A Beatitude Adjustment for Jordan Peterson

Dan McClellan This is a case of someone trying to leverage the authority of the Bible to give permission to their specific group of followers to be monsters because he knows they want to be monsters, and they want Jesus' blessing, and you don't have Jesus' blessing to be a monster.

Dan Beecher No.

Dan McClellan Hey, everybody. I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan And you are listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast, where we try to increase the public's access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and combat the spread of misinformation about the same. And today, we're going to be doing some of said combating, aren't we, Dan?

Dan Beecher Oh, my gosh. This is going to be some fun combating.

Dan McClellan Rhetorical combat, just to be clear.

Dan Beecher I'll tell you what, we're going after Jordan Peterson, friends.

Dan McClellan Oh, yeah.

Dan Beecher You don't want to bury the lead on this one. The second half of our show, we're coming for you, JP. And we'll see how good a job he does.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Because he has been wading around on your turf, I've got to say.

Dan McClellan There is some trampling of my purview, yeah. That has occurred.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And I'm not happy about it, so.

Dan Beecher Yeah. But before that, let's do a chapter and verse.

Dan McClellan Excellent. And what chapter and what verse shall we engage?

Dan Beecher Well, we're going to probably talk about a couple chapters and definitely several verses.

Dan McClellan We're going Beatitudes.

Dan Beecher The Beatitudes. Which I recently learned- Mm-hmm ... I never knew what that word meant. I had always heard it in reference to the Sermon on the Mount, but I didn't know what beatitude meant.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher But I have a thing called Wikipedia that is very useful.

Dan McClellan Hey.

Dan Beecher Yeah. And it turns out that it's from the Latin Vulgate, the word blessings, or blessed, that begins each of these little verses is beati in the Latin.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher Which means the plural adjective.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher But I've got to say, I'm disappointed with something, which is that in the original Greek, it's makarioi.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And it is a missed opportunity that these are not the makarioids. That's all I'm saying.

Dan McClellan Well, some scholars refer to them as makarisms.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay. So that is- I feel like- ...

Dan McClellan an English word.

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm. I feel like sayings that you say should be mak- ... rism, mak something isms.

Dan McClellan Anyway. Well, I get Danisms is what- Yeah ... I've heard, but.

Dan Beecher There you go.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Anyway, let's talk about the Beatitudes. The Sermon on the Mount, as a sermon, is kind of unique in form and in content- Mm-hmm ... for Jesus.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Wouldn't you say?

Dan McClellan Yeah. There's only one gospel in which we have what we know formally as the Sermon on the Mount, and that is the Gospel of Matthew. We have a lot of parallel comments in Luke, chapter 6, in a sermon which is generally referred to as the Sermon on the Plain.

Dan Beecher So it is not- So you've got the flat sermon, and you've got the bumpy sermon. You've got what you go.

Dan McClellan Well, I was going to go in the direction of he's lecturing folks who are sitting in first class. But yeah, Sermon on the Mount, we don't know if this actually happened. I think most scholars would say the exact words that we see in Matthew are a literary product and not a reflection of an actual single historical event. But if something like this happened, it probably would've been somewhere in the north of the Sea of Galilee. As you and I will see next year, there is a church- Oh ... that is set up high on a hill overlooking the northwest shores of the Sea of Galilee that is traditionally associated with the location of the Sermon on the Mount. A gorgeous area, a very peaceful and relaxing place to go contemplate the Sermon on the Mount.

Dan Beecher But it is- And like all of the places in and around that area, that church is very surely exactly where this- ... this historical event may or may not have happened.

Dan McClellan It's actually not a very old church. It's fairly recent. But there was a Byzantine-era church that's a little further down the hill. But yeah, pretty much everything in the land of Israel that you see is either something that was identified in the fourth century CE, or was identified in the Byzantine era, or in the Crusader area. So yeah, there's not a ton that goes all the way back to the first century CE, and certainly not this location. Because the text, all it says is, there was this mount, and they- Right ... he was on the mount, and turns around and starts addressing everybody. And what we have here, the Sermon on the Mount is the larger sermon that is summing up what Jesus' followers thought were essential for disciples to know. So if you had to take the whole Jesus movement and say, if you became a disciple of the Jesus movement in the first, second century CE, what was your intro packet?

