In the Beginning

Dan Beecher They hear God tromping around in the garden, and they hide from him, and they kind of sheepishly go, "Um, we're not here. Come back another time." Dave's

Dan McClellan not here, man. Hey, everybody.

Dan Beecher Hi, friends, and welcome to the Data Over Dogma podcast. Where we bring you

Dan McClellan the latest in biblical scholarship. And do

Dan Beecher our best to combat the spread of misinformation. With me is Dr. Dan McClellan, biblical scholar and TikTok star. Hi, hi, Dan. And I'm non-scholar and TikTok nobody Dan Beecher. Well, Dan, here we are.

Dan McClellan Here we are.

Dan Beecher It is our, it is our first episode, and, uh- Congratulations ... and congratulations to you, and congratulations to all of the listeners- ... and viewers watching, uh, us, us on YouTube and wherever. Uh, so-

Dan McClellan We're very happy for you.

Dan Beecher Yes, indeed. Uh, so coming up on the show today, we're going to do, uh, we're, we're, we're gonna discuss, uh, Genesis. We're gonna dive right into the very front end of the Bible, and, uh, and Dan, you're gonna introduce us to, uh, to the holy name, to the deity, the

Dan McClellan name of the God of

Dan Beecher the Bible. Is that right?

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah. Our second segment, we're gonna talk about... Well, we're gonna call it What Does That Mean? And, uh, we're gonna talk about different principles, different, uh, ideas within biblical scholarship that are in circulation right now. So I'm gonna talk about the divine name.

Dan Beecher Let's start, though, uh, with our segment Chapter and Verse. We're gonna dive into the very first part of the very first book of the Bible, uh, which is Genesis. Uh, and, and the way we're working this, I, I decided that I would dive in. I would read the first... I, I, I think we're gonna do

Dan McClellan the first three chapters of Genesis.

Dan Beecher Uh, and I'm going to bring my confusions, my things that I don't understand, to you, Dan, and you're going to sort of help us understand what we're looking at here.

Dan McClellan All right. Let's give it

Dan Beecher a shot. And the first, the first thing we should do is discu- is sort of situate this within the Bible. Like, we- Mm-hmm. What do we have here? What- we've got a story, uh, well, possibly multiple stories, of the creation. Mm-hmm. Where does this come from?

Dan McClellan So most scholars would agree that we've got two different creation stories in the first three chapters of Genesis, one that's running from Genesis 1:1 up through the first half of Genesis 2:4, and the second one runs from the second half of Genesis 2:4 through to the end of chapter three. And that second one, most scholars would say, is probably the earlier one, and this is a story with a very anthropomorphic deity that makes noise as they walk through the Garden of Eden. This is a deity that creates manually by manipulating the soil. Yeah. This is a deity that interacts directly with their creation, and this is also a deity who seems to be trying to kind of, uh, recalibrate or fix their creation as they go on. And what many scholars believe is, centuries later, the priestly authors, so these would've been cultic authorities, people who had authority over the temple or worship, who would've been associated with the state, with the king, with, with, uh, important leaders within Israel, they came through and kind of updated things and said, "You know what? We need a cleaner account. We're gonna make some corrections here." And this was probably written, uh, when Israel was in exile, and so in the absence of the temple. And we see an account that envisions a more transcendent deity. They create by divine fiat, by speaking things into existence, and the account is kind of interacting with creation accounts that are known from the region of Babylon. And they're kind of combating, responding to those creation accounts from Babylon while also updating what's going on in the earlier creation accounts. So whereas the deity from Genesis 2 creates with their hands, the deity from Genesis 1 does not. Whereas the deity from Genesis 2 has to kind of update their creation. They create the human, then they go, "Hmm, needs something else, so we're gonna create some animals. No, that's not quite right. It needs something else," and then we create, uh, the woman. Genesis 1, everything is created, and God saw that it was good. So it's all right. It's all correct right from the beginning. Um, and we also have the account divided into multiple days of creation. Rather than just one single creative period, we've got six days and then a day of rest, which, uh, many scholars would suggest, one, is borrowing from the sevenfold division of days that was common, uh, in Mesopotamia around that time period, but two, may be an attempt to kind of demarcate some sacred time in the absence of a temple, which is a demarcation of sacred space. Hmm. So a way to kind of set apart this time and say, "We don't have a temple in which we can worship, but let's separate off a day, and let's use that for worship." So, uh, it is responding s- to some of the circumstances that the people for whom these authors are writing are facing, uh, in exile. That's probably what most scholars would say, uh, about this. So the, the- Interesting ... first creation account, probably eighth, seventh century BCE, somewhere around there. Genesis 1, the later creation account, probably sixth, maybe even fifth century BCE.

Dan Beecher So what you're claiming is that neither of these accounts was written contemporaneously with the actual creation of the Earth.

