You're Speaking My Language!

They place so much importance on the different languages and how much that just destroyed everything. I mean, it takes humanity from literally the precipice of godhood to. Oh, now you’re all just screwed, huh? Sorry. You’re all just dumb now.

Now you’re Bronze Age goat herders.

Yeah. Suck it.

Ha. 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 combat the spread of misinformation about the same. And we’re going to be doing some combating today.

There might be a little misinformation out there.

Yep, there’s some.

It’s kind of fun. I’m looking forward to it. I, I, but astute listeners will be, will need to sort of really carefully parse out this entire episode because we’ve hidden messages in. If you know how to truly discern the words that we’re saying. So go back and re-listen a whole bunch of times and listen, listen to the ads while you’re at it and it’ll be, it’ll be good for you. Yeah. So what, what we’re breaking down today. We got, we’re gonna do two, obviously, as we normally do, two different segments. One is going to be a chapter and verse. Just a little Genesis for you, a little fun origin story, an etiology, if you will. Dan, I don’t, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that word before, but I’m glad to teach you it.

Well, I appreciate that.

And then, and I’m excited about this, you guys are going to want to wait around for the last segment because we’re going to be talking about it. We’re calling it Watch Your Language because we’re going to be talking about the idea of did, did the ancient Hebrew or ancient Greek have mystical sort of magical words sprinkled in that have extra meaning or extra power? And, and I’ll bet you can figure out what our answer is going to be. But don’t jump ahead. Don’t, don’t get ahead of us. Let’s, we’re going to talk about all of that, but first let’s just jump in with our chapter and verse. All right, so Dan, we’re in, we’re, we’re in Genesis, chapter 11, right at the beginning, and we have a really weird story. It’s weird in so in like a whole bunch.

Considering it’s only, what, nine verses. They pack in a lot of weird in, in these nine verses.

Yeah. And, and this is the. So this is the end of what’s called the primeval history, Genesis 1 through 11, right before we get to Abraham.

And the, and one thing I think it’s, it’s good to note about the primeval history is we’ve got three main narrative arcs. We’ve got the Creation and Garden of Eden. We’ve got Noah and the Flood. And then we’ve got our story at the beginning of Genesis 11 with the Tower of Babel. And then interspersed between them are these genealogies. So this is kind of the way they, they did things anciently when they’re, they’re trying to tell these origin stories and they want to get from, from as far back as they can imagine all the way up to when the story of, of their people begins.

And there’s nothing spurious at all about those origin stories. Don’t worry about the fact that everybody lived 400 or 700 years. Yeah, it’s fine.

And we’ve got, we’ve got etiologies kind of in the, in the same vein as Aesop’s fables. It’s like, oh, how did snakes, how did they lose their feet? Oh, well, the snake tricked Eve into eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And God was like, bam, no legs.

That’s right.

You’re Slytherin now. The sorting hat has put you in Slytherin. And, and we’ve got a bunch of different ways that the, the way society and civilization in the world is when these people are writing, they got to get from point A to point B. And so we’ve got a bunch of stories to do it. And one of those things is the fact that all the nations of the Earth speak different languages.

Yeah, there’s an interesting, like the, oh, and we should say, like, we’ve used the term etiology a couple times. Some of, some of our listeners probably haven’t caught the, the definition of that before. Definition. You hate that word. But, but an etiology is just sort of an, an origin story. It’s a, it’s a story that, that is meant to explain why something is why a certain phenomenon is, or why people were in a certain place or whatever.

Right.

And it’s interesting to me, first of all, what I, I, one wonders why they even felt they needed a, a reason why everyone spoke different languages. I, I, I don’t think we, we know the answer to that.

Well, a large part of it was that ethnic identities were frequently divided by language and, and particularly written language. So different scripts were often associated with specific ethnic identities. Now, in, in the end of the second millennium BCE, beginning of the first millennium BCE you’ve got your main empires of Egypt and Mesopotamia, whether the Assyrian or the, the Babylonian. And they are a very clearly defined. Well, not, not incredibly clearly defined, but you know who they are. And then you’ve got a bunch of tribes and city states and less well defined people groups kind of spread out in between. And so this is the period when we have the rise of what are known as secondary states. These are smaller local powers that are trying to unify and create kind of a, a kingdom identity.

And one of the ways that they begin to do this is to use a language, a shared language and a shared script in order to demarcate things. And so you have like, the Moabites popping up around this time, the Ammonites, the Edomites, the, the Israelites, the Judahites. And so Mesha’s monumental inscription, second half of the 9th century BCE this is, this is the first use of alphabetic script in historical narrative prose. And there’s an argument to make that this is kind of a means of establishing their identity and their, their ethnic identity, their, their kingdom. And so language is critical to identity. And so we’ve got a people as a part of this secondary state of Israel that has its own identity, is beginning to crystallize the lines between the us and the them. And this is just a way to say, oh, we got all these nations.

