Data Over Dogma

Daniel McClellan and Daniel Beecher

This ain't your pastor's Bible podcast. This is a deep interrogation of the book, and we're bringing receipts. Bible scholar Dr. Dan McClellan and atheist podcaster Dan Beecher team up to discover what the Bible actually says, what it decidedly doesn't say (even if everyone thinks it does), and explore the history of the most popular book of all time.

  1. 5 hr ago

    No Originals, No Mercy

    There isn't a single surviving original manuscript for any book of the Bible, so how do scholars decide what the earliest recoverable text actually said? This week, it's a primer on textual criticism: why King James onlyists despise it (despite the KJV being a product of it), what Erasmus did when he ran out of Greek manuscripts for the last chapter of Revelation, and how one scribe's wandering eye can quietly delete an entire paragraph from Samuel. Then it's chapter and verse on Zephaniah — three short chapters of unrelenting doom that promise to sweep humans, animals, birds, and fish off the face of the earth, before pivoting rather abruptly to "sing aloud, O daughter Zion." Support Data Over Dogma and get every episode early and ad-free, plus exclusive bonus content — become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/DataOverDogma Get your Data Over Dogma merch at our online store: https://data-over-dogma-shop.fourthwall.com/ Watch every episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dataoverdogma Follow us: Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/dataoverdogmapod TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@data.over.dogma.pod Threads — https://www.threads.com/@dataoverdogmapod X — https://x.com/data_over_dogma Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/DataOverDogmaPod Get Dan McClellan's New York Times bestselling book, The Bible Says So: https://static.macmillan.com/static/smp/bible-says-so-9781250347466/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  2. 27 Jul

    Don't be a jerk...off?

    This week it's a "What's That?" double feature! First, we take on the Great Commission. Does Matthew 28 really command every believer to accost strangers on airplanes and by the baggage carousel, or is "make disciples" a whole lot narrower (and quieter) than the modern evangelists think? Then it's time for Data After Dark, where we ask whether the Bible has anything at all to say about masturbation. Spoiler: Onan isn't your guy, ritual impurity isn't the same as sin, and that "wasting seed" argument really doesn't hold up.   Support Data Over Dogma and get every episode early and ad-free, plus exclusive bonus content — become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/DataOverDogma   Get your Data Over Dogma merch at our online store: https://data-over-dogma-shop.fourthwall.com/   Shop our classic collection before our old store closes: https://datadoverdogma.printful.me   Watch every episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dataoverdogma Follow us: Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/dataoverdogmapod TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@data.over.dogma.pod Threads — https://www.threads.com/@dataoverdogmapod X — https://x.com/data_over_dogma Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/DataOverDogmaPod   Get Dan McClellan's New York Times bestselling book, The Bible Says So: https://static.macmillan.com/static/smp/bible-says-so-9781250347466/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  3. 20 Jul

    A Trickster God and the Worst Wedding Ever

    This week, Christian nationalist Joel Webbin says the quiet part out loud: lie to voters about your theocratic goals until you've got the power to enact them. It's grotesque and profoundly un-American — but is deception, weirdly, the one piece of the playbook that's actually biblical? Then we wrestle with the baffling parable of the wedding banquet, where a king burns a city, fills the hall with strangers, and casts one guest into outer darkness over a missing robe — a story Matthew, Luke, and even the Gospel of Thomas each tell differently, all while pointing the finger at a different villain.   Support Data Over Dogma and get every episode early and ad-free, plus exclusive bonus content — become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/DataOverDogma   Get your Data Over Dogma merch at our online store: https://data-over-dogma-shop.fourthwall.com/   Shop our classic collection before our old store closes: https://datadoverdogma.printful.me   Watch every episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dataoverdogma   Follow us: Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/dataoverdogmapod TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@data.over.dogma.pod Threads — https://www.threads.com/@dataoverdogmapod X — https://x.com/data_over_dogma Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/DataOverDogmaPod   Get Dan McClellan's New York Times bestselling book, The Bible Says So: https://static.macmillan.com/static/smp/bible-says-so-9781250347466/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  4. 13 Jul

    Lean Not on Your Own Understanding (and Other Conversation-Enders)

    This week we're taking on the thought-stopping cliché to end all thought-stopping clichés: "trust in the Lord, and lean not on your own understanding." Is "reading with the Holy Spirit" a special line to God that us dirty scholars just can't access, or is it John Lennox's red Ferrari parked right next to an invisible dragon nobody else can see? Then we wade into the online cottage industry of "secret" Hebrew letter codes—the ones that supposedly smuggle Jesus into the very first word of the Bible—and explain why Aleph-Tav, the Eth Cepher Bible, and every last appeal to Strong's tells you a lot more about the decoder than it does about the text. Support Data Over Dogma and get every episode early and ad-free, plus exclusive bonus content — become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/DataOverDogma Get your Data Over Dogma merch at our online store: https://data-over-dogma-shop.fourthwall.com/ Watch every episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dataoverdogma Follow us: Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/dataoverdogmapod TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@data.over.dogma.pod Threads — https://www.threads.com/@dataoverdogmapod X — https://x.com/data_over_dogma Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/DataOverDogmaPod Get Dan McClellan's New York Times bestselling book, The Bible Says So: https://static.macmillan.com/static/smp/bible-says-so-9781250347466/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  5. 6 Jul