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan What did you need to know about being a disciple? The Sermon on the Mount is kind of the distillation of- Okay ... here's what it takes to be a disciple of Jesus. And The Sermon on the Plain in Luke, some scholars have argued that the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew is aimed at a more Jewish social setting Whereas the Sermon on the Plain in Luke might be aimed at a more Gentile setting.

Dan Beecher Oh, interesting.

Dan McClellan A Greco-Roman setting. And so one theory is that this was kind of the intro to Jesus' discipleship before the gospels were written down. And so the gospel authors, Matthew and Luke, or at least whoever wrote those gospels whom we traditionally attribute to Matthew and Luke, took that little package up and kind of wove it into their narrative and said, "We're going to take this little primer on being a disciple, and we're going to make it something that Jesus shared with the followers." And so the opening segment, the exhortation at the very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount contains our Beatitudes. So this runs from Matthew 5:3 all the way down to Matthew 5:12. So not a long segment.

Dan Beecher Yeah. And this is the part where each of these has a sort of a standard form where it says, "Blessed are the blank," and the reason that they're blessed.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher So it's a kind of almost a call and response, or it's a standard form that he goes- Yeah ... throughout each of these Beatitudes.

Dan McClellan And this is not original to the gospels in the sense that this formula of "blessed are because" long preexisted the New Testament, goes back to Plato and even before. We see this in the Psalms and elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. So in the Greek, the word is, you pronounced it makarioi. That's following the Erasmian pronunciation. In modern Greek, it would be makarioi. But this is a translation of the Hebrew term, asrei, which also means happy/blessed. And so we see in places like Psalm 128:1, I think, "Blessed are those who trust in the Lord," or something like that. And so this kind of two-line statement couplet that begins with "blessed are" or "blessed is," and then goes on to explaining why, is something that goes way back. And- There's an interesting distinction.

Dan Beecher Sorry, I just wanted to drill down on one thing that you said- Yeah ... which is that there's a difference between blessed are and happy are. In my mind, they could mean the same thing. But also, the word blessed could contain a sense of a subject-object sort of thing. There's a blesser and- Right ... those who become blessed by that blesser.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Whereas you don't need that relationship with the idea of happiness. You're happy because of the thing and not because... So I'm wondering if that's explored at all in this or if that's a meaningful distinction- Yeah ... for this to be blessed versus happy.

Dan McClellan Yeah. The concept, it's like fortunate, happy, privileged.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And so that bleeds into the idea of being favored, divinely favored, blessed.

Dan Beecher Sure.

Dan McClellan So it certainly includes this kind of transitive property, that this is something- Right ... being bestowed upon you, but not necessarily. And so that's open for some interpretation, I would argue.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And so that's why it's a little difficult to translate, but blessed has become traditional, and so that's how most translations go about it. But you could say fortunate, you could say happy. But yeah, blessed is most popular, and the idea is that these blessings are bestowed by God. But I don't think that's necessarily inherent in the text itself. But we see this in Egyptian literature, we see this in Jewish wisdom literature, we see this in Greek literature, we see it in a number of different places. So they did not innovate it for the New Testament. Rather, they picked up this literary device, this literary genre, and said, "We're going to represent this introduction to Jesus' discipleship using this very popular, very famous, very widespread piece of nomological literature."

Dan Beecher This is Jesus' version of participating in a TikTok trend.

Dan McClellan Something like that, yeah.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan One that had been going on for several centuries.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And we can only hope that TikTok will go on for several centuries. Or not. One or the other. And so they're basically trying to distill down essential positions and doctrines in the briefest, the shortest possible form. And one thing I want to point out is that these are focusing on divine justice. These are focusing on what is right and what is just in the world. And so there's a close relationship with morality, with ethics. This is supposed to heighten your ethical awareness and make people think about social justice, divine justice, cosmic order, and their place within all of that.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan All right. Unless you're Jordan Peterson, but we'll get to him.

Dan Beecher So should we just go through them?

Dan McClellan Yeah. Let's go with the first one.

Dan Beecher So verse three starts with, and it's translated in, I think what I've got here is King James.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher But it says- "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Dan McClellan Exactly. And this is paralleled in Luke, only it does not have the addition of "in spirit."

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan It just has, "Blessed are the poor."