Dan McClellan It seems unlikely.

Dan Beecher Okay. Um, I- let's start, uh, let's start in the beginning with the phrase, "In the beginning," because I know that you have an issue with that.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So that's the, that's the traditional translation of Genesis 1:1. And

Dan Beecher the Hebrew

Dan McClellan of that- Yeah,

Dan Beecher that's it. The, in, in my, in my King James, that's how it says. Right. That's what it says.

Dan McClellan And that's what, what most conservative, uh, Christian and, and even some conservative Jewish translations will render. The Hebrew there begins with this word bereshit, which occurs about four or five or six other times in the Hebrew Bible, and it never means in the beginning. It always means in the beginning of something. Yeah. Usually it's referring to the beginning of, of, uh, the reign of some king. But, uh, in Hebrew, it's, it seems to be in what's called the construct state, and this is how Hebrew creates, uh, what is called a genitive relationship, X of Y. So we have that helper word of in English to indicate that. Uh, and in Hebrew, you put two words together, and then you pulled the accent off of the first word and moved it to the second. And so that could sometimes change the way you pronounce the first word, and that was just the indication that this is a X of Y relationship.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So the opening word there seems to be saying, "In the beginning of God creating the heavens and the Earth," which is what we would call a temporal clause. It's explaining the time period in which something happened or in which certain circumstances obtained. Uh, and so more colloquially in English, and the way you will find in many, uh, more scholarly modern translations of Genesis 1:1, it says, "When God began to create the heavens and the Earth." And then verses two and three are describing the circumstances that obtained when God began to create the heavens and the Earth. So when God began this creation, the Earth was empty and desolate, and the Spirit of God or, or this divine spirit moved over the depths or over the waters. Uh-

Dan Beecher Yeah, that's an interesting point because, uh, as I read it, I was, I was already confused because, A, we already have an Earth. Earth already exists- Right ... uh, in this, but it is chaotic in whatever way that, uh, whatever that means. Uh, and there's water, um, because the God is moving over the face of the water or upon the face of the waters. Mm-hmm. So far, the creation, there- there's already stuff there. Yeah. Like, that's, that's what we can, what we can know. Um- Yep. So yes, it can't be the very, very beginning of all creation because, boom, we've al- we're, we're starting with some stuff. Uh, and that's day one. Day one, God does a thing which I don't understand, which is he separates light from dark. Mm-hmm. Okay. He hasn't even invented the sun or the moon yet, but that's fine. Mm-hmm. Uh, we move on to day two. Uh, God separates the waters above from the waters below in a firmament. Mm-hmm. Now, w- how do, how do you describe a firmament?

Dan McClellan So the word there in Hebrew is raqiya, which comes from a verb that means to hammer out. And so the, the idea is kind of an enormous solid dome, like a crystalline dome that was created in order to suspend or hold up the waters of the heavens and separate them from the waters of the Earth to allow, uh, later the, the dry land to appear. But this fits with a number of other, um, cosmogonies or creation accounts from the nations around Israel in ancient Southwest Asia that viewed creation as fundamentally, uh, coming from water, the waters of chaos, chaotic waters. That is the origin of creation according to a lot of these accounts. Um, now in the Babylonian account, um, upon which Genesis 1 is, is likely to some degree based and, uh, to which it is responding, these, uh, chaotic waters are actually a chaos deity known as Tiamat, and they engage in battle with this deity Marduk. And after- Interesting ... after Tiamat's defeat, Marduk splits Tiamat's corpse in half, and the waters beneath are one half of this corpse, and then the other half is suspended above for the waters above. So- Yeah,

Dan Beecher that's fascinating. And, but it's clear that, like, the idea of the sky is that... And it's, I mean, it makes sense. It's blue or whatever, but the idea of the sky is that there is something holding out a whole bunch of water.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher And I guess maybe that's what comes when it rains. Mm-hmm. It, it somehow seeps through or whatever. That's interesting. Yeah. That's fascinating. And then,

Dan McClellan and that's when we get to the, the flood account, the windows of heaven open. Oh, okay. And that

Dan Beecher allows, and that allows

Dan McClellan the waters above. And all,

Dan Beecher all of that above water. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That, there we go, then- Yeah ... some things are starting to fall into place. I like that. Okay. So then we get to day three. Uh, the waters under the heaven are gathered into one place, which is a little confusing 'cause the waters are spread out all over the place. Mm-hmm. But I guess in the very beginning, gathers, gathered into one place and dry land appears. Mm-hmm. So we have earth and seas, and grass, herbs, fruit trees start to appear. So we've got plants on and, and dry land. Uh, and jump in here if there's anything interesting that I'm, that I'm gliding over 'cause I don't know.