We’ve listed 70 nations in Genesis 10 . That’s what’s known as the table of nations. All descended from the three sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And so this is the known world back then. And so the next logical step is, okay, well, we’ve got these, these national identities, and language seems to be one of the identity markers. And so how did we get that?

Why, that makes sense.

Different.

Yeah, I think it makes sense to say, you know, especially since, yeah, these books are delineating, like, where, where each of these different tribes comes from as descended from Noah and his, his progeny. It makes sense that then they would say, well, but why do they all speak different languages? Because they were all on the same boat together. Why would they. Why would they all speak different languages? Okay, now that makes sense. Now. Now I’m with you. I’m, I’m on board, as it were.

And chapter. And another thing to point out is that chapter 11 is kind of backtracking a little bit because chapter 10 is like, Shem, Ham, Japheth, and then we got all these nations. And then chapter 11 says, now look, the whole world had one language. They all use the same words, and they migrated from the east. So we got the idea that they have. They have come off the boat, they are beginning to proliferate, and they’re coming from the east, and they came to the land of Shinar, which is supposed to be Babylonia. So this is Mesopotamia, and they settled there. So, so the land of Mesopotamia or Babylon represents like major stop number one, after these groups are coming off the boat and they have. You have generations enough to. To multiply, to have all these different identities, but they’re all still speaking one language.

And since this was after the Flood, that means that these are literally the only people on the whole Earth. According to the story.

Yeah, according to the story. Don’t know how seriously the story was taken when it was initially circulating, because there were a bunch of other etiologies for the people groups that were no doubt in circulation. And this story is probably coming from the 7th century BCE so pretty late in the game when it comes to the spread of civilization. But. But, yeah, but I’m just saying, like.

It, like to be internally consistent, this. The. The people that we’re talking about here that are. That are settled in Shinar are the only people in. In existence.

Right.

And they. Okay. And they decide to make bricks and fire them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar, and they decided to build a city and a tower with its top in the heavens.

There you go.

So that’s. That sounds fine. That sounds pretty normal by modern standards to build towers.

And then they say, and let us make a name for ourselves, otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole Earth. I don’t. That’s one I’ve never understood. I don’t know why they need to make a name for themselves or else they’ll be scattered. That doesn’t make any sense to me. Does that make sense to you? Is there a sense to be made of that?

So I, I think there’s a part of this is foreshadowing because they’re, they’re writing in a. In a period when everybody has already been scattered across the whole face of the Earth. And so I, I think that’s just the. The existential dread is that, oh, no, we want everybody to be together as one and for whatever reason, whatever MacGuffin you want to imagine they were thinking of, the threat is that we will be scattered. And. And I think it’s important to point out a couple of things here.

The tower with its top in the heavens. A lot of people think, what idiots. They thought they were going to build a tower and climb up and hop off onto the clouds, and they were in the heavens. And there’s probably a degree to which that is true. But at the same time, you know, we have buildings that we call skyscrapers. So, I mean, how many people think that they actually scrape the sky? It is. So there’s. I think there’s a degree to which this is just rhetorical. I think the main focus is let us make a name for ourselves. So this is that question of identity. But at the same time, a name is associated with permanence. And so for individuals, this is one of the reasons that you had your name inscribed in your tomb. And you wanted people to invoke the name because that was a means of ensuring that you were remembered and your afterlife was extended the more you were remembered.

Going back to the whole Coco analogy, that your afterlife lasts for as long as you are remembered. And so to make a name is to extend the afterlife and in a sense, to divinize oneself.

Well, and that becomes literally the worry in just a second. Yeah, and we’re going to be talking about the importance of names later on in the show as well, because that’s going to. That’s going to become important. But, yeah, this idea of making a name for themselves, becoming a divinizing. Divinizing. Can I use that word? Does that mean anything? Yeah, Becoming a. Because, yeah, we’ve talked about, you know, you’ve talked about a name being a. Wait, I’m gonna. I’m gonna come up with the phrase a divine. Oh, what do you call it? Ah, what’s your book called?

Divine Agency.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And. And so it seems like that’s the concern here that, like, they are literally trying to become godlike somehow by touching the sky with their tower. And the way that we know that is because God becomes very worried about this.

Yeah, we have. We have in verse 5, Adonai came down to see the city and the tower. So God is represented as, like, what’s going on down there?

Yeah, he is about. And then he just.

Get my shoes on. Yeah.

Takes the elevator and then comes down to earth.

See what the humans have built. What is the word there? Yeah. That humanity had built. And then in verse six, And Adonai said, look, they’re one people and they have all one language. And this is only the beginning of what they will do. Nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. The. Yeah. And basically the idea is, man, if they can do this, they can do anything. And, and I think this kind of reveals the. The porous boundaries that separate humanity and divinity and the. In the understanding of the primordial civilizations. And. And, you know, we think of it as more this binary, these incommensurate categories where according to Rudolf Otto, the divine is the wholly other. But anciently, humanity kept knocking on the door of divinity. We have it in the Garden of Eden. We have it where the Bene Elohim, the children of God are mating with humans to produce demigod offspring so they can also mate their way into divinity.

