Biblical Astrology

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

Dan Beecher I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan And this is Data Over Dogma, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How go things, Dan?

Dan Beecher Things go well. Uh, I'm looking forward to this. We're, we're picking up where we left off last week, uh, which was in Acts chapter 7.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher Uh, not last week, but last whatever- ... episode, segment, thing. Last video.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Uh, so I'm excited about this one because this one's very different and all about, like, magic and astrology and crazy stuff like that. So I'm looking forward to chatting about it. Uh, and also, we'll get some anti-Semitism in there. We'll get everything. It's gonna be, it's gonna be a hoot.

Dan McClellan Yep.

Dan Beecher So, uh, let's dive in with What Is That? And today's What Is That?, uh, is a star. Now, you and I have talked before about references to stars.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher We talked about the Star of David.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Uh-

Dan McClellan There's a new star search, evidently- Okay ... that started up.

Dan Beecher Boom. That's great. Uh, there's a star that was over a certain infant's house, however that ends up working. Uh, but this is a different star, and it's- Yes ... a little confusing. We're s- we're still in Acts chapter 7, as we said. Uh, but now we're looking for, uh, we- we're looking at ch- verse 43.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Guide me in. I don't know what's going on here.

Dan McClellan Okay. So, um, you've got, we're, we're in Stephen's, um, review of the history of Israel, and we're talking about the fact that Israel was slipping back into idolatry. And verse 42 says, "God turned away from them and handed them over to worship the host of heaven as it is written in the book of the prophets. 'Did you offer to me slain victims and sacrifices for 40 years, uh, in the wilderness, O house of Israel? No.'" Now we're in verse 43. "You took along the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan," or Remphan, or Rophoan, or there, there are a bunch of different ways that this is actually, uh, found in the manuscripts in Greek.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan But Rem- Remphan seems to be the one that the social media, um, uh, butterflies like. "'... the images that you made to worship. So I will remove you beyond Babylon.'" So- Okay ... yes. Um-

Dan Beecher And that was, so that was a, that was Stephen quoting God. Is that- Yes ... is that quotation, uh, a quotation, a ref- a reference to a quotation in another book? It is. Or is that, did, or did he make that up?

Dan McClellan No, this is a quotation of, uh, the prophetic Book of Amos.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Specifically chapter 5, and we've got verses 25 and 26 and, uh, a little bit of verse 27 thrown in there for good measure.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan But when we go look at the Hebrew of what's going on in Amos 5, it's a little different.

Dan Beecher Ooh.

Dan McClellan So, um, I'm gonna read Amos 25 through to where we get to, uh, in the middle of, uh, verse 27 from the NRSVue, uh, and, and this is based on the Hebrew. "Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings the 40 years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You shall take up Sukkoth, your king, and Chiwan, your star god, your images which you made for yourselves. Therefore, I will take you into exile beyond Damascus."

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So a little different. Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Uh, y- we didn't say Moloch. We didn't say Remphan, or Rephan, or whatever- Right ... it is.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher So what's going on there?

Dan McClellan Well, uh, hmm, the, so the word, the, the reference to Moloch is, uh, and this seems to be coming through in, uh, the Septuagint, uh, our, our l- beloved- ... ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Um, but they take, uh, this name Sukkoth, which seems to be the name of, uh, probably a Mesopotamian deity, and th- it looks an awful lot like the Hebrew word for Sukkot, uh, which is why in the, uh, in the Book of Acts, it renders it the tent of Moloch.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So you have the name of a deity that gets confused for the Hebrew word for tent, or tabernacle.

Dan Beecher Okay. Okay.

Dan McClellan And so you, you bring along the tent, but then we need the name of a deity. And so instead of Sukkoth, your king, you change the name of the deity to tent, and you change the word king to Moloch, because king in Hebrew is melekh, and-

Dan Beecher Okay, so- ...

Dan McClellan Moloch is- ... just different vowels.

Dan Beecher Okay. So you take two words that have meanings- Uh-huh ... and then you go, "They sound kind of like these two totally other words- Uh-huh ... that have totally different meanings."

Dan McClellan Yeah. Well-

Dan Beecher That's a weird thing to do.