Dan McClellan Well, one, one interesting thing I could comment on here is our, our first three days of creation, what's going on is, is things are being separated, and that process of separation is creating the environment. And then the next three days of creation are going to fill those environments with the entities that inhabit them now. So day one was the separation of light and dark, and you're gonna see in the corresponding day four- the creation of the inhabitants of the light and the dark, the sun, the moon, the stars, the planets. Day two is the separation of the waters above from the waters beneath, and the corresponding day five is going to see the creation of the fish and the seas and the birds of the skies. And then day three- Which, by the

Dan Beecher way, the words, the birds seem to be coming from the water. I thought that that was fascinating, that it seemed like the water animals are created in day five, and those happen to include the fowl.

Dan McClellan Well, they, they fly around through the skies, which, which is-

Dan Beecher Oh, that's right. The skies are water.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And then, um, day three corresponds to day six, where we have the inhabitants of the dry lands, uh, and everything else is, is filled in. So there's a symmetry to- Yeah ... this presentation of the creation account, which I think is, is a good reason to think this was intended to be symbolic. This was intended to reflect kind of the order, uh, and the symmetry of creation. Everything is good. It corresponds. It is symmetrical.

Dan Beecher It's got a poetry to it.

Dan McClellan Exactly.

Dan Beecher It's got, uh, and, and, and I think that, yeah, I think that that poetic sense, it would make sense that this was, uh, that this was symbolism- Mm-hmm ... that this wasn't meant to be, uh, literal stuff. Yeah. Now, there's a really interesting thing towards the end of Genesis 1, which is that the book says, uh, has God saying, "Let us make man in our image after our likeness."

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Now, are we talking about the royal we here? Or what i- what is this us that's happening?

Dan McClellan So this is what's called a cohortative verb in Hebrew. It's a first-person plural command. Uh, and most scholars would suggest that this is a, a vestigial reference to the divine council, that creation is something that is overseen, is supervised by this deliberative body of deities, and they make the plans for it. They see that everything is executed correctly. Now, the creation itself is executed by God, the God of Israel, Elohim, in this passage. But they seem to be doing so in deliberation with the rest of this divine council. So, "Let us make man," is, is plans being made by the divine council, and then it is the singular Elohim who actually, um, creates, uh, man and woman after their own likeness, uh, their own image.

Dan Beecher Right. All right. And then day seven, everybody's tired, so we all take a, a nap. So that's Genesis 1, uh, basically in a nutshell, although, as you point out, Genesis 2, the first four-ish, uh, verses feel like they're actually belonging back to Genesis 1.

Dan McClellan Yeah, we have kind of a repetition of what's going on. In the day that God created, and this time, rather than the heavens and the Earth beginning from this kind of transcendent, uh, you know, million-foot view, God creates the Earth and the heavens. And so the order is, is reversed. So this is an- Hmm ... earlier, kind of more, uh, earthly-based conceptualization of creation, where the perspective, the scope is a little more limited, and then it expands out. But this, this is the exact same way of beginning the account that we see in Genesis 1, where we give a temporal clause, in the day of the creation of Earth and heavens- Hmm ... and then explain the circumstances that obtained at that time period. So I would suggest that Genesis 1 is patterned after, organizationally, the beginning of the creation account in Genesis 2, only whereas Genesis 2 says, "In the day that God created the Earth and the heavens," Genesis 1's got six days of creation, so they were probably like, "Ooh, we can't, we can't say day. What are we gonna say? Let's just say, 'In the beginning of...'" Uh-huh. And so they went with, "In the beginning of the creation of," uh, or, "God's creating heavens, the heavens and the Earth." So it's kind of a formulaic way of, uh, doing the same thing that, uh, Genesis 1 is doing.

Dan Beecher Yeah. After verse four, once we've started, uh, the Genesis 2 account of the creation- Mm-hmm ... so as you say, in the day when God, uh, made the Earth and the heavens, um, the Earth is barren because God has never caused it to rain. Mm-hmm. Um, interesting, a different relationship between, uh, w- with water in this one-

Dan McClellan Right ...

Dan Beecher it seems like. Yeah. In Earth and heavens, there's no mention of water being above the heavens or, or the heavens being, uh, having any relationship to water. Mm-hmm. And then King James has a mist arising. Um, NS, uh, NRSV has a stream rising up from the Earth.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Anyway, waters come, uh, but it comes from the Earth-

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm

Dan Beecher ... in both, in, in, in both of those, I'm, you know, I'm not gonna look. It's your job to know all of the translations. It does seem like the water doesn't come from the heavens at first. Right. It comes from the Earth. Is that correct?