And here they’re building a tower their way into divinity, and God is not happy.

Yeah, it’s so weird to me, like, the thought that they might build a building so big that then they’ll realize, oh, we can actually do anything. Nothing, nothing is we. Once we build, once we finish up this building.

Nothing can stop us.

It is just a building, it doesn’t seem. But there you go.

Yeah. And, and so we get to verse seven. And, and here’s a part I like in. In the Hebrew, it says neredah, which is the cohortative or the first person plural imperative for let us descend, let us go down. So God is talking to the other gods again. So God, I mean, he’s clearly talking.

To somebody because there’s. Because it. Like, even in all. Like in all of the translations, it’s let us go down. It’s never. I’m gonna. I’m talking to me, and I’m going to say to me, I’m going down to do the thing.

So, yeah, we. We did talk about this a little bit a long time ago on one of our episodes when we were talking about, you know, there being a. A divine council. It’s not just one guy up there in the clouds. There’s a whole group of them up there.

Yeah, they’ve got a deliberative body. They got their nice cushy chairs and they sit there and. And talk about what’s to be done with this Homer Simpson. But no, here it says, let us go down and confuse their language there so that they will not understand one another’s speech. So Adonai scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore, it was called Babel or Babel because there Adonai confused the language of all the earth. And from there, the Lord scattered them over all the face of the earth.

And the NRSVUE has a little footnote that says that Babel is a play on the verb meaning to confuse in Hebrew.

Yeah, but it comes from Bab-ilu, Gate of the gods. Is. Is the Akkadian idea. And so. And that’s. Yeah, that’s just a play on words.

Is it related to Babylon? To.

Yes, it’s. It’s Babylon. Babylon is a transliteration that comes to us through. Through the Greek.

Okay, so this is. That is what we’re talking about, like the city. The city. This is also an etiology for this. For the. For Babylon.

Okay. I didn’t. I didn’t realize that.

Yeah. In fact, we know the tower that they’re talking about. We have the remains of the tower.

Is this like a ziggurat sort of thing?

Yes, it’s called the. The ziggurat or the Tower of Etemenanki. Oh, and this was started in, I believe, the 8th century BCE. Uh, it’s just outside of the city of Babylon. And it was completed and then kind of partly demolished, dismantled. And when the Babylonian empire. So the. The Babylonian empire started it, I think the Neo-Assyrian Empire came in and in taking over, demolished some of it. And then it was such a big tower in such a. An important part of the landscape that some Neo-Assyrian king was like, you know what? We’re going to. We’re going to rebuild this thing. But it sat unfinished or partly dismantled for like 70 or 80 years. And this is.

And this is in the seventh century, the period when these stories are being written. And so a lot of scholars think that this story is kind of thumbing the nose at those morons over in Babylon who’ve got this gigantic unfinished tower. And so it’s saying, we’re gonna take that. What. What if. What if we took that unfinished tower and crafted this story around though, you know, the main imperial power in the region being the origin of the. The scattering of the peoples and the. And the confounding of the languages. So it’s. It’s a bit mocking them. It’s a bit using that tower, the tower of Etemenanki as inspiration for this story.

Interesting. I. Yeah, I. It suddenly occurs to me this Babel being Babylon thing has blown my mind a bit. And I think it’s funny that modern translators don’t just translate it to Babylon instead of Babel. Just because we’re like, whether it’s Babel or Babylon, we’re not going to get the joke. Like the joke of they called it Babel because the Lord confused the language. That’s, that’s not in our language. Like, we’re not going to get that joke, so why not just translate it? Other than tradition, it just seems weird not to translate it to Babylon.

I, I think there is. You have babbling as a, as a verb in English, maybe.

Yes. Babble or Babel. Yeah, Babel meaning like blather or, or sort of.

Yeah, I, I think it, I think that is almost certainly derived from the idea of the Tower of Babel.

But I could, I can look that up real quick.

I just think, I mean, okay, so there is an extra joke in there in English. I, okay, fine. It just, it’s just I never made that connection and I don’t know how I would have without your help. And I just think that that’s, I think the, the story becomes much more interesting to me when I realize that not only is this an etiology for the origin of the multiplicity of language, but also for this city and for that dumb tower that they never finished and like it. They’re really packing in a whole bunch of different sort of origin stories here. Yeah, well, I think that makes it more cool.

Yeah, it shows how creative they were. Like, a lot of people think. One of the most annoying people sometimes ask me what are the biggest mistakes that believers and non-believers make about the Bible. And when it comes to non-believers, one of the things I usually will bring up is this notion that these are Bronze Age goat herders. These were some of the most elite thinkers in the world back then, and they were crafting quite complex stories about what was going on. And this wasn’t in the Bronze Age either. This is late Iron Age. So, so I’m looking on the Online Etymological Dictionary that this compares to balbus Latin, which means stammerer, and Greek barbaros, non-Greek speaking, and that that’s based on the, the mimicking of unintelligible speech as bar-bar. And so they say no direct connection with Babel can be traced, though association with that may have affected the senses.