Dan McClellan Well-

Dan Beecher Like, I, I mean, I get that that could happen, but it's just, it just seems so stran- did, I, is the idea, is the guess that the, uh, the translators of the Septuagint just didn't know those, just didn't know the, i- what was going on there, or-

Dan McClellan Probably. Probably. At least, um, well, when it comes to, uh, when it comes to the word for king, like, they shouldn't have been confused because there is a second masculine plural pronominal suffix on the end of melekh. So it, it, it shouldn't be confused for the name Moloch. But, and also as we've discussed before on the channel, there was no deity named Moloch. That is some-- That's a misunderstanding of a Hebrew noun that probably just referred to a specific type of sacrifice.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And so by the time of the Septuagint, they're like, "Maybe it's that Molech guy. Okay, we'll just throw that in there." And, you know, this kind of thing happens. Is it, is it, um, slide down my rain barrel or rainbow?

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan Like, y- you know, they, they're, they're somewhat similar. They're not the exact same word, but, um, I- Well- ... grew up with rain barrel. Oh,

Dan Beecher okay. But, so- And I suppose that, I mean, it makes even more sense when I think about, like, when I think about words that sound the same in English, if I'm reading them, I have vowels. They didn't have vowels to go on.

Dan McClellan They did not have vowels, yeah.

Dan Beecher So these would've been spelled the same, Molech and, and Moloch.

Dan McClellan Except for that pronominal s- that possessive suffix that is attached to the word in Hebrew. But y- but yeah, they, they wouldn't have had vowels, and they would've gone either by, uh, an interpretive tradition that would've been active, uh- Mm ... or, uh, just by their own interpretation. And this happens a lot in the Septuagint. W- There are some times when they have no idea what's going on, and they just transliterate it.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan So they just go, "Oh, just write it in." And, you know, the, that kind of thing happens as well. So we've gone from Sakkuth, your king, to the tent of Moloch. So Sakkuth,

Dan Beecher yeah, so let me just make sure I r- I'm following this. Sakkuth, your king. Sakkuth is a person, is a king person. A deity. A deity.

Dan McClellan A deity, yeah.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Probably a, uh, a Mesopotamian deity. And then the next phrase, Kaiwan, your star god, and the, the Hebrew is Kiyyun, and then it says, uh, Salmechem, which would be, um, your, uh, the, your image Kochav, uh, your image of a star.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan Um, and so the, the idea there is that Kiyyun is, is some kind of divine image of some kind related to a star. And then it says, uh, Elohechem, which would be your plural, uh, god. Um, so the star of your god, probably what it is. Your image is, uh, the star of your god. And so here, Kiyyun gets, uh, gets altered a little bit into Raphan. And probably 'cause Kiyyun is also probably a Mesopotamian deity, um, Kiwan, uh, Kaiwan, something like that is, is what it would've been in, uh, in Akkadian, and this was probably a deity associated with the planet Saturn.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And so probably the Septuagint translators render, uh, Remphan or Raphan or, uh, let's see what the, the alternatives are. We got Rempham- ... Remphan, Rompha, Repha, Rephan, Raphan, uh, a-

Dan Beecher Can I just say none of those sound like, uh, Kiwan or whatever it is?

Dan McClellan No, no. But I, I think that probably was a deity in the Greco-Roman world that would've been associated with the planet Saturn.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So that's, that's what makes sense of, of why they altered it so- So,

Dan Beecher okay- ... so

Dan McClellan wildly ... so

Dan Beecher they're, so w- in this case, they're not trying to translate the name. They're just trying to substitute in a, a, a nu- the name of a-

Dan McClellan An equivalent deity ...

Dan Beecher an, an equivalent god. Okay.

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah. And so it doesn't, it doesn't say anything at all about the nature of this star. Uh, however, if it is associated with Saturn, a lot of people have pointed out there's an interesting, uh, pattern at, at the north pole of Saturn. It-

Dan Beecher A Saturn pattern? A

Dan McClellan S- it is a Saturn pattern, yes. And, um, the, uh, the Saturn pattern is a, um, a hexagon that is created by the clouds and the storms and everything like that.

Dan Beecher Oh, I've seen that, sure.

Dan McClellan You've seen that? Okay. And, uh, the idea that, that a lot of people have come up with- ... is that the hexagon, if you connect, there's a way to connect the points of the hexagon to create a hexagram.

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan Or- A Star of David ... a

Dan Beecher Star of David. Okay.