Dan McClellan Yeah. The, so this is probably a reference to this idea of subterranean waters, the idea that the Earth is, is kind of floating above, uh, waters. And so this, the deity here is extracting the waters from the subterranean realms in order to kind of fertilize the Earth and l- Hmm ... allow everything to, to sprout and to grow. So there's, there's a sense in which it's appealing to this idea of deity as, as a, well, to the divine profile of the storm deity, the deity who has sovereignty over the thunder, the lightning, the rain, but also subterranean waters, and they're associated with fertility. They help things grow. And so this creation account is associated, according to more traditional source criticism, with what's called the Yahwist source, and that is a source that likes the divine name, the tetragrammaton, which we're gonna get into more detail in another segment. But, uh, that divine profile of Adonai, the tetragrammaton, is very closely associated with the concept of the, of the storm deity, the, the deity who controls the waters and, in that way, uh, provides fertility to the Earth.

Dan Beecher Interesting. Okay. Then now we finally get to humans- Mm-hmm ... and God gathers up some dust. The, he's the divine sculptor. Uh-huh. He, uh, he fashions a, a dude- Mm-hmm ... and, uh, blows, breathes the breath of life into his dust man.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Now this is, this is very interesting because this is sounding an awful lot like the creation of a divine image, which frequently they were made with clay, and that's what combining dust and, and water is, is gonna get you, is gonna get you clay. And there was a ritual. So we have variations on this ritual whereby the divine image is enlivened, and usually it has to do with allowing breath through the mouth. But here we've got the breath through the nostrils. Hmm. And this is parallel to what we saw in, uh, Genesis 1:26 and 27, where man is created in the image of, in the likeness of. And scholars are in pretty widespread agreement that this is talking about humanity as, in some sense, a divine image. And so the Genesis 2 account is kind of more explicitly framing the creation of humanity as the creation of a divine image with the breathing the breath of life, which is, is kind of communicating divine agency, uh, divine power, life into this creation made of clay. Hmm. And so there are a lot of resonances with the idea of the creation of divine images. And I, I would argue that this probably has to do with trying to disincentivize the use of divine images by saying, "Don't go worship those gods of wood and stone. Humanity is the divine image."

Dan Beecher So- Interesting. So worship, we should worship ourselves- Or ... is what you're saying. Or at least, um,

Dan McClellan don't go worship, uh, things made of, of wood and stone. Right. And, and this pops up in some later Jewish literature. For instance, the idea of the fall of Satan. One of the stories of the life of Adam and Eve, and particularly the Latin version of it, talks about how Satan was able to get the angels on his side, or at least a, a subset of them, by saying, "Hey, why do you keep worshiping Adam?" 'Cause he's the divine image. Well, you shouldn't be worshiping Adam. You should be worshiping God because humanity was created a little lower than the angels according to the Greek translation, uh, of one of the Psalms. Hmm. And so this idea of humanity as the image of God in the sense of a divine image, an idol, is something that we find popping up, uh, here and there in ancient Judaism.

Dan Beecher Well, that's very interesting. Uh, but we know that this, uh, dust man has not achieved all of the things of God- Nope ... because we're gonna get to that later. W- He, he takes another step in a little bit.

Dan McClellan Yep. Um,

Dan Beecher but, uh, as we move on through the, through the plan, uh, God creates a garden called Eden. Mm-hmm. Puts the man in there, makes the trees grow with fruit, uh, including two trees that are s- that are called out, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Mm-hmm.

Dan McClellan Uh, are those, are, are,

Dan Beecher are those new to this story? Are they unique to this story? Do they come, do those trees come up in imagery in, in other places? Do we know?

Dan McClellan So the idea of a tree of life is something that is closely associated with, uh, worship and temples in, in other societies. Trees were symbols of life 'cause a tree needed water to grow. And, you know, when their, um, when their foliage is out, they are indications that there are resources to sustain life somewhere nearby. And so frequently trees were associated with worship. And you have in Mesopotamia and elsewhere, uh, images of people sustaining themselves off of trees. Uh, and you even have, uh, an interesting illustration in, in some Egyptian texts of, uh, trees covered in breasts, and they, uh, basically breastfeed to sustain life and growth and- Interesting ... and things like that. Wow. So the idea of a tree of life is something that is, is, um, pretty widespread and can be found in a number of different societies. The idea of the tree of knowledge of good and evil is a little distinct, but the pursuit of knowledge is something that all societies center, uh- Sure ... consider important. And so it's not totally coming out of left field, but the symbols that are used are a little distinctive in the idea of the Garden of Eden. And, and additionally, the idea of, uh, a garden as like a temple, as a royal place for leisure and, uh, things like that, where a king or a human may be assigned to work as a gardener, that's also something that resonates with other traditions from Egypt, from Mesopotamia, uh, and from elsewhere. So we're still pulling from kind of the broader sociocultural matrix. We're still doing things that other societies around Israel does, but we're just kind of, uh, customizing it. Sure. We're just kind of making it our own in this story.