That’s what the OED says about that. So, okay, yeah, well, there you go.

I, I, I am appealing to future translators to translate it as Babylon.

As Babylon, therefore it was called. Yeah, Babel. Because there Adonai confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord scattered them abroad. Over the face of all the earth. Yeah, it does kind of. It’s like, wink, wink. Get it? It’s like, well, if I got it, I’d be reading the Hebrew, of course. I don’t get it.

Let me tell you something. That is my response to so much of the Bible. There are so many things where it’s like, and it was called blank because of X and, and it feels like they’re like, huh, get it? And I’m like, no, I don’t know how to get that. I can’t. I have no way of understanding.

Oh, well, the, the Septuagint, the Greek says they called its name sygchysis, which means confusion.

Oh, okay.

In Greek, or synchysis. So it, they don’t even try to replicate the, the Bavel in, in the Greek.

They just say, oh, that, yeah, that means confusion.

Interesting. But yeah, they’re going the opposite direction. They’re not, they’re, they’re. There you go. I guess. But if you can either highlight the joke or you can highlight the actual thing that it was and. Yeah.

Or you can and then shoot straight.

Down the middle and just come up, invent a name of Babel.

If you, if you look throughout the Bible, everywhere it says Babylon. The Hebrew is Bavel, the exact same word that we have here. So.

Weird. Weird. All right, well that’s, I, I find that interesting. I do. Like, and this is, this is going to be sort of important in our second segment. But the, they place so much importance on, on the different languages and, and how much that just destroyed everything to, to, to separate out the, the languages seems to have taken. I mean, it takes humanity from literally the precipice of godhood to. Oh, now you’re all just screwed. Huh? Sorry. You’re all just dumb now.

I, I, now you’re Bronze Age goat herders.

Yeah. Suck it.

I just think that’s really interest. I think it’s really weird that that, that one change would have that much power. But clearly, I mean, when you think about it, and even in modern times, but back then, especially if people just two towns over speak a different language than you, you can’t do commerce, you can’t do you, you can’t even like, find a place to stay. Travel becomes a problem because you can’t communicate. And so I can see that, like, especially in a time when, I don’t know, I don’t know why they didn’t just use Google Translate, but they, it was a, it was basically a no go. It was, it meant you were you know, starting from scratch. Yeah.

And it, it is also interesting that around this time, more like the second half of the second millennium BCE. So before this time is when we get the development of alphabetic scripts, which significantly democratize the ability to read and write.

Right.

Whether it was syllabic or ideographic or, or whatever. And then with the invention of alphabetic script, it became a matter of 22 to 30 characters that represented just the consonants. So in, in this early period, the scripts of Israel and Moab and Ammon and, and Edom and, and, and further north in Syria, these are abjads, where it’s just the consonants that you are writing. So it became a lot easier to read and to write. But the larger empires around them were still using those other systems. And so, yeah, for, for someone who was concerned with commerce and stuff like that, and 8th century BCE is when both Israel and Judah become kind of regional powerhouses. They both have kings that reign for unusually long periods of time, like more than 40 years each. And they’re able to establish themselves as trading partners with Phoenicia and then by way of Phoenicia with other parts of the eastern and central Mediterranean.

And even Judah is kind of a secondary trading partner in this sense. They’re going through Israel most of the time, but they’re making a lot of money as well. So now they’re starting to interact with the regions around them a lot more. And so it just becomes it, it bubbles to the surface. It’s, it’s something that is a lot closer to the surface for the intelligentsia, the, the elite of these nations. So, yeah, this story would, would resonate with the elite more than with anyone else, which is probably how it was circulated initially, was among the elite.

Yeah, it does seem like the, the, the literate who are actually able to read this would be the ones who would be the. Who would be most sort of susceptible to its message.

Yeah, yeah. The snootiest of, of the snooty. That’s why I have to constantly learn another language to engage with the help.

Yeah, well, speaking of snootiness, I think we should move on to, to our bit of snootiness.

Snoochy boochies, as no one would ever say. Who talks like that?

Nobody anymore.

It’s a bit of a deep cut.

That’s a bit of the 90s, buddy. Nobody talks like the 90s.

Nobody.

All right, we’re gonna move on to our next segment. Watch your language. All right, here we are. We. We’ve been talking about language this whole time, but there are other ways of talking about language, and not just in the sense of, like, it’s hard to do commerce or it’s hard to sort of get by with your neighbors when you don’t know what they’re saying, but there’s also a sense in which we. You, on your channels, you know, on your TikToks and whatever, end up encountering a lot of other creators who have a lot to say about why it’s desperately important that you. That you go to the biblical language, that you go to the original Hebrew, the original Greek, because otherwise you just. And yeah, we talked earlier about how you can’t, like, you can’t get the joke if you don’t know the original language or whatever.

There’s plenty of things in the. Plenty of meanings that will be lost if you don’t understand the original language. But I don’t. That’s not what a lot of these guys are talking about.

Right.

