of things that feel very counter to what I read when I read Jesus’s message.

Well, and I think a lot of the evidence and you know, there are a lot of people who think evangelical Christianity is growing significantly right now, and to the degree that’s true, it is growing among those who treat it as a social institution. Yeah, precisely because those are the mechanisms of social institutions. They’re living a social Christianity, and that’s, uh, yeah, that— and you know, that’s not to say that’s any more or less legitimate a Christianity. I mean, Christianity is a lot of different things.

And nobody gets to define what counts as good Christianity or bad Christianity or whatever.

Don’t let me catch you defining Christianity, anybody out there, not just you, Dan.

Oh, believe me, you’ve beaten it out of me. I don’t believe in defining anything anymore.

But I think you can have Christianity that is less harmful. Yeah. And, and I think once you, once you commit to a social Christianity, then the social aspect of it takes over. And, and I think that leads to all kinds of problems.

And there’s nothing good about alienating people. So I don’t think so. Stop doing that. Yeah, stop. Don’t, don’t do a version of your religion that alienates other people and makes them feel uncomfortable and bad. That’s, that just seems silly.

But unless it’s about using the word Mormon, I don’t want to hear anybody using the word Mormon. That’s just— yeah, we don’t, we don’t, we don’t do that around here. You gotta, you gotta say it right. Which is Latter, Latter something. You’re—.

Nobody’s going to take any advice for how to be a good Mormon from you, Dan. You didn’t even know who the prophet was.

When have I said look to me as the example of how to be? Um, I, uh, shoot, the only— there’s a— I’m sure there’s a word for it in English. I don’t remember what it is, but there’s so many times when I just want to say sobresaliente, um, which is Spanish, and I can’t think of a good English substitute for that, but exemplary, maybe. That’s a word. Yeah. All right.

Well, I think that’s good. We’ll leave it there.

Well, what if we just say, we’ll leave it there?

Yeah, right. Or we could just— one of the things we considered, we never got to it, but we considered calling this segment, Nah, I’m Good, because singing on a plane, No, I’m good. Yeah, you can, you can leave that one. If you would like to become a part of, uh, making this show go, helping us to bring you good content every week, keep the lights on—

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Hiding God

Segments

The Transcript

Scripture Index

Terminology