Is Allie Beth Stuckey a Sheep or a Goat?

Dan McClellan We're back to this new right-wing authoritarian talking point. Wait a minute, the problem is empathy because Jesus was big on being like, "Oh, don't go too far. Love your neighbor, but don't go nuts."

Dan Beecher Don't be crazy about it.

Dan McClellan That's just irrational. Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan And you're listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast, 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 are things today, Dan?

Dan Beecher Things are great. I'm very grateful that Aaron was able to show up last week- Yeah ... and help us out.

Dan McClellan Appreciate Aaron stepping in, coming in clutch there while I was out of town in Boston and New York. I'm walking here as everyone traditionally says, when they're crossing the street in New York City.

Dan Beecher Yes. I assume that a car almost hit you, and then you slammed the hood, as is the tradition.

Dan McClellan Yes. As you know, when in Rome, as they say.

Dan Beecher Yeah. I'll ask you more about that. This is a little teaser. I'll ask you more about your trip, and we'll hear some fun tales in the patrons-only content- Yes ... in the afterparty of this very episode. So maybe now would be a good time for people to sign up over on Patreon.

Dan McClellan Yeah, get in on that sweet, sweet...

Dan Beecher What?

Dan McClellan It's been two weeks since I've done a podcast, Yeah. You're not- Get in on that sweet, sweet after-party action.

Dan Beecher Yeah, man.

Dan McClellan Oof.

Dan Beecher Okay. We'll get it. We'll get back into the swing of it someday.

Dan McClellan Yeah, it's a work in progress.

Dan Beecher It won't be today. I'm looking forward to the show today. We've got a couple things that we're talking about. First, we're going to be taking issue. Look, I don't know if you, Dan, have been checking in with the news at all lately, but people have been talking- Been trying to avoid it ... people have been talking a little bit about immigration.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher You and I have talked about it on the show several times, but we got a different angle, a different thing to talk about. We're going to launch from something that we saw from one Miss Allie Beth Stuckey.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher So that'll be fun to chat about that. And then in the second half of the show, we've got an Artifacts and Fiction, and it's one that I haven't heard about, but it looks really interesting.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Just some fun pieces of paper that were found in the middle of a river.

Dan McClellan Yes. On an island in the middle of a river. Islands in the stream.

Dan Beecher Yeah. That is what we are. This one has a name that everybody pronounces differently, depending on- Did you see me deftly avoiding trying to say the name of the island in the river? Because that's what I was trying to do. We will have to get to the name of that island when we get there, but the papyri that come therefrom are the real crux of what we're getting to.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And I'm excited to talk about it. But first, Taking Issue. So what do we take an issue with? We're taking issue with Allie Beth Stuckey, as I said, who made a video that irked and rankled you.

Dan McClellan Irked and rankled a handful of folks.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Myself among them, yes. Because there's been debate about immigration, about a lot of the cracking down on immigration, some of the draconian measures that are being taken in order to slake this identity marker of brutalizing the foreigner, because that's what helps people maintain their grip on power. But we've had some folks who are large content creators on social media, on TikTok, on Instagram, elsewhere, who have not traditionally waded into biblical debates, who in response to a lot of the folks who are rah-rahing the separating of families, and the snatching people off the streets by unnamed, masked somebodies, and shipping them off to gulags in other nations- Yeah ... without due process. And people have begun to share passages from the Bible, including passages from Matthew 25. There's a parable there in Matthew 25 that is generally known as the parable of the sheep and the goats.

Dan Beecher And- Now, this is not our first- Foray into this parable?

Dan McClellan ...

Dan Beecher encounter with Matthew 25.

Dan McClellan New.

Dan Beecher The parable of the talents immediately precedes this particular thing, and I want to just quickly, I was reading about this, and I'm going to take a little bit of issue with you categorizing this as a parable, because it actually doesn't fit that mold perfectly. It's generally just more of a, "Here's what's going to happen." It's a simile more than anything.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher Do you know- That's fair ... do you understand the distinction that I'm making?

Dan McClellan Because it's- Yes ...

Dan Beecher literally just saying what's going to happen.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And I think when you look at allegory versus simile versus parable versus metaphor, they bleed into each other a little bit.

Dan Beecher Sure.

Dan McClellan Absolutely. But yeah. I can let that go.

Dan Beecher I'm not married to the identification- Look, I was just trying to keep in the theme of taking issue. So I took issue with that. We're fine. Let's move on. Because yeah, what it has to say, at least on the surface- When I read it, it feels pretty straightforward.

Dan McClellan Well, it's talking about the judgment of the nations.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan In verse 31, we begin, "When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people, one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats." Thus, the title of the thing.

Dan Beecher The parable or non-parable of the sheep and the goats.

Dan McClellan And the sheep are on the right hand, and the goats are on the left, as the great poet once said.

Dan Beecher Sheep go to Heaven- The great poet being Matthew 25, in this case.

Dan McClellan Well, I was going to say, isn't it Cake who sings, "Sheep go to Heaven, goats go to Hell?"

Dan Beecher Oh, I don't know. It is weird.