Dan McClellan A six-pointed star. Now, uh, we didn't have, uh, the ability to, we didn't have telescopes that were powerful enough to be able to see that pattern on the top of Saturn until, you know, the last, I don't know, it was probably... It was definitely after 1500. I'm gonna say it's probably closer to, like, 19... Okay, I was way off. 1987.

Dan Beecher I was gonna say. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's not the kind of thing that you can see with just optics.

Dan McClellan No.

Dan Beecher You gotta, you have to have, uh, you either have to get the optics very, very close or-

Dan McClellan Okay, yeah ...

Dan Beecher we're, we're looking with different things.

Dan McClellan David Godfrey in 1987 pieced together flyby views from the '81 Voyager mission.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So that was V'ger that gave us, um- ... the, the hexagon. So definitely not on the radar of, uh- Of,

Dan Beecher of biblical authors, yeah ...

Dan McClellan of the author of... Yes, of, of Amos 5. Uh, that would be a kind of prescience that you probably need some evidence for. But, um, so yeah, the w- one of the reasons we're bringing this up is because on social media these days, you see all kinds of people saying that the Star of David is the star of Remphan. It's an idol. It is idolatry. It's, uh, worshiping a false god, and all this kind of stuff.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan This is just rank antisemitism, uh, that is trying to dismiss the Star of David as, uh, as a false god.

Dan Beecher Well, yeah, and trying to associate the Jewish people who invented a, like, whose book you, you still use, Christian person- ... to say, uh, to say that the Jewish people are, are the idolatrous ones.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher I think it's so interesting, but I, and you know, you know, the, a, a, an antisemitic video was sort of our jumping-off point at, for looking at this, but what became instantly more interesting to me as I, as I was reading about this- is this, uh, sort of old, ancient view of the stars and the heavens as not, not like, you know, we think of them, you know, planets and stars as sort of-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... inert-

Dan McClellan Balls of gas burning-

Dan Beecher Balls of gas

Dan McClellan ... millions of miles away. Yeah

Dan Beecher ... giant rocks, whatever you got. But they were, when, when, i- you know, going back to Acts 7 when Stephen says, "But God turned away from them and ha- handed them over to the worship of the host of heaven."

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher The host of heaven is not a group of, uh... It is a group of gods, but it's the stars.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It's the planets.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Those are the gods.

Dan McClellan Yes. So the, the host is, uh, tzaba in Hebrew. Um, that means, it's like military host. It's, uh, it's a, a group of, of soldiers. And th- and this, the idea of the stars as the host of heaven descends from this notion that the stars are gods, that they are God's army.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan That these are-

Dan Beecher And when, and, uh, I, I think all of the ancient world had some version of this, which is why, you know, we associate, y- you know, Saturn, uh, the, the, the planets themselves are not named after gods. They're associated with gods because they were gods.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher You know what I mean? Like, Saturn, and Venus, and all these things, they were the gods.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher That was the god. He's up there-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... looking down on us. And the reason that wh- they chose the planets specifically was because those are the ones that move around in the night sky.

Dan McClellan Yes, the wanderers.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Because they're not, they're, they're not in a fixed pattern. Um, and we, y- you see this in, in Philo. You see this in Paul, the idea that, that those are gods.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Uh, and Philo is pretty explis- explicit. The stars are gods. And, uh, there, and we can go to Deuteronomy. There's an interesting, uh, part in Deuteronomy 4, "When you look up to the heavens and see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, do not be led astray and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples everywhere under heaven." And so according to Deuteronomy 4, they're the gods that the nations worship. God created the, the host of heaven so that the nations would have, uh, deities to worship, but Israel must only worship Adonai, and Israel must not follow the worship practices that the other nations use to worship those other gods. So the hosts of heaven work for God, but they're also considered the, the idolatrous, uh, gods of the heathens. And-

Dan Beecher And, uh, and yet again, we have this idea, uh, that, that keeps popping up for us, which is the idea that these are not, that, that there isn't just one god.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher And, you know, they place their god over and above these other gods and maybe make him the creator god of these other gods or whatever.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher But it's very specific that these are other gods. Like, the, like, the other, the people in Babylon or, you know, Moab or whatever are worship-- They're not worshiping a god that doesn't exist. They're worshiping a god that does exist but isn't your god-

Dan McClellan Right

Dan Beecher ... sort of thing.