Dan Beecher Yeah. And a- as you point out, uh, man, this man, who does not receive a name yet, uh, is to tend to this garden. Uh, he can eat from every tree except the good and evil tree. Uh, and, and God is very clear that on that, i- if he eats from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he will die on that day. Yeah. That day he will die.

Dan McClellan Yeah, and that's a, that's a pretty odd kind of specification. On the very day-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... you eat of it, you will die.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Uh, especially odd considering, and I'm, I'm assuming pretty much everyone who's listening to this knows that he ends up eating the fruit

Dan McClellan He

Dan Beecher does not end up

Dan McClellan dying At least not yet. There- Right. Yeah ... there have been a number of ways that people have tried to renegotiate what's going on here, because it sounds an awful lot like, uh, the thing that God said didn't really happen, whereas the thing that the serpent said in chapter three, the serpent says two things, and we'll get to that in a moment. But there's a pretty good case to make that both of the things the serpent said were true, over and against the thing that God said not being true. Right. Now, it's a, it's a little squishy, it's a little fuzzy, but, um, but it does raise some interesting questions on what the authors are trying to do with the text.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Uh, I'm, I'm just gonna tr- push through, uh, this, the rest of this creation. I'll, I'll brush past the fact that, um, that the river that flows out of Eden goes to four- I assume that it's just sort of trying to come up with a, an origin story- Right ... for th- for these, these different, uh, geographical areas- Mm-hmm ... and, and different, uh, known rivers. So the, the man is lonely. God decides that the best way, uh, that God, that ma- the man needs

Dan McClellan a, a helpmeet

Dan Beecher or a- Mm-hmm ... a helper.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And

Dan Beecher makes a bunch of animals. Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah, so interestingly, the word here that we translate helpmeet, that comes from the King James Version. It's two words in Hebrew, and it's a helper that corresponds to. Right. Uh, and so, and, and the helper there does not necessarily mean somebody subordinate to. The, the same word is used to, as a reference to God in multiple different places. And so it's someone who's helping out, and here, it, this helper is, uh, is someone who corresponds to the man.

Dan Beecher And the first set of helpers th- that are attempted-

Dan McClellan Yeah ...

Dan Beecher are critters. Yes. We just, we just, we just p- put a bunch of critters out there. Yeah. The man has to name them all- Mm-hmm ... apparently. That doesn't work out. He's still bored. Yeah. Uh, so God creates this other helper. Now, is it the same wo- is this helper/helpmeet word the same word, uh, when, in u- in reference to the, the animals as it is in reference to the, the woman?

Dan McClellan Yeah, I think the idea is that the animals were a failed attempt to achieve this, um, helper who corresponds to. And, and there are some folks who argue that, um, you know, this was about sexual compatibility. And so, uh, I, I don't know that that makes a lot of sense, uh, here, that the animals were being create- created to see which one Adam fancied. But, um, but that is something that some people have, have argued. But yeah, the idea is, oh, that didn't work. Okay, we're gonna try again to achieve this, this, uh, corresponding helper.

Dan Beecher Right. Uh, but, uh, God doesn't use dust again. He yoinks a rib- ... out of the man. Mm-hmm. He calls in the divine anesthesiologist- ... and makes him go to sleep. Uh, then, uh, takes a rib, makes woman. The man is happy, satisfied. Mm-hmm. Uh, "This is, this at last is bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh." Mm-hmm. Uh, "This one shall be called woman, for out of man this one was taken." I don't- Yeah ... I'm a- I'm assuming that there's a reference to, uh, that, that there's a, a Hebrew thing that I don't understand about why woman is a relate- is related to out of man, but...

Dan McClellan Well, we, the, the Hebrew word for man is ish, and then for woman is ishah. Uh, and it, it seems like they may not actually be, uh, etymologically related, but-

Dan Beecher Oh, interesting

Dan McClellan ... so in a, in a sense, it's probably, uh, a bit of a folk etymology for- Okay ... why the two words are, uh, related.

Dan Beecher Interesting. Uh, and, and then, and then we close off with the fact that they're naked and totally okay with that.

Dan McClellan Yep.

Dan Beecher So, okay. Great. Thanks for, uh, thanks for that little inclusion there. Mm-hmm. Uh, and then we move on to Genesis 3. Yes. Um, and this may be w- you know, I'm, I'm, I'm pushing on my time here, but, uh, this is fascinating stuff. Uh, we start out with the serpent. Um, and you know, I was always taught in Sunday school that this was, this was the devil. Mm-hmm. But it doesn't seem to be. Uh, when I, I mean, it, it seems to just be one of the wild critters- Right ... in the garden.

Dan McClellan Yeah. The, the association of the serpent with Satan, with the devil, is something that we don't see until maybe the first century BCE, but more clearly the first century CE.

Dan Beecher Oh, wow.