Dan Beecher Well, that's two very different things. Yes, it is two very different things.

Dan McClellan Let me see. This is Luke 6 verse 20.

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan And it says, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven." So, in addition to leaving out the "in spirit," it's also a second person rather than a third person- Okay ...

Dan Beecher statement. Now- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan a lot of people try to make a big deal out of poor in spirit, as if this is only referring to kind of a psychological disposition and not to an economic, socioeconomic status. I think the fact that Luke takes it one direction, Matthew adds the "in spirit," indicates that there's a relationship going on here. And we actually see this phrase elsewhere in Jewish literature. In fact, it's in the Dead Sea Scrolls. It's in Hebrew, where we have the phrase anvei ruach, which means oppressed in spirit or- Hmm ...

Dan Beecher poor in spirit.

Dan McClellan And so, this is basically translating from Hebrew, this concept of poor in spirit, which can be a reference to humility, but can also refer to socioeconomic status. And so, the scholarship that I've seen on this has suggested that this is an invitation to recognize the depraved state of the human condition.

Dan Beecher That- Hmm ...

Dan McClellan there's poverty, there is misery, there is suffering. And so, the one who is poor in spirit may be socioeconomically poor, but is also one who just recognizes the low state of the human condition. And recognizing that is important to understanding one's life. In other words, you need to recognize the poor state of the human condition in order to have a foundation for living an ethical life.

Dan Beecher Yeah, I've got to say, adding the "in spirit" feels like it makes it a much more nebulous concept. It becomes much trickier.

Dan McClellan Yeah. I would agree with that. I think the idea here is not just a kind of constitutional, here's a precise little datum, but it is, to some degree, an invitation to contemplate these things. But it is, at the same time, what the Beatitudes are doing is kind of overturning the conventions of the time regarding success in life.

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan And having said that, I have to think of Conan the Barbarian, "What is best in life?" Jesus might, instead of saying to the quote, says, "Well, to be poor in spirit," that's kind of the opening salvo. And it says, "For theirs is the kingdom of heaven," which overturns expectations. It's not the powerful, it's not the wealthy, it's not the haughty, it's not the people who rule things here who will rule in the kingdom of heaven, but the kingdom of heaven overturns those expectations, and it's- I feel like Jesse Falwell and Joel Osteen would have some truck with this concept.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan This rather undermines the prosperity gospel- Yeah ... because I think it is expanding the scope beyond just socioeconomic poverty, but it definitely includes the socioeconomic poverty. And so, the idea is the real philosopher kings in the kingdom of heaven are those who recognize that we are all in a pitiful state, and that the human condition is, the baseline is one of poverty, socioeconomic, moral, and other types. So, we're starting off strong.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan We are hitting the ground running, and the next one is going to kind of move in an orderly fashion to those who mourn. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." We have a Hebrew Bible parallel to the transition from the poor in spirit to those who mourn, and that's in Isaiah 61.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan And it says here, so the first three verses say, "The spirit of Adonai God is upon me. Because Adonai has anointed me, he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed." And this is that word that can also be translated poor, so anav, anvei ruach, poor in spirit. "To proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to proclaim the year of Adonai's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn." So, we're following kind of the order of operations that we see in Isaiah 61. So, this is not haphazard, this is not random, but the author of Matthew is putting these together in an order that would resonate with folks who know the Jewish scriptures. And the idea here is that if poverty is kind of one of the features of the human condition in general, the next one after that would be grief.

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan People are poor, people are suffering, people are oppressed, and then people grieve, because death is also a natural part of everything.