Dan McClellan Yeah, uh, precisely. Um, and, and you see this in, in a number of places in the pre-exilic literature, but it lasts down into the New Testament. And for instance, the, the idea that the other gods are ruled b- the, the other nations are ruled by other patron deities, you know, this is Deuteronomy 32:8. This is, uh, God goes down to Egypt in the Exodus to, uh, to render judgment upon the gods of Egypt. Uh, you have David telling Saul as Saul is pursuing David and, and, like, chasing him outside of the land of Israel, David's complaining, "Your men are forcing me to worship other gods by forcing me out of Adonai's inheritance." There are a bunch of, of manifestations of that idea. And even in Deutero-Isaiah, this is supposed to be, like, the high-water mark of, uh, biblical monotheism. You even have in Deutero-Isaiah, God saying, you know, "Who, who musters the host of heaven and names them, and not one is missing?" Like, that, that's talking about calling the gods out to muster for battle-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... and all of them show up 'cause they all obey the God of Israel. Not one is missing, and, and the God of Israel knows all their names and, and commands them. And, uh, the, uh, it is in the, uh, the Song of Deborah in Judges 5 when they are, they're fighting against the Canaanite general Sisera, and it says, "The stars in their courses fought against Sisera," which is another reference to the idea that the stars not only are deities, but also are armies.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And they can be called upon to come fight against the enemies of the people of God. So it's, it's all throughout the Hebrew Bible and, and again, even down into the New Testament, where they're frequently referred to as, uh, powers, principalities and powers and dominions and, and stuff like that. Those are, the, the references to powers in Paul frequently, and, and I haven't looked at it to see if it's unilaterally, but frequently, that's references to divine beings that are identifiable as stars.

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan Uh, so when you get into later rabbinic literature, there's this famous debate in rabbinic literature about two powers in heaven, and this is supposed to be kind of a euphemistic way to refer to the heresy about there being two gods in heaven, the main god and then, like, a deputy god.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And some folks think that this has to do with, with Christianity, but there are other Jewish scholars who are, will argue, uh, it seems to just have to do with this idea of a kind of subordinationism in early Judaism where there was some kind of mediatory figure that was- ... was being endorsed by Jewish folks. So that's, that's an ongoing debate, but, um-

Dan Beecher All I know is-

Dan McClellan But powers are gods

Dan Beecher ... all I know is that when you said a main god and a deputy god, I had Andy, A- Andy Griffith and Barney Fife- ... jump into h- my head, and that made me-

Dan McClellan Yeah, the deputy god gets one bullet, and he has to carry it around in his pocket. So-

Dan Beecher Andy, Andy. Andy, May needs you. Uh, that made, that made me very happy. Let me ask you this. Uh, one of the things that I found when I was looking up, uh, some of this stuff was references to a, an ancient Hebrew zodiac.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher Um, um, so, like, can we get a little bit into that? Because, so one of the things that we see is, you know, Adonai is our God. Is Adonai one of the, one of the star gods, or is he separate from the stars, uh, in that way? Do we-

Dan McClellan Uh, considered, considered separate-

Dan Beecher Okay

Dan McClellan ... 'cause you have the, the sun, the moon, the stars, all the host of heaven. That is all distinct from and subordinate to Adonai.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Although, although in the earliest periods, you do have some indications that Adonai, worship of Adonai was associated with worship of the sun.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So there, there is... It probably had, was in some periods associated with astral phenomena.

Dan Beecher Okay. Well, uh, one of the things that ke- keeps popping up, that even I've noticed, but then, uh, w- when in my reading was associated then with this astrology business, is the number 12.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher 12 tribes of Israel, 12 stones on the high priest's breas- breastplate.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher 12 loaves in the temple, all of this stuff, and people were connecting that with signs of a zodiac. Um-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... Mazzaroth, is that a word that I'm, that I'm looking for? Or-

Dan McClellan Mazzaro- Yes, that's, that occurs in the Book of Job. Uh, and that's probably a reference to, uh, the... Mazzaroth just means the, the stars or the constellations.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So, um, I don't know that it's, uh, s- I, I think it's the majority position that this is a reference to constellations, the zodiac. Uh, Job is, is Persian period, so if this is influenced by, uh, Zoroastrian astrology, then it could be a direct reference to, uh, the, the 12 signs of the zodiac. But that's it. That's the only... You, you have, I think you have some references that are generally tr- that are translated like, uh, the Pleiades or something like that.