Dan McClellan Prior to that, this is just a snake that's just- Okay ... slithering around. And the snake is a symbol that is associated with healing, with life, uh, and even with immortality in other stories. The famous story is Gilgamesh, who goes and he's gotta capture this flower in order to achieve mortality, and at the last second he's underwater getting, trying to get it, and a snake snatches it from him. Hmm. Uh, and there are other associations as well, and even today, um, medical associations, they, uh, the snake wrapped around the staff is, is a symbol of, uh, of healing. And we find that- Right ... in a number of other societies. And so, and we even see it in the book of Numbers with, uh, the, uh, symbol Nehushtan, which was the bronze serpent that Moses created in order to facilitate healing of everybody- Right ... who was bitten by serpents. So the, the symbolism of this serpent wi- uh, the association of this serpent with evil is something that develops much later. Here it is a symbol of perhaps craftiness, shrewdness, um, cleverness, something like that. So definitely not, uh, any Satan figure, which had not even developed yet.

Dan Beecher And I'm going to call a point of order on you. You said that this was just a snake slithering around, but- ... I don't think it was slithering around yet He was, he may have had legs. We don't know.

Dan McClellan Okay. You got me there. Yeah. There, there are illustrations of snakes with legs in some Egyptian texts.

Dan Beecher Oh, interesting. Um,

Dan McClellan and one of the, one of the, the curse on the serpent is that it will crawl around on his belly.

Dan Beecher That's right. Yeah. So we haven't gotten to, to a slithery snake yet.

Dan McClellan You got me. Uh,

Dan Beecher the snake says, uh, "Did God say you shall not eat from any tree in the garden?" And the woman... He's talking to the woman now. Mm-hmm. She doesn't have a name yet. The woman said, "We, we may eat of the fruit..." I'm at, what, what? I'm in the, uh, New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition now.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher I think we have to call out our editions- ... if we're, uh, when we're reading. Um, uh, so, so she says, "We, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden," but God said, "You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it or you shall die." And then the serpent's like, "Eh. Eh,

Dan McClellan no." That doesn't sound right.

Dan Beecher "In point of fact, you won't die. Uh, God knows that if you eat it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Mm-hmm. Uh, that's an interesting thing. I, frankly, of all the things that I associate with godly, godly powers, knowing what's good and bad doesn't seem high on my list. But it's, it seems high on their list.

Dan McClellan Well, yeah. And this is, this is something I talk about in my book, uh, Adonai's Divine Images. We're talking about here, we have two of the prototypical features of deity. One is having all knowledge, and within the cognitive science of religion, we refer to what's called strategic knowledge. So if you can access knowledge that helps you make any kind of decision you could possibly have to make in any given circumstance, that's pretty powerful stuff. That's what the gods have access to, which is why prophets exist. We need to go to the gods to help us make decisions, uh, because they have full access to strategic information. And so knowledge of good and evil, uh, it could be this idea of morality, knowing what's good and what's bad, but it could also be a merism, which is a fancy word for, um, naming the two ends of a spectrum as a way to include the whole spectrum. So it's the good, it's the evil, and it's everything in between.

Dan Beecher Okay. And so- That's interesting ...

Dan McClellan that would cover all knowl- It's kind of like saying, um, you know, the book What They Teach You at Harvard Business School, and the other book, What They Don't Teach You at Harvard- ... Business School, is the sum of all human knowledge. Um, and so- ... it's a way to say you're gonna get one step closer to deity by having all knowledge. Yeah. And then the other prototypical feature of deity would be immortality. An entity that has immortality and all knowledge, that's a god. And so- Right ... but it's interesting that the serpent presents God as kind of trying to hinder humanity. Humanity is in pursuit of more knowledge, longer life, immortality, and God's like, "No, no, no, no. Keep them away from there. We don't want that."

Dan Beecher Yeah, interesting. And also, we know that there's this other tree lurking somewhere around that would get them the rest of the way to- Yeah ... godhood.

Dan McClellan Well, it hasn't been mentioned yet. It,

Dan Beecher well, w- we're g- yeah, we're getting there. Yeah.

Dan McClellan All right. I mean,

Dan Beecher it was mentioned, uh, briefly in, in, uh, in chapter two, right? I think it was. Uh,