Dan Beecher And- Yeah, I think that it is an interesting opening, as you say, to this concept, which is We're starting off with a rejection of, like you say, the wealthy and the powerful, and all the people who are sort of at the top of what you might consider a sociological pyramid of sort of who has it easy, who's happy. Those people are not the ones that are being celebrated here or that are being blessed here.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher Which I think is fascinating.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And the second clause and the second beatitude, "For they will be comforted," that's what we have there in Isaiah 61.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan That, "The spirit of Adonai God is upon me to comfort all who mourn, to provide for those who mourn in Zion." So this can have to do with personal loss, with death, but it's also about the loss of the land. It is about the oppression under a larger empire. So the mourning can take different shapes, but God is there to comfort those who mourn. And so what is unexpected is what the kingdom of God is all about. The poor in spirit, the kingdom of heaven will be theirs. Those who mourn, turns out they're going to be comforted. And this has kind of contemporary application, but there's also an eschatological perspective. It's also saying, "This is what's coming in the future when God comes and the end times are here." Basically, those who are under the boot of what society accepts as happiness, as a blessed state, should be happy, should be blessed. And in the end times, that's when everything's going to be overturned, and they're going to receive the recompense, and they're going to be shown to be the ones who are truly happy. They're going to be shown to be the ones who will be comforted, who will rule in the kingdom of heaven. And then we get to verse five, "Blessed are- Which we will have some contention with later.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Later in the show. But for right now, it's, "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth."

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Talk first about the word that is used there, for meek.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And then, it is interesting because we've already had an inheritance of the kingdom of heaven. We know who's inheriting that.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Now we're inheriting the earth, which I find a little confusing because it feels like up until now, what we've been talking about is after, in a later time, you get a thing. Why are the meek inheriting the earth? Well- And what's going on there?

Dan McClellan ... this is something that is debated by some scholars, but, in the gospels, what's coming, this promised salvation, is not necessarily about flying into the sky to live in the clouds. It's actually something that's going to be on earth. And there's an argument to make that the gospel authors are kind of presenting the kingdom of heaven as already here in some sense. And in the history of Christianity, there are folks who have interpreted the kingdom of heaven as underway, as having arrived on earth. So, the kingdom of heaven and earth are kind of different sides to the same coin. But we are talking about the earth itself. There are debates about, does this mean political kingdoms? Does this mean the land? What does this mean? The text doesn't really give us a lot of help there. However, this is a quote from an Old Testament passage.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan This is Psalm 36:11, but it's being quoted from the Greek translation, which is, in the Septuagint, it's Psalm 37. The Septuagint has an additional psalm.

Dan Beecher And so- Okay ...

Dan McClellan but in 37:11, we have that same word that is used for the poor in Hebrew, anav, which is the oppressed, really. But it can also mean the humbled. And so, the New Revised Standard Version translates, "But the meek shall inherit the land, and delight themselves in abundant prosperity." I think I flipped the versions. It's 37:11 in the Hebrew and in most English translations.

Dan Beecher It's 36:11- Oh my gosh ...

Dan McClellan in the Septuagint.

Dan Beecher Dan, get your act together, will you?

Dan McClellan The Debunking Dan TikTok account, I think, needs to... I'm calling on the sock puppet to correct me there. But so, when this is translated into Greek, they use this word prais, which means gentle, which means humble, which means meek. It's not the word that they translate in the other parts where we talk about poor in spirit. That's a different Greek word. So the interpreters of this psalm are understanding this to refer to somebody who's gentle, humble, meek. And, the idea here is basically, again, overturning those expectations. It's not the proud, it's not the arrogant, it's not the violent. It's the ones who are gentle, who are calm, who are reserved, who are meek, who will be the ones to inherit the earth, whether that is a reference to political kingdoms or geographical regions or whatever. So once again, what's expected is being overturned, and this is supposed to allow believers to reflect on their current existence, to feel better about perhaps being in a position where they really don't really have any power. But just accepting that and being gentle and kind and meek is how they can kind of generate a sense of contentment, of happiness. And we see this in philosophical treatises as well around this time period, talking about how kindness, gentleness, meekness is the sign of someone who has their crap together, has a real grasp of ethics.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Okay. We'll get a counterpoint to that- ... in the second half of the show.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And if you look at the rest of Psalm 37, it says, "The wicked shall be cut off. Those who wait for Adonai shall inherit the land. Yet a little while, the wicked will be no more. Though you look diligently for their place, they will not be there, but the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant prosperity." So even this Psalm is kind of talking about when the Lord comes, they're going to overturn things, and the proud and the powerful are going to be... Keep thinking of pseudo-Spanish words, like echard. No, they're going to be kicked out, and it is the meek, the ones who are humble, who are going to take over.

Dan Beecher Man, we already have Latin and Greek and Hebrew here. Don't bring Spanish into the mix. We're already too confused here. All right, moving on.

Dan McClellan Moving on.

Dan Beecher "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied."