There. There are, There are many. There are many creators out there. You. You and I were sort of exchanging videos earlier, and one of the creators that you sent me, I, I’m not even going to say who it was because I don’t want anyone to look him up because I don’t want him to get any more views or whatever. But he was adamant, and he’s made multiple videos about this that if you say Jesus, the name, the word, the. The phonemes, Jesus, you are not saying his name, and you are. And. And you’re missing out on the magic powers of his real name.

Yeah. And there are actually two different ways that I see this represented. One is you’re missing out on the power. There’s power in the real name, and God wants you to use the real name. The other is if you say Jesus, you’re actually invoking demonic powers.

Right.

So there’s a. There’s a positive and a negative kind of aspect.

If you say it right, you get. You get good magic, and if you say it wrong, you get bad magic.

Yeah. And. And I think one of the. And, and this is. This is from people who think that studying the underlying language is, is kind of like, you know, amassing doTERRA oils or, or crystals, that this, this is somehow endows you with magical power, but only as long as you. Only if you don’t really understand the language at all, but you Just get yourself a Strong’s Concordance, which is, you know, which is kind of the, the, the contemporary mystical Christian’s spell book.

Right.

And you just understand barely the surface of what’s going on. Because I, I’ve responded to a number of videos and I’ve seen this repeated all over the place that the name Jesus, pronounced as Jesus, actually means Hail Zeus. Right. So you’re actually evoking an entirely different deity. And, and then they have to go on and say, well, Zeus was an Anunnaki, Zeus was a demon. Zeus was associated with Moloch and, and Baal and all that kind of stuff. And no, it, it absolutely doesn’t mean Hail Zeus. I think some people just hear it in Spanish, Jesus, and think, man, that sounds, that sounds an awful lot. Shove a lightning bolt up your butt. Zeus.

Yeah, Exactly.

Another. Another 90s deep cut. But yeah, Hail, Hail Zeus would be. It would have absolutely nothing to do with the way we pronounce Jesus.

Yeah, well, and the funny thing is that so many of these things are like, are. Are that like. It sounds a little bit like X.

And therefore reminds me of it. Yeah.

Therefore, which they don’t ever notice that, you know, lots of English words sound pretty close to other English words and have no relation whatsoever to them. But, but if it’s in another language, then. Whoa. I wanted to point out. I, I’m. I’m going to hit you with an example. We have not talked about this beforehand.

Oh, okay.

But I’m going to hit you with an example that I’m sure that you’ve encountered before.

And just sort of talk about it. This is a claim that your first, your, your favorite. Misinterpretation in. Or mistranslation in the Bible. The first word of the Bible.

Oh, God.

How’d I do? Sound okay?

Pretty good. Pretty decent.

Actually. Is talking. Is. Is talking about Jesus. It’s a pre. It’s a. It’s Jesus in the thing.

Right.

I will, I will now explain to you. The letters in order are Bet, Resh, Alef, Shin, Yod, and Tav. Bet and Resh together form the word bar, meaning son of. In Aramaic it says which. Why are we going to Aramaic? This is in Hebrew, but it says in Aramaic in Hebrew it’s ben or ben. Anyway, Alef equals the ox head, meaning power, authority, strength, said to be used by the Hebrews to represent God. Okay, so now we have son of God. See where we’re going with this? Shin, two front teeth. Two front teeth meaning sharp, press, eat. And then it says the function of teeth when chewing is to consume and destroy. This is like. If this feels like a stretch to y’all. Yeah. Okay. Dan is banging his head against his microphone.

Yod is equals arm, meaning work, make and work, make and deed. The functions of the hand. And Tav is crossed sticks, meaning mark, sign, signal, monument. I don’t know how crossed sticks mean those things, but there you go. So the claim is that the first word in the Bible in the beginning. It doesn’t mean in the beginning, but in the beginning holds this idea. The son of God will be destroyed by his own work on a cross. Ta-da.

Yeah. Oh, I, I see there’s. There’s a content creator on TikTok who, Who talks about Bible Tea. Time to spill the Bible Tea. Who made a video about this a few years ago, and I responded to it pointing out why it is complete and utter nonsense. But I see it getting reposted and reposted and reposted and getting millions of views all the time.

So you’re saying that it’s not true. What?

It’s entirely false. And the. And the first thing to note about this is that this notion that all of this meaning is inhabiting each of these letters whenever they’re being written is absolutely laughable when it comes to the Hebrew Bible because the. These letters do descend graphically from ideographic scripts, but those ideographic scripts were adopted into alphabetic scripts centuries before the Hebrew language even existed. I mentioned in the previous segment about how second half of the second millennium BCE we have the development of alphabetic scripts.

And we should just be. Sorry, I just want to clarify because we didn’t earlier, but like, ideographic scripts mean that each picture represents a word, a concept.

Or an idea. So you have to memorize each of the little graphs, each of the little images, and know what each of them represents. Whereas an alphabetic script, each of the, each of the little things represents a sound. So you’re piecing together this, the.

The sounds of words. Right.