Dan McClellan does it talk about two trees? I thought it talked about-

Dan Beecher I think it talks about the tree of life and, and the tr- anyway. Okay. Uh, so eventually Eve decides, "Okay, this serpent seems on the level- Mm-hmm ... and I'm going to eat the fruit." Eats the fruit, doesn't die. Gives some to her husband, uh, who also doesn't die, but they suddenly know that they're naked.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Which means that the, the, the knowledge has happened, and somehow that nudity is inherently bad, and they've figured that out.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And this is, this is the, the loss of innocence. Um- Right ... and I, and I think it's interesting to note here, there are many translations that omit something from the Hebrew here. Oh. Um, 'cause it says that, uh, she ate the fruit, and then she gave some of the fruit to her husband, and the Hebrew has this preposition, "who was with her." Oh. Meaning Adam was there the whole time. Now, historically, there have been some translations that have just quietly omitted that "who was with her" phrase in order to kind of absolve Adam of responsibility-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... for, um, allowing, uh, Eve, or just standing by and not doing anything while Eve did what s- they both knew they were not supposed to do. So there's some, there's some oddities in the way this has been translated. Uh, and also the, the way Eve repeats the prohibition to the serpent is distinct from the way it was told to Adam, and we never ha- we never hear about God telling Eve about the story. So people wonder, did Adam tell her? Did God, she have some separate discussion with God? Why is the story different from what Adam was told? 'Cause Adam wasn't- Hmm ... told, "You can't even touch it." That's something- Right ... that only Eve brings up. So there are some aspects of this story that suggest maybe we're not getting the whole story. Maybe we've got a whittled down Reader's Digest version of this story, or maybe this was just a, a way to tell it, and, you know, there was a lot of, uh, a lot of stuff that's, was just in the, uh, in the air. You just had to know the background- Yeah ... in order to, to make sense of the story.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Indeed. All right. Well then, uh, they, they make fig leaf clothing. Uh, God starts poking around. They hear God tromping around in the garden, and they hide from him, and he calls out to them and, uh, and they kind of sheepishly go, "Um, we're not here." "Come back another time." To which God said, but- "Eve's not here, man." Uh, to which God says, uh- "Where are... Have you been eating the fruit? Did you eat the fruit?" Yeah. That they... Adam literally says, "Um, we're hiding because we're naked."

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher "And God says, 'Who told you you were naked?'" Yeah. "Well, how did you fi- how did you figure that out? Did you eat that fruit?" "Yeah, we ate the fruit. We ate the fruit. The serpent- Yeah ... tricked us." Uh-

Dan McClellan And this is, and, and I think there's some interesting details here that kind of rub against a lot of contemporary thinking about deity. The notion that deity is omniscient is kind of challenged by- Yeah ... God going, "Where are you? What are you doing? Hey, whoa, whoa. Did you do what I told you not to do?" And, you know, it, this can be rationalized as, oh, God's just kind of leading them on, wants them to, to tell the truth like we do with our kids. "Are you the one who wrote on the wall?" kind of stuff. But-

Dan Beecher Right, right, right

Dan McClellan ... um, but without the assumption that God has to know all things, it kind of presents a deity who does not have all knowledge, um, and is, is really finding these things out. And I think verse 22 is an indication of that. We have, in verse five, the serpent says, uh, you know, "You will not die, but you will be like," and I think your translation says, "like God, knowing good and evil." Mm. Could just as easily be translated like the gods knowing good- Mm ... and evil, 'cause that word for knowing there is a participle that's plural. And-

Dan Beecher Oh, interesting ...

Dan McClellan in verse 22, God then turns to somebody and says, "The man has become like one of us." So we've got another one of those plural references. Yeah. And so becoming like one of us suggests that the serpent's statement, "You will be like the gods," was perfectly accurate. This wasn't a lie. This came true, and, and God is kind of surprised by this and says, "Oh, crap, we need to lock that door- ... or else they're gonna- Yeah. And, and I looked it up. Yeah, the, it does mention the tree of life earlier. So he's gotta go shut that down because if they take from the tree of life, they have become gods. And for some reason- Right ... in this story, that's the last thing God wants.

Dan Beecher Yeah. That's, that's no good. No. That's no good. So everybody gets punished. Everybody was naughty, so the we, we take away the serpent's legs, and he's gotta slither on the ground. Woman has to have painful childbirth, and everybody's kicked out of the garden. Mm-hmm. Uh, so and then the garden is, uh, guarded by a dude with a flaming sword. Right. A cherubim. What's a cherubim?

Dan McClellan So, um, cherubim is a, uh, a word that is plural and- Oh ... basically refers to kind of guardian hybrid animals. We s- this is what's, uh, depicted in some ancient Egyptian and some ancient Mesopotamian, uh, iconography and even some sculptures. Basically, it was, it was like a, uh, a lion with wings and kind of a human-like face. Nice. And so we, we see these things depicted in a bunch of different places, and sometimes they guard the entrance to sacred spaces like temples, and other times they, um, sit on either side of the throne. They are kind of like the armrest for a throne. And we see both of these things in the Hebrew Bible where they guard the entrance to go to the Garden of Eden, and then they are also, um, on either side of the Ark of the Covenant, which is represented as a divine throne elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible.

Dan Beecher Right. Well, so if you see a lion with wings and the face of a person and they have a flaming sword, try to sneak past, 'cause that's where- ... the Tree of Life is, and if you eat from that, you'll be able to live forever.