Dan McClellan Yeah. And here we have another kind of a further development of this idea that this is recognition of the sad state of the human condition. If you are poor in spirit, if you are mourning, if you are meek, then you're going to recognize that there is unrighteousness all around you, and it's going to hurt. It's going- Mm ... to leave you wanting righteousness. And so we have this concept of hungering and thirsting after righteousness as a result of the human condition. And I want to go to Luke here, actually. So in Luke 6, this follows after "the blessed are the poor," in the Sermon on the Plain. Luke 6:21, "Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled."

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan And so in Luke, again, we're going away from kind of the Matthean poor in spirit, hunger and thirst after righteousness, and we're back to kind of a more corporeal, kind of immediate, those who have hunger, a more specific hunger for food, for you- Re- ... will be filled.

Dan Beecher Remind me, between Matthew and Luke, which one do we think was written first and which second?

Dan McClellan So Mark is first of all the Gospels, and then I think I am of the opinion that Matthew comes before Luke.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan But it's not that they were, like Matthew wrote his and Luke was like, has Matthew and says, "Well, I'm going to improve upon this." It's that Matthew is writing using Mark as a source, but also using other sources, and then Luke is writing probably a few decades later, a few years to a few decades later. And they have Mark, and they have Matthew, but they also have their own independent sources. And so they're probably pulling these things from other sources rather than just kind of directly piggybacking on what Matthew is saying. So it could be that Luke is preserving an earlier version of this. It could be that Matthew has editorialized, where maybe they both had this manuscript that said, "Blessed are the poor. Blessed are those who hunger." And Matthew was like, "Mm, I can do better than this. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan There are arguments about that. We don't have near enough data to say much more than could be one way, could be the other, I would suggest.

Dan Beecher I wanted to hit on something with this verse six, with the hunger and thirst for righteousness- Yeah ... or after righteousness thing, because I think you mentioned it. It's very clear, the following thing, that they will be satisfied, makes it seem pretty clear that this isn't hunger and thirst for righteousness in themselves, but rather those who hunger and thirst for righteousness in the world- Right ... and don't find it.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher And then finally, will be eventually satisfied that everybody got their comeuppance or whatever it is.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher But it doesn't, yeah, I think that's fascinating, that it's not about those who try to be righteous, but rather those who are out there wishing that everybody else was righteous.

Dan McClellan I think there's a lot of folks think that when they talk about righteousness, that it has kind of a modern legalistic sense- Mm ... that righteousness is like right behavior. And in the New Testament, we are incorporating some Greek philosophical frameworks. It's not directly unmediated from ancient Israelite concepts, but in the ancient Israelite world, righteousness was a state of affairs, where righteous meant that people were fulfilling their role, and there was harmony. There was social order. There was cosmic order.

Dan Beecher And so- Is there a sense of justice in that- Absolutely ...

Dan McClellan as well?

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Like I said earlier, this has a lot to do with divine justice, and in the Hebrew Bible, you have this idea that God is there to uphold cosmic justice, and then social justice and cosmic justice are intertwined. And if one is out of sync, then it will throw the other out of sync as well. And so social justice was these ideas that you've got to provide for the poor and the widow and the orphan and the oppressed. You've got to make sure that they're not going through too much suffering, because if the imbalance is too great, then that's when everything gets thrown out of whack. And so, earthquakes and floods and disasters and invasions and these kinds of things are in some ways conceptualized as the natural consequences of the social order and the justice of society being thrown out of whack. And so, in the laws of Hammurabi, the kings are kind of viewed as the deity's mediator on Earth. It's their job to implement the deity's will. And so to the degree that they uphold justice and righteousness, they are performing their duties well. So in the laws of Hammurabi, you have Hammurabi starting off saying, "Look at me, I'm awesome. I maintain the rights of the widow and of the poor, and I'm doing all these things." And then you can look throughout all of the laws and you never find any law about the poor or the widow that's actually serving their interests. Social justice was kind of the canary in the coal mine of cosmic justice. And so if you saw it getting out of whack, you knew that something bad was going to happen. So when they're looking for thirsting after righteousness here, you're exactly right. It's not in themselves. They're searching after a state of affairs that is in alignment with God's righteousness, and it's not going to be fulfilled until the eschaton, the end times. It's the second coming. It's the institution of the Kingdom of God that is finally going to achieve a state of affairs that can be called righteous.