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan But, uh, but when it comes to the zodiac, that's the closest you get is the Book of Job.

Dan Beecher Okay. S- so, uh, so do, do you think that there's anything to this idea that the, the number 12 is popping up as a zodiacal reference?

Dan McClellan No.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Um, I, I don't think there's a case to make for that because it l- the, the number 12 is significant long before we see any references to a zodiac.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Um, and so, so I think it's, it's more likely just that, that this is a, a, a number that became highly significant early on in, in the history of Israel. And you've got a bunch of those: 3, 7, 12, 70, 40. There, there are a bunch of numbers that are symbolic and have significance, and so get repeated an awful lot. Um, so, so I, I don't think there's a good case to make for that.

Dan Beecher Okay. I guess it was, I guess it was as a reference to the temple itself and was talking about the s- the, the stones on the breastplate and, uh, 12 loaves in the temple-

Dan McClellan Okay

Dan Beecher ... and 12 pillars. And, and they were talking about the, the temple as a sort of model for the cosmos-

Dan McClellan Cosmos, yeah

Dan Beecher ... or whatever.

Dan McClellan Yeah. There, there's a case to make for that, and, and the, a lot of the texts about the temple are probably exilic or maybe even post-exilic, so that's much closer to that.

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan But the significance of 12, I think, predates that. Um, and, and, you know, it's, it's a, um, it's a, there's a much shorter line to draw from 12 tribes to 12 stones, 12 pillars, 12, 12 everything. So, um-

Dan Beecher Right. That makes total sense.

Dan McClellan Yeah. But, but I, it would be, I would be interested to see, uh, what a, a close interrogation of the number 12, uh, throughout the history of Israel reveals. Uh, 'cause there, there-

Dan Beecher Yeah, it doesn't seem obvious to me that 12 would necessarily... You know, different cultures looking at the sky might not subdivide it into 12 the way many cultures have. Like, it, like, it, that just seems like an arbitrary division.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher You don't need to divide things into 12. But maybe I'm not... I, look, I'm, I am neither an astrologer nor an astronomer, so I, uh, I, I, I don't necessarily know.

Dan McClellan All I know is that it's the Age of Aquarius, and, uh-

Dan Beecher It's the dawning of that-

Dan McClellan The dawning of... Well-

Dan Beecher Or at least-

Dan McClellan It was, it was the dawning back in the '60s. Um-

Dan Beecher Back in the '60s.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher We gotta be there by now, right?

Dan McClellan Yeah. Certainly. Certainly. Yeah. In the year 2525, if man is still alive. Uh-

Dan Beecher And they were. Uh-

Dan McClellan They'll re- they'll, they'll get there hopefully.

Dan Beecher We, yeah, we w- w- turns out we were still alive then. Um, all right. Anything else we wanted to get into in terms of astrology? D- d- Magi? Yeah, I mean, you mentioned-

Dan McClellan Oh, gosh. Yes, there's a lot of-

Dan Beecher ... the Zoroas- y- the Zoroastrians.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And we, you know, when we talked about the Magi, they were likely Zoroastrian, uh, priests or whatever-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... or, or astrologers.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Priest scholars, yes. W- poet warrior kings or whatever. Yeah. Um, I should've said that in a Scottish accent. But, um, no, the, I... Yeah, the, the Magi, that, that's such a fascinating bit of astrology because it, it's like they're not, they're not Israelites. They're not Jewish folks.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan They come from a completely different region, a completely different e- ethnic group, a completely different tradition. And it's like, "Look, their divinatory practices were accurate"?

Dan Beecher Yeah, right.

Dan McClellan Is that what the author is trying to say?

Dan Beecher Yeah, the, uh, the author is like, "Hey, these guys know what they're talking about."

Dan McClellan Yeah, "If they tell you that the, the stars are telling you something, they got it right here," so.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Um, which, which I think is, uh, I would love to see somebody tease out the implications of that a little more, because it, it just suggests to me that the author, i- in my opinion, the author of Matthew is probably just toying with how obvious it is that, that this was a sign of, of the coming of the, the Savior, that even those, those goofballs out in- ... uh, in the Zagros Mountains over there, they- even they can figure it out. And, and, and here we have Herod going, "I don't know what's going on. Where- Yeah ... where's that?" Um, what's the, uh- Gomer. Uh, I don't even remember the characters' names. Andy. Andy.