But much like, much like Japanese anciently, the ideographic scripts were often mixed in with syllabic. And syllabic is different from alphabetic as well. Syllabic would be like, like not just the sound B, but the sound ba or bi or be or bo or bu. You know, you would have a different character for each of those.

And so, you know, syllabic scripts had hundreds of characters as well. And what they did to create the alphabetic scripts was they created what’s called an acrophonic script. An acrophonic basically means beginning sound. And so each character which used to represent a word or a concept was borrowed and in order to represent the sound made by the first letter of the word or concept. So a drawing of a house, which was, which was kind of like a little spiral circle, only if you then make it square, it looks like walls kind of turning in on themselves. Looks kind of like a house. And in Northwest Semitic languages, house is bayit. And so the word bayit begins with the sound buh. And so the picture of the house indexes or represents the sound. Okay, that’s it. So once you’ve moved from an ideographic slash, syllabic into an alphabetic or acrophonic script, you have lost all of the other connections.

People are aware of them, but they don’t use them to make those associations, though the character that looks like a house just means.

So you’re saying that when this says that aleph equals an ox head, the. What probably happened was the aleph actually, like, meant to, like, was that initial picture actually an ox head?

Think of a capital A. Turn it upside down. Okay, it looks like you’ve got an animal face and with horns coming off of each side. So, yes, the, the aleph came from alp, which meant ox. And so it represented the sound that started it, which is actually a glottal stop. So initially the aleph represents the glottal stop. So it just indexes or signals or. Or represents the sound that starts the word. Now the association with the concept of God is actually based on a false etymology. People think that the word Elohim, which starts with an aleph, is based on a root, el, which means to be strong or to be mighty or something like that. And so fundamentally an El, a deity, is a, is a mighty one or a strong one or something like that. That etymology is rejected by the majority of scholars today. Okay, so that’s a false etymology.

And we have absolutely no evidence whatsoever that anyone during the period of the Bible understood the character aleph to in any way represent deity or a specific deity. After the biblical period with when we get into like, mystical streams of Jewish and Christian tradition, they start to read these concepts back in, and you start to get this mysticism read in. And so some of those concepts are re put back into the letters with differing degrees of accuracy. So they didn’t always know exactly where these things came from, but they did it anyway. And then once Christians started going, hey, if we can use Hebrew to make it sound like we have all this extra access to information and insight. Then they started adding Christian overlays to everything that was going on. And, and the thing with the tav at the very end, we’ll get to that. But that’s one of the prime examples of that.

I think that, I think that. Right. You just hit on a key to this whole thing, which is that I think people who are engaging the text in this way are trying to get, are trying to at least make the claim to having that extra insight.

Or extra, some sort of added spirituality or some sort of added magic to the whole thing.

Which is a, which is an impulse that I actually understand. Like that’s a impulse. Makes sense. But they, but they don’t recognize or admit that they’re just that they are imposing this and overlaying these ideas. They, they, they want it to be sort of a truth or something.

Yeah. And, and this is part of, of the fact that everybody has to negotiate with the text. And this text has been around for 2,000 plus years. So there’s not a ton to discover unless you find new dimensions of analysis and new ways to say, hey, I just found a bunch of stuff. We, I struck a vein of information by imagining that the letters themselves have all this additional significance. And so every, every time someone says, well, what if we thought about it like this? Suddenly that opens up an entire new universe of ways to approach it. So once you say, oh, all the letters have this significance, we can go look at Bereshit and oh, well now this means all this stuff. Well, no, it doesn’t. No, it didn’t mean that ever until you decided you, you were going to put this specific lens on it. But when, you know, once you make it sound mystical and cool like that, you get millions and millions and millions of views on social media by saying that. Because suddenly you’ve made a dusty old text that people have seen a million times more interesting and more.

That’s actually fine. That’s actually kind of fun as, as, as a sort of, as an exercise.

Yeah. And, and I’ve said that many times, keep it to yourself. Do. If you’re doing that in your own household and you’re like, wow, that this could mean this, this makes me feel connected. This makes me feel, you know, I get, you know, that’s what really gets me, you know, riled up and excited and passionate about this, knock yourself out, go to town. But once you start spreading it publicly and start trying to convince other people that this is what it really meant and you’re you’re in the realm of, of misinformation and maybe even disinformation and.

Well, and. Yeah, and then people, yeah, people start buying that and they start going down some, some weird roads. I, I, you know, I was thinking about this in the context of other things because I think that there’s this tendency to ascribe sort of mystical power to other languages. I think it happens a lot, actually, and I think we don’t always notice it. But, you know, when I remember being in a, I was in a coffee shop and I was, I was just working on my laptop, and a woman next to me was sort of pontificating to the person that she was sitting with about yoga and how amazing yoga was, and she started talking about these Sanskrit words and how these Sanskrit words have all of this meaning and how, you know, like, the, the word namaste at the end of every yoga session had this deep meaning of, you know, the light in me acknowledges the light in you.