Dan Beecher Well, if anything in this book can be said to be prophetic, I would say that 2,000 years later, we have still not achieved a just order to society.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So, yeah, okay.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher I'll give it to them.

Dan McClellan And these days, we're still trying the same old tact, same old approach of saying the wealthy need more power and money- ... then everything will fall into place magically for everybody else. For some reason, it still hasn't worked.

Dan Beecher But- The justice trickle-down theory.

Dan McClellan Yeah. It's not- Trickle-down righteousness ...

Dan Beecher it has not played out.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Hasn't- That hasn't played out any better than the economic version.

Dan McClellan No.

Dan Beecher It is a epic fail- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan in the parlance of our times.

Dan Beecher In...

Dan McClellan And then toward the end of the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 6:33, we have this statement in the NRSV. We have, "But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." So, this idea of God's righteousness is kind of the pinnacle of what discipleship is about. You're trying to bring about a state of righteousness- Yeah ... across the board.

Dan Beecher Okay. I like that. And then we get to another one that I'm pretty fond of, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And the word here for mercy is a pretty generic one in Greek, but in Hebrew, hesed is a word that it's translated sometimes mercy, sometimes grace, sometimes loving kindness. But the idea behind it is basically to extend aid to someone who is unable to help themselves when it's not even required of you. So from the point of view of the law, there are certain things that you're required to do. You have rights, you have duties. But when you see someone in need and you are not required by the law to help them, but you do it anyway, that is a biblical notion of mercy. That is extending grace, extending mercy when it's not required. And so when we see talk about grace and mercy, particularly in the Hebrew Bible but also in the New Testament, it's the idea that someone is helping someone else when they're not obligated to, which interestingly enough, was an obligation within ancient Judaism.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So it's like, here's the law. Also, you have to go above and beyond the law.

Dan Beecher Yeah. You're still not off the hook.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And I assume that that version of mercy, that sort of loving kindness, generosity idea of mercy is how we're meant to understand the first part of the sentence as well, "Blessed are the merciful."

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher So that version of what mercy means applies to both of those instances.

Dan McClellan Absolutely. So it's basically- And this is the first- ... what you send out into the universe, you will get back, provided it's mercy, provided it's that grace.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Which is interesting because this is the first time that what you give is what you get. In the rest of these- Yeah ... it's been, if you are this, then you get this other thing.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And now you get this mercy reflected back to yourself.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And we have elsewhere in the gospels the idea that the more you forgive, the more you will receive forgiveness. So there's a reciprocity to the concepts of forgiveness and mercy. But yeah, and this puts the lie to the argument that, particularly the Christian gospel, but any part of your responsibility to a biblical law where this is what's written and that's all I'm responsible for. The reality is if you're really fulfilling it, it's It's a pieces of flair thing. If you really internalize and believe in it, you'll want to wear more pieces of flair.

Dan Beecher Look, 12 is the minimum, okay? But we hope that you'll want to do more, and we encourage that.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Well, why don't you just make the minimum more?

Dan Beecher I feel like you're not understanding.

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher Let's move on.

Dan McClellan Moving on.

Dan Beecher So the next one is, "Blessed are the pure in heart-" Yeah ... "for they will see God."

Dan McClellan I like this one. This is a really cool one. A lot of people don't see the connection here, but purity, the concept of purity in the New Testament and ancient Judaism, had to do with cleanliness, and cleanliness had to do with the ability to enter God's presence. So ritual instruments and ritual actors had to be cleansed, had to be purified, both ritually and physically, so that they could enter into the sacred spaces, which were cleansed so that God's presence could dwell there. And so, pure in heart is someone whose heart is clean and pure. And we have this Psalm, Psalm 24, verses 3 through 6. "Who shall ascend the hill of Adonai? And who shall stand in his holy place?" And the holy place is the temple, which is ritually and physically purified for the divine presence. "Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false and do not swear deceitfully, they will receive blessing from Adonai and vindication from the God of their salvation. Such is the company of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob." And I am of the opinion that this has reference to an ancient commandment that is found in places like Deuteronomy 16 and 16 and elsewhere, where all the males of Israel were commanded three times a year to go up to, and most translations will say, "Appear before God." And, if you look in the Hebrew, the word there for appear is a little odd because it is the verb for to see, but it is vocalized, in other words, the vowels that were added to it in the medieval period based on earlier traditions of how to vocalize the text, have it in the passive. So be seen.