Dan McClellan Now, now you're making me think of, uh, The NeverEnding Story and trying to get past the-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... the oracles.

Dan Beecher That's right. That's right. All right. Well, that, I think that's a good start. We're, uh, we're, we're in it. Yeah. We're, we're, we're, we've, we've waded into, uh, one of the forks of the river and, uh, and, and, and we're started. So thanks, Dan. Uh-

Dan McClellan Thank you

Dan Beecher ... let's move on to our next segment.

Dan McClellan Hey, everybody. Welcome to our segment, What Does That Mean? And- Yeah. ... this is a segment where we're gonna try and lay some groundwork for the future of this podcast by describing some of the academic consensuses, some of the background, some of the stuff that we're gonna refer back to regularly as we talk about the Hebrew Bible and the academic study of the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, um, and s- religion in general. And so today, I wanna talk about the divine name Adonai. Now, as a bit of a, um, an introduction to how I talk about this, I'm not gonna pronounce the name as it has, the pronunciation has been reconstructed by scholars. In entirely academic settings, I will use that pronunciation. That is spelled Y-A-H-W-E-H. But, uh, as an accommodation to those of our listeners or viewers who are sensitive to the pronunciation of that name, I have offered to, in my social media, not pronounce that. So I'm gonna say Adonai, and when you hear Adonai, that's the Hebrew word for Lord. That is a substitution for the divine name. I will occasionally refer to it as the tetragrammaton, which means the four letters, Yod He Vav He, which is presented as the personal name of the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible. Now-

Dan Beecher And it's only four letters, just to be, just to clarify, it's only four letters because Hebrew doesn't, uh, include vowel letters. Is that correct?

Dan McClellan In the writing, vowels, uh, were not historically included, and if you go to Israel today, the newspapers and the signs and everything don't, don't have any vowels on them. But in the Hebrew Bible, in an effort to try to be more precise about how things were pronounced and what things meant, there were a number of scribes who, uh, created a system of vowels, uh, dots and dashes and things that went below, within, or above- certo- certain letters. So if you go look at a critical edition of the Hebrew Bible, you'll see the vowels in there. But yes, uh, Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh is the consonants of the divine name, and the vowels were not written, and it-- we're not exactly sure precisely how it was pronounced, but scholars have a good idea how, uh, it was probably reconstructed, and we'll talk a little bit about that in just a second. But where does the divine name come from? What does it mean? And what are the origins of the deity who possesses that name? The earliest references we have to a deity that goes by that name, the Tetragrammaton, Adonai, come from the second half of the ninth century BCE, so about 850 BCE, uh, probably down to a few m- years before 800 BCE. And those three inscriptions are the Mesha Inscription, the Tel Dan Inscription, and the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III. And these are actually not from, um, Israelite authors. The Mesha Inscription was written by King Mesha, a Moabite. The Tel Dan Inscription was written by an Aramean ruler, and the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III is a product of a, an Assyrian, uh, ruler. And the Mesha Inscription refers directly to the God of Israel as Adonai in talking about, uh, one of their battles between Moab and Israel that may correspond in some way to some of the battles that are discussed in the early chapters of the Book of 2 Kings. And they talk about, or, uh, Mesha boasts about carting off the vessels of Adonai and dragging them before, uh, his deity, his patron deity, uh, in Moab. And then we have discussion of, uh, some of the kings of, uh, Israel and specifically of the Omride dynasty. So that's one of the earliest references. We don't have a direct reference to the deity themselves in the other two inscriptions, but what we do have are references to Israelite or Judahite kings who have names that have Yahwistic theophoric elements. So theophoric elements just means a part of your name that refers to a s- deity by name or with some noun that means God or something like that. So Dan, you and I, I assume your full name is Daniel. Um- It is ... just like me, and that is Daniyel in Hebrew. It means God is my judge, and the last two letters, E-L, El, are the Hebrew word for God. So that would be the theophoric element. And so the kings that are referred to in the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III and the Tel Dan Inscription have Yahwistic theophoric elements. And if the ruler of the nation consistently has this deity's name in their name, it's an indication that deity was probably pretty important, uh, within that nation. So Adonai was probably the patron deity of the nation of Israel by the time of these inscriptions, uh, around the middle to the end of the ninth century BCE. Now, this is actually a few centuries after, uh, our earliest reference to a people known as Israel. We have from around the year 1208 BCE in an inscription from Egypt, uh, that was commissioned by, uh, a king named Merneptah that refers to Israel, and it carries a, what's called a determinative, which is kind of like a, a category sign that refers to this Israel as a people, not a nation, not a city-state, not a city, but a people, which indicates that they probably weren't an established nation by this time period, but there was some kind of band or coalition or federation of people known as Israel. And that- The People's Judea Front.