And while I was there, I just sort of quietly just Googled what namaste means because I’ve been, I’ve been to India, and they just say it as like, namaste. And it really does just mean sort of hello and goodbye. It’s kind of the aloha of, of India and to add this extra, these extra layers of meaning, you know, and I think, I think it makes it more interesting and more engaging for a lot of people to hear the Sanskrit words, to hear, you know, something asana instead, you know, instead of just like, touch your toes, right? Yeah, yeah. Instead of, yeah, do. Instead of just child pose, you say shavasana or whatever. I don’t know the poses, but it, it gives it that extra little bit of like, sort of oomph. It makes it and, and, and puts people in a different mindset. And I get that. But also, you’re not getting the words. The words don’t actually have those extra meanings. You’re you.

And we, I think it’s important that we talk about, like, okay, you’re imposing a new meaning that you’re choosing onto this stuff.

Yeah. And, and the foreignness is important because you need people who don’t understand.

Because when, when people come to me and say, hey, guess what this means? And I go, I don’t have to guess. You know, it kind of deflates the balloon a little bit. It, you need people to not know the, the reality of the situation, which is why it’s so much more effective with foreign words. You can, if you can, tap into a specific type of foreignness that is considered exotic and mysterious and ancient, like Sanskrit and things like that. Then, you know, it, it has, it lands with greater impact than if you said, hey, there’s this Russian word. And, and people like, I, I don’t.

I don’t care about, right.

Russian. Well, I mean, like, what about Sanskrit? Ooh, I like Sanskrit.

We do have different associations with different languages. I know that Mo. I mean, most native English speakers have an almost intuitive sense that the Anglo Saxon words that we use, the, the words that have an Anglo Saxon root are a little less fancy than the Latinate words that, that we use.

But I mean, even then it’s just, it’s just, you know, the French sounded fancier and well, in this French, at that point, French was just sort of the language of the aristocracy. So they didn’t, the aristocracy didn’t bother themselves with any animals when they were in the field. It only got to them when it was on their plate. But I just think, I think that there is, but we still to this day, like French is the language of love and Italian is the language of passion. And like we have all of these associations.

German is the language of anger.

Yes. So it’s like, yeah, I had to.

I had to condition myself out of something. When I got into graduate school, I wanted to use all these like, like Latin and German words and stuff like that. I mean, what a fascinating Weltanschauung. And, and people are like, what does that mean? Oh, it means worldview. Just say worldview then, you idiot. And I had to, I had to like disabuse myself of that temptation to make myself sound fancier and more educated by using foreign words.

Yeah, and you can make yourself sound more mystical and more, you know, you, if you start to employ these different words, including like the, you know, the, the correct pronunciation of the name of Jesus or whatever, even though they almost never, like all of these different creators have a different correct pronunciation.

Of, of the name.

Yeah. Some of them think it’s like Joshua, only with a Y, and it’s like you’ve just taken the English version of Joshua, which is also not exactly how the Hebrew name was pronounced, and just replaced the J with a Y. Yeah. Or, or the Yeshua is, is probably the most common one, even though many scholars think that in first century CE Galilee, the ayin on the end, which was an ayin, probably wouldn’t have been pronounced, so it probably would have been something more like Yeshu or something like that.

Yeah. You said you sent me a video of one guy who, who says Yahusha.

Yahusha, yeah.

I don’t know where he gets that. That’s a, that’s a special one.

Yeah, yeah. Well, it, a lot of people think that Yeshua, well, Yeshua is related to the Hebrew name Yehoshua, which means Adonai saves. Yeshua is a little shorter and the vowel at the beginning is a little different. So while it’s related to that name, it’s not exactly that name. And Yeshua could be a shortened form of Adonai saves, or it could just be the word for salvation in Aramaic. So I, I, it’s not clear to me, and so I doubt it’s clear to people who don’t know anything about Hebrew or Aramaic, even though they will insist that it is very clear to them. But, yeah, this, some folks think that the Tetragrammaton was actually pronounced Yahuwah or something like that. They don’t want to understand the vav as a consonant. They want to understand it as a vowel, because, again, they don’t know the first thing about Hebrew, but they found somebody somewhere who said that, and it, you know, made the tuning fork in their loins ring.

And so it’s the gospel truth from now on.

Well, I mean, and you bring up the Tetragrammaton, I don’t think we can not mention the breathing in, breathing out.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thing with, with the YHWH, the, the claim. We’ve talked about this, I think, on the show before, but this claim that literally the YH is a is, is the sound of an inhale and the WH is the sound, which, by the way, can we all just agree that is not at all how inhale sounds. Like in order to make a Y sound, you actually have to exhale. You can’t. Yeah, it’s an inhale. Yeah, yeah.

And it’s voiced too.

Like if you say it unvoiced, then it’s it’s not quite right, but yeah, you. You have to manipulate your tongue and the roof of your mouth and your lips in order to say both syllables.

Well, I mean, as a metaphor or as a sort of as, as a figurative idea, it’s a cool idea, I guess.

Beautiful. Yeah. And I think I can see how some people would, that would make their relationship with God all that much more meaningful.

And again, as long as you’re keeping that in your own household, phenomenal. Blast off. But.