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan So we have the consonants that say, "See the face of God," and we have the vowels that were added that say, "Appear before the face of God." And so I and other scholars have argued that what we have here was originally a commandment to go into the temple to see the face of God. And that became theologically problematic. And so a tradition that read the verb in the passive became normative. And so now we read it as appear before God. But you see it as well in Isaiah 1, verse 12. "Who commanded you to trample my courts when you come to..." And if you translate it appear before me, it just totally muddles up the Hebrew because the Hebrew is very clearly, "When you come to see my face," is what it says in the Hebrew.

Dan Beecher And that became problematic just because, I know that there are scriptures that say if you see God's face, you'll die or if you- Yeah.

Dan McClellan That's Exodus 33:20, where Moses says, "Show me your glory," and God says, "No." And says, "No human can see me." The text says, "No human can see my face." No, "You can't see my face because no human can see me and live." And this is the idea that the face of God is so brilliant and so shiny that it would kill you. And so, God says, "I'm going to put my hand over your face. I'm going to walk by, then I'll take my hand away. You're going to see my butt, but you will not see my face." And the text says my back, but backside is I think a better translation.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan I'm only kind of joking. And so there was this idea that God was so brilliant and shiny that it would kill you to look directly at God. It was like the sun. You can't look at the sun or you hurt your eyes like I did when I was eight years old.

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan But if you are purified, if you are pure in heart, if you have that cleanliness, then you can withstand what is called the beatific vision, which we see in Psalms, where they're talking about longing for the face of God, which is something that you can, if that ancient tradition is what I think it is, is something that you can only experience when you go into one of the temples, which don't exist anymore in the land of Israel. So I would argue that, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God," is a reflex, is an echo of this ancient idea that you went into the temple to see God's face or to be in God's presence.

Dan Beecher All right. That's cool.

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher Moving on to, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God."

Dan McClellan Or cheese makers, or just any kind of dairy producer.

Dan Beecher Yes, exactly. I thought you said cheese maker. Or is it the Peacemaker, which the pistol that was called the Peacemaker?

Dan McClellan No.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Blessed are the peacemakers.

Dan McClellan There are arguments about if this has a religious dimension or a political dimension, but that division didn't exist anciently. That is something that was created between the medieval period and the Enlightenment.

Dan Beecher Wait. Explain the division that you're talking about. I didn't catch.

Dan McClellan So, we talk about religion and politics as two separate social categories or dimensions. And so we will label stuff as religious and other stuff as secular or political or something like that. And that division was not a division that they recognized anciently. That is a creation of the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment. And there are a couple of really good books that talk about this, how there was a time when there was no such thing as the concept of religion or secularity, the secular. One good book is Brent Nongbri, "Before Religion." Another one is William Cavanaugh, "The Myth of Religious Violence," that talk about the history of the development of the concept of religion. So those who say, "Is Peacemakers a religious concept or a secular/political concept?" That division didn't exist in the first century CE.

Dan Beecher Yes, it is those things.

Dan McClellan So the answer is yes. But notice, okay, "Peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God." Children of God is a title that we see in the Hebrew Bible, bene Elohim in Hebrew. They're represented as kind of problematic beings in Genesis 6, and elsewhere. But by the time of the New Testament, there's another sense that has developed, which is related to the notion that Israel is God's son. And then when we get into Christianity, we have, for instance, in the Gospel of John, this idea that those who believe in Jesus will become the children of God. And the idea is basically you're adopted into God's family. And so the way to achieve alignment with and incorporation into God's family is to be peacemakers. So once again, we have this reflection on the poverty-stricken, miserly state of the human condition, and we want to try to improve things by being peacemakers.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Which is an interesting take, considering that at very least, a significant amount of this book is not about peace. So yeah, it's nice that we've now turned to peacemaking as a virtue.

Dan McClellan And this is one of the reasons a lot of people understand the Gospels to have been brought together from disparate traditions.

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.

Dan McClellan They're not perfectly consistent internally.

Dan Beecher Indeed.

