Data Over Dogma Daniel McClellan and Daniel Beecher

Get ready for some fascinating stuff! It won't be a baptism by fire, but we will be immersed in some cutting edge information about John the Baptist. Dr. James McGrath joins us to discuss John and his new book Christmaker. And trust us- you're going to learn some cool stuff.
Many people's image of John is just a wild-haired itinerant preacher dressed like a cave man and roaming the desert and dunking people in water every chance he got. It turns out, he was likely a far more important and more interesting figure than that. Was he a disciple of Jesus, or was it the other way around?

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Well, strap in y'all, because we're going after two of the most famous passages in all of the Bible. One of them is a nice story of Jesus and his mercy, the other is... less nice. Both are about women. And look out, M. Night Shyamalan, because we have a twist ending for both!
We start it off with the story of the woman taken in adultery. This is the beloved tale that Jesus ends with "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." A lovely, poetic moment for the prince of peace. Did it really happen? You'll have to tune in to find out.
Then we turn to one of the more pernicious of all scriptures. It's the bit about women being silent in the church. To this day, this scripture is a favorite of those who want biblical support for their oppressive ideas about gender roles. Are these people justified?

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They said they were going to do it, and doggonit, it got did! This week David Burnett makes his triumphal return to Data Over Dogma to discuss the recent academic conference on monotheism that he, Dan McClellan and others organized at Brown University. And if that sounds boring or dry to you, hold onto your butt, because—fire in the hole!—they were dropping bombs!
The whole goal of this conference was to challenge any notion that the people of ancient southwest Asia (meaning the people who wrote the Bible) were monotheists in any meaningful way. Christian and Jewish people today may only believe in a single God, but the same probably couldn't be said for the people who wrote their scriptures.
David and Dan will report on papers from some heavy-hitter scholars that discuss this incendiary topic, and honestly they might just blow your mind. Unless you're a regular Data Over Dogma listener. Then, they might just be super interesting.

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When people say they've read "the Bible," what do they mean? Well generally what they DON'T mean is that they read source texts in their original languages. Most of us don't have the time or desire to learn how to read ancient Hebrew or Greek, so we're at the mercy of other people to figure out how to render the two thousand plus year old writings into our language. That leaves us with a problem: how do we know which translation to use?
This week, Dr Dan is going to give the low-down on the many, many translations and version we have. We'll talk about why different versions popped up, and what the biases and goals of the various translators might have been. And we'll give specific examples of the differences between versions, exploring the massive difference a small word choice can have.

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It's perhaps the most surprising conspiracy theory to pop up in this century. Humans have known that our planet is a sphere for literally thousands of years. Why, in a day of more advanced science than ever before, would people suddenly abandon that knowledge? Well, before our collective eyeballs all get too strained from rolling them, let's all pause to look at the probable origin of the flat-Earth insistence: The Bible.
Does the Bible actually say that the Earth is flat? If it does, are readers meant to take that claim seriously? Are Bible-believing Christians obligated to deny the sphere?
Then, it's Mea Culpa time! Dan McClellan has been convinced that a position he has espoused on social media and on this very podcast was incorrect. It's a minor thing with very little theological importance, but it actually has some interesting implications. It's to do with two jackasses. Or maybe three, if you count Dan.

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If you've been listening to the show for any length of time, you know that the Bible did not come from any single source, nor does it speak with one voice. This week, we have Dr. David Carr with us to discuss "the primeval history" of Genesis 1-11, and and the sources from which those chapters sprung.
Were these stories taken and modified from other myths and legends in that part of the world? Were they actual history? What should we think when the stories repeat/conflict with themselves? Join us for a fascinating journey through the origin story of the origin story.

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