Or as long as you’re presenting it as: this is how I think about it, because it, you know, it has meaning for me, but it’s not re. You know, this is just a thought. It’s just an interesting thing.

I think, I think since the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment, I think an awful lot of people have been. I think they’ve become convinced that phenomenology, for phenomenology’s sake is inadequate, that everything must be true, factually true, or else it isn’t worthy. And so I, because I, you know what? I think if you go and sing hymns and things like that, and you’re just experiencing that communal effervescence as some scholars used to talk about the concept of religion, just to experience it, just to have that phenomenological experience. Great. I think, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with enjoying communalism, enjoying religion, enjoying ritual, because it does have those phenomenological experiences associated with it. But they want it to be real because otherwise it doesn’t tag the right bases.

Yeah, yeah. It’s just, it’s just fake. And it’s like, hey there. You know, there are some. What’s a tactful way to put this? There are an awful lot of people who experience certain fake sensations that are a very important part of their lives. But does that mean it is any less real in experience? Yeah, I don’t think so.

Yeah. And it’s fine also to say, like, you know, if you’re, if you’re looking, you know, a lot of people have spent many, many hours scouring through scripture to try and figure out deeper meaning stuff and try and figure out codes that God’s using to speak to them or whatever.

God’s name written in our DNA is one of them. Yeah. And in the building blocks of the universe, there’s another guy who goes off about how the fundamental molecules of the universe all talk about God being inside our bodies and stuff like this. And yeah, it’s weird.

I mean, it, you know, it. As long as you recognize that you can do literally exactly the same tricks in, you know, and with Allah, with Allah and the Quran or with the Bhagavad Gita, like you can do all the same tricks and have just as, just as effective of interesting things. You just have to put that effort in and you can overlay all of these same types of things with Krishna or whatever. So it’s f. So again, like, if it means something to you, knock yourself out, have a good time with it, but don’t start spreading it around like it’s real. Like it’s, you know, in the capital R sense of the word.

Yeah, I, I think there are an awful lot of folks who do have that tuning fork go off in their loins and then want to share it. And that’s a natural feeling. Yeah, but they want to share it as if it’s real, as if these are actual facts. And it’s overwhelmingly, and as far as I can see, it’s only ever people who don’t actually know these languages and don’t know how they work, don’t know their history. And so that can be, that can be harmful misinformation. And we have not tapped into a tiny fraction of a single percent of what mysticism in early Christianity and early Christian writings or early Judaism is in this segment. But yeah, I think within mysticism, I think there are an awful lot of people who recognize it for what it is and who enjoy it for what it is. And I think that’s great. But for folks who are just trying to chase clout or money on social media by spreading these falsehoods because they know they’re going to be able to exploit other people’s thirst for more significance, more meaning.

I, I think that’s incredibly harmful. And particularly the, like the finance bros who sit behind their big desks with their cigars in their mouth and wax, you know, philological about the name Jesus.

Well, and not only that, like mock, openly mock people who use the, the traditional Jesus instead of. Yeah, like you’re just, you’re not only are you saying it wrong, you’re an idiot. And you’re also like evil probably. And there’s a, probably a demon in you now. And yeah, there’s this whole sense of how much better I am than you because I say it my way instead of your way. Yeah, it’s funny to me. I mean I think, I think the, the real kicker to me on that is really your God is so petty that if you don’t say his name exactly as he wants you to say it, he’s gonna punish you or you’re, you’re not going to get the same blessings you’re calling on him. You want him to be part of your life or whatever. You’re doing the same actions. But a mispronunciation, he’s gonna, he’s your God is so petty that a mispronunciation is gonna. Gonna stymie the whole process.

Really.

Yeah. And, and the, in all of these, the folks who are asserting this never have a clue what the actual pronunciation probably was. And, and this is just something that we are just not so much speculating, but there are a variety of options and we don’t know which one was closest to how someone in Nazareth would have pronounced that name in the, in the early first century CE. So it’s all a guessing game anyway.

Right.

And these people don’t have a firmer grasp on it than any of the people they’re talking to too. Right.

Than the people who actually have put their, poured their lives into studying that one thing. And yeah, don’t have any real estate holdings to speak of at all. Sorry.

Yeah, so social media mysticism, maybe maybe that’s a good way to, to refer to or, or exploitative. I don’t know. Some. A lot of this strikes me as, as just an, an attempt to chase clout and money and, and it can be phenomenally harmful.

I couldn’t agree more. Namaste to you Dan. On that point I thank you. If you friends, if you guys would like to have access to an early and ad-free version of every episode or and, or have access to the, the the after-party which is extra bonus content that Dan and I created, create every week. You can also be part of helping make the show go by going over to patreon.com/dataoverdogma and becoming a patron over there. Otherwise, if you’d like to reach out to us, you can reach us at contact@dataoverdogmapod.com and thanks for joining us. We’ll talk to you again next week.

Bye, everybody.

You're Speaking My Language!

Segments

The Transcript

Scripture Index

Terminology