Dan Beecher Um, the w- the other one thing that I thought I would just dive into just a little bit- Okay ... because it's always confused me, is, uh, Venus, AKA Morning Star- Yes ... AKA somebody in Is- Isaiah, AKA- ... Lucifer- Yes ... AKA what are we talking? That, that one got me really messed up.

Dan McClellan Well, the- you have in, in Isaiah 14:12, you have the, uh, a sarcastic reference to the king of Babylon. Like, the text is explicitly saying, "Okay, and now I'm gonna talk about the king of Babylon." And then it, uh, sarcastically refers to him exalting his throne over the stars of God.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And, uh, and, and talks about h- you know, how you have fallen, uh, and refers to him as, uh, Heylel Ben Shahar, which would be Shining One, Son of the Dawn. And this would seem to be a couple of different ways to refer to the king sarcastically as some kind of deity associated with the planet Venus.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Uh, because Venus was, was widely, um, divinized and, and considered an important deity in so many different pantheons. And so when you get down to the Septuagint, they render it, um, Eosphoros, which would be, uh, light-bearer. Mm. And so it's not, it's, it, they're not transliterating it. And, and that is evidently a name that is occasionally used to refer to a deity in the pantheon associated with the planet Venus. And then when you get down to the Latin, they use Lucifer, which is also a name that is used occasionally to refer to a deity in the pantheon that is associated with the planet Venus. And you also have Lucifer, uh, there's a, there's a passage in, I wanna say it's 1 Peter. I could, it could be 2 Peter. It's in one of the Peters. Um, Pete & Pete- Uh-huh ... um, just as a callback to, to the good old days of the Nickelodeon '90s. Um, but it talks about the, uh, the Morning Star rising in your hearts, and that is supposed to be a reference to Jesus, and in the Vulgate, it's rendered Lucifer. So- ... so the Latin Vulgate is clearly not using Lucifer to mean something bad. In fact, there was, in the 300 CE, a bishop named Lucifer.

Dan Beecher Oh, wow. Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah, which was just light-bearer or light-bringer.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so you can see how that could be associated with, with Jesus. And then after you identify Lucifer with Satan, then Lucifer becomes, uh, a naughty name- Right ... and a naughty character. You're naughty.

Dan Beecher Somebody needs to, somebody go out, after you've seen this, and s- do a video that we can then respond to, where you claim that Jesus is actually Satan because of- ... the Lucifer, Lucifer creation.

Dan McClellan There are, there are more than enough people getting- ... millions of views on v- videos, uh, saying that. And a lot of them will, uh, a lot of them are using Gnosticism to do it.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Because one of, one of Gnosticism's claims, based on this Middle Platonic cosmogony that suggests- ... that the material world is bad, and so whichever deity created the material world was bad. And so the- Oh ... Gnosticism, certain, um, streams of tradition within Gnosticism reinterpret the Hebrew Bible as a story of the evil, kind of JV squad deity- ... who trapped us in these fleshly prisons. And so nowadays, you get the people who are like, "Well, yeah, Gnosticism. Ooh, and we can bring the Luciferian stuff into it, too." And so it just resonates at a higher frequency, and then you get into frequencies, and so- Yeah, there are plenty of people doing that out there.

Dan Beecher All right. Well, there you go. Uh, I, what a fun, weird- ... uh, sort of difficult-to-follow grouping of things, uh, that that was. But I really enjoy it. Uh, hey, listen, friends, if you would like to become a part of making this show happen, and boy, we'd really appreciate it if you would, if you do, uh, head on over to patreon.com/dataoverdogma, and, uh, that's where you can get early and ad-free versions of each episode. You can get the after party, which is bonus content that we do for you. There's a lot of, a, a lot of stuff happening over there. Who knows? Maybe new stuff will start happening. We'll do some patrons-only stuff. You don't know. We might. Uh, and if we do, you're gonna wanna be a part of it. So head on over there. We sure do appreciate you. We also appreciate Roger Goudy for editing the show, and we will talk to y'all next time.

Dan McClellan Bye, everybody.