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher "Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness-" Mm-hmm "... for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." I feel like we've already given the kingdom of heaven away, but that's okay.

Dan McClellan Well, this is not irrelevant because we start off with, "Theirs is the kingdom of heaven," now we've come back to, "Theirs is the kingdom of heaven." This is what's known in literary circles as an inclusio.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan So it basically bookends our sense unit.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan So we start off talking about kingdom of heaven, we end with the kingdom of heaven, and we bring up the righteousness again.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan We have those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. So, one of the problematic features of seeking a better world for everyone and recognizing the pathetic state of the human condition is that in so doing, in pursuing that better life, that righteousness, you will receive persecution. And that's something that people can recognize today. Everyone who goes out to try to improve the state of affairs around them, not just for themselves, or not just within themselves, persecution of some kind is inevitable. And anciently, that persecution was a lot more organized and was a lot more harmful as well.

Dan Beecher And so here we- Yeah, I feel like there's a whole thing here of, I feel like this is a dangerous scripture, this particular one. Just because I see so many people using this scripture and saying that their version of righteousness, meaning their dogma, their series of rules, particularly as they pertain to marginalized groups, the LGBTQ group- Mm-hmm ... segment of society, et cetera. They use this to say, "Oh, when people get mad at me for doing this, it's fine. I'm being persecuted for my righteousness, but I'll gain the kingdom of heaven for doing it."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher How do we differentiate between- ... what is good righteousness that it's okay to be persecuted for, and what is you just being a dick- ... and other people calling you out not being persecution, but just you being called out for being a dick. It feels like it's a tough... It's not clear.

Dan McClellan Well, if we take the Beatitudes as kind of culminating in this statement- Mm ... look at the prerequisites. This is someone who is poor in spirit, who mourns, who is meek, who hungers and thirsts after righteousness, who is merciful, who's pure in heart, is a peacemaker. If it's not these things, then it's quite a fallacy to say, "If you're righteous, you'll be persecuted. Therefore, everyone who is persecuted is righteous."

Dan Beecher Eh.

Dan McClellan Yeah. That is a logical fallacy.

Dan Beecher Yeah. That's a hell of a modus ponens or whatever it is.

Dan McClellan Yeah, I don't remember the name of the exact fallacy.

Dan Beecher I don't remember my logic class or whatever.

Dan McClellan Yeah. We've got kind of a development, a trajectory from the most elementary of the virtues, humility, all the way up to the highest form of virtue, and that is being persecuted for the sake of righteousness. So I think the Beatitudes are culminating in this. And then we have that inclusio that kind of bookends the two statements, and then the last two things, the last two verses here, change From third person plural, "Blessed are those," to second person plural. Now we're shifting. We've got our Beatitudes, and we're kind of closing, we're tying the ends off. So Matthew 5:11-12 say, "Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." Which kind of just capitulates everything and says- Yeah ... this is the ultimate kind of recompense for what we're doing, for seeking after the kingdom of heaven. And so just know that you are blessed if you experience all these things. You can do all these things, and you can be beatituded, you can be blessed. But you're also going to be persecuted because of it.

Dan Beecher But- Well ...

Dan McClellan remain faithful.

Dan Beecher I think that's great. We mentioned the possibility that this could be misinterpreted.

Dan McClellan No, not possible.

Dan Beecher I think it's time.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher I think it's time that we, let's take a brief break, and then we're going to get to one of the most impressive misinterpretations I think I've ever seen in my life.

Dan McClellan Let's do it.

Dan Beecher Stick around. All right, let's see you. Well, here we are. We've gotten through all of these wonderful Beatitudes. We've talked about how being poor in spirit, how being kind and gentle and a peacemaker, these are all the things that the Beatitudes are telling us we should be. We mentioned that that meek one was going to be highlighted. This is Jordan Peterson, who, if you don't know who he is, congratulations. You have won life. If you do know who he is, you may not be aware of the fact that his expertise is he is a psychologist. To my knowledge, he has no particular expertise in biblical studies or ancient languages of any kind. But boy, that doesn't stop him.

Dan McClellan No.

Dan Beecher So, this is him on "The Joe Rogan Show," another non-expert, decidedly so. A man who is a comedian and also very into mixed martial arts fighting. So let's see what those two have to say about a Beatitude, shall we?