    Faith vs. Works vs. Chaos Monsters

    This week we crack open the Epistle of James — a letter that may claim to come from none other than James the brother of Jesus — and wade into one of Christianity's oldest arguments: faith versus works. Does James contradict Paul on how a person is saved, and is that why Martin Luther dismissed the whole book as an "epistle of straw"? Then we go monster hunting for Leviathan, Rahab, and Behemoth, the primordial chaos beasts lurking in Job, the Psalms, and Isaiah — and find out that yes, there are dragons in the Bible, and they're far older than the Bible itself. Get your "Tribe of Dan" merch at our new online store: https://data-over-dogma-shop.fourthwall.com Shop from our classic collection before the old store closes: https://datadoverdogma.printful.me Support Data Over Dogma and get every episode early and ad-free, plus exclusive bonus content — become a patron:https://www.patreon.com/DataOverDogma Watch every episode on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@dataoverdogma Follow us: Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/dataoverdogmapod TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@data.over.dogma.pod Threads — https://www.threads.com/@dataoverdogmapod X — https://x.com/data_over_dogma Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/DataOverDogmaPod Get Dan McClellan's New York Times bestselling book, The Bible Says So:https://static.macmillan.com/static/smp/bible-says-so-9781250347466/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  6. 29 Jun

    The Twelve Tribes of Israel (Give or Take)

    This week the Dans try to count to twelve — and find that the number matters a lot more than the names. We dig into the twelve tribes of Israel: how Levi quietly drops out and Joseph splits into Ephraim and Manasseh to keep the total at twelve, why the Song of Deborah seems to remember only ten tribes (some with different names), and what it means that "Israel" may have begun as a confederation rather than one man's family tree. Then, in History Is Mysteries, we ask who actually put the chapters and verses in your Bible — a thousand-year tale running from the Masoretes through a hastily printed Greek New Testament to the 1551 edition that finally numbered the verses — and why those tidy divisions quietly shape what the text is even allowed to mean. Get your "Tribe of Dan" merch at our new online store: https://data-over-dogma-shop.fourthwall.com Shop from our classic collection before the old store closes: https://datadoverdogma.printful.me Support Data Over Dogma and get every episode early and ad-free, plus exclusive bonus content — become a patron:https://www.patreon.com/DataOverDogma Watch every episode on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@dataoverdogma Follow us: Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/dataoverdogmapod TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@data.over.dogma.pod Threads — https://www.threads.com/@dataoverdogmapod X — https://x.com/data_over_dogma Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/DataOverDogmaPod Get Dan McClellan's New York Times bestselling book, The Bible Says So:https://static.macmillan.com/static/smp/bible-says-so-9781250347466/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  7. 22 Jun

    Moloch, Mormons, and Mike Lee

    Senator Mike Lee keeps accusing his opponents of sacrificing children to Moloch, so this week we ask who — or what — Moloch actually was, why abortion and child sacrifice are not the same thing, and the uncomfortable places child sacrifice really does turn up in the Hebrew Bible. Then, after the Pentagon quietly declined to list the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as Christian, we dig into the bigger question underneath the fight: who actually gets to decide what counts as "Christian"? Turns out the answer is nobody — which makes the whole boundary-policing exercise a lot more about identity and power than about theology. Support Data Over Dogma and get every episode early and ad-free, plus exclusive bonus content — become a patron:https://www.patreon.com/DataOverDogma Watch every episode on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@dataoverdogma Follow us: Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/dataoverdogmapod TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@data.over.dogma.pod Threads — https://www.threads.com/@dataoverdogmapod X — https://x.com/data_over_dogma Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/DataOverDogmaPod Get Dan McClellan's New York Times bestselling book, The Bible Says So:https://static.macmillan.com/static/smp/bible-says-so-9781250347466/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  8. 15 Jun

    Sins of the (Grand)father

    The sins of the fathers! It's a phrase you've heard a thousand times, but did you know it comes straight from the Bible? This week it's Bible versus Bible, and the topic is generational punishment: God visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children to the third and fourth generation. It's in the Ten Commandments. And the other Ten Commandments. So what did those poor great-grandkids do to deserve it? And how do you square that with a God who's "slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love"? Then, is it canon? This week's contender has more names than a witness protection program: Sirach, Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus. It came closer than almost any book to making the Jewish canon, written in Hebrew around 180 BCE and translated into Greek by the author's own grandson. So why'd it get left out? The author made one fatal mistake: he was honest about who he was and when he wrote it. The guys who lied about being ancient prophets? They made the cut. ---- Follow us on the various social media places: https://www.instagram.com/dataoverdogmapod/ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/DataOverDogmaPod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.tiktok.com/@data.over.dogma.pod Have you ordered Dan McClellan's New York Times bestselling book ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Bible Says So⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ yet??? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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About

This ain't your pastor's Bible podcast. This is a deep interrogation of the book, and we're bringing receipts. Bible scholar Dr. Dan McClellan and atheist podcaster Dan Beecher team up to discover what the Bible actually says, what it decidedly doesn't say (even if everyone thinks it does), and explore the history of the most popular book of all time.

Information

  • Creator
    Daniel McClellan and Daniel Beecher
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    174
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2023

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