Dan McClellan The separation- Yeah, it's Cake ...

Dan Beecher clearly in that time, sheep and goats- Yeah ... were a big deal, and sheep were good, and apparently goats were bad.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Why do you keep goats then?

Dan McClellan Anyway. And then we have the king who says something that is evidently a little more cryptic than a lot of people think. "The king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.'" And this word for stranger is xenos in Greek, which is where we get xenophobia.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan It means a foreigner, an alien, a stranger, somebody who comes from somewhere else that we don't know. "I was naked and you gave me clothing. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me. And the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.'" And then he says the opposite to the goats who are on the left. "You didn't do this, and therefore, you are going to the bad place."

Dan Beecher You're very naughty goats.

Dan McClellan Yes. And what Ally Beth Stuckey argues in response to a content creator who is reading this passage and says, "Wow, that sounds like Jesus is pretty liberal to me." Mm-hmm. And Ally Beth Stuckey says, "Tsk, tsk." The phrase, "The least of these brothers and sisters of mine," or, "The least of these my brethren," is I think how the King James Version-- Yes, "The least of these my brethren," is how the King James Version words it. It's masculine plural in Greek, but in mixed company, you would always default to the masculine. So this- Right ... could be a mixed group. And Ally Beth Stuckey says, "No, no, this refers to persecuted Christians. Not to all the poor of the world, not to all the persecuted of the world. Only Christians who are persecuted for the name of Jesus."

Dan Beecher And lest you, listener at home, think that Dan is somehow exaggerating, no, she very specifically says, "No, not the poor of the world." She is explicit about this.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher So Dan, he who speaks the ancient Greek and can read it and all that sort of thing, who's right here? What is she basing that on?

Dan McClellan Well, this is interpretive. The Greek doesn't hold up a sign and say, "This is the correct interpretation." You've got to read it in context. And we have other passages where Jesus seems to talk about brothers and sisters as those who are followers of him.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And so the interpretation that is traditional, that goes back to early Christianity, and was the most prominent interpretation all the way up until probably the last century or two, has been that this does refer to Christians. And the other interpretation that has become more popular in the last century or two is that this refers to anybody and everybody out there in the world.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan So the more recent interpretation is the slightly more egalitarian, slightly less ethnocentric interpretation that a lot of people argue resonates more with things like the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Dan Beecher Resonates- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan more with the love your neighbor. Resonates more with a lot of Jesus' other messaging related to how we're supposed to treat other people. But I think based on the use of references to my brothers, and my brothers and sisters, and things like that from elsewhere in the Gospels and including the Gospel of Matthew, I think there's probably a good case to make that this is a reference to the followers of Jesus, because this is about the final judgment. This is about the people who are going to inherit the kingdom of God. And so I think that this non-parable, or what have you, may be saying, "Hey, if you're a follower of Jesus, you've got to be treating everybody the way you would treat Jesus."

Dan Beecher Yeah. Can I just hang up on the brother-sister thing- Yeah ... just for a minute? What's the passage where someone asks Jesus, "Who is my brother?" Or like who- "Who is my neighbor?" Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan Okay. So that's the parable- So that is a different word.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Yes. That's the lawyer wanting to prove himself asks- That's right ... "Yeah, well, who is my neighbor?" Because he wants to restrict the scope- Of his responsibility to care for others. And I think that that's probably what's going on with this rather callous response to the interpretation of Matthew 25 as a manifestation of a rather liberal outlook.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So even though I think that there's a good case to make that this passage is probably referring to Christians, I don't think that lets Ali Beth Stuckey off the hook for two reasons.

Dan Beecher No.

Dan McClellan Okay. And the first reason has to do with the fact that she's drawing an even smaller circle.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan She's not just saying Christians, she's saying persecuted Christians, and she seems to be making it about Christians who are persecuted because they're Christians.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And that would be a very small circle indeed. That would- Yeah.

Dan Beecher Well, what's ironic is she probably includes herself in that.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher But no.

Dan McClellan Yeah. If you're- All the people in the White House, half the people- Right ... in Congress, these are the persecuted, the lowly of the world.

Dan Beecher Right. I got bad news for her because if you live in the United States of America, you are not a persecuted Christian.

Dan McClellan Yeah, and particularly not for being a Christian.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So that is a very small circle indeed. But I think there's a reason that she's trying to draw the circle that small, and the reason is that when we consider what this is about, this is about the Trump administration violating the constitutional and the human rights of not just undocumented immigrants, but asylum seekers, legal immigrants- Yeah ... and even US citizens. Denying them due process, violating their rights, brutalizing them, stoking chaos and fear, terrorizing people to try to terrorize them into submission to this fascist agenda. The people on the receiving end of this are overwhelmingly Christians.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan Yeah. There have been lots of studies going on, on the religious identities of migrating groups around the world, because you have trends where people are leaving one country and entering other countries, and that kind of stuff. And a lot of this research, when it's looking at who's coming into the United States and who's being targeted, who is at risk of deportation under Trump's policies, the estimates place them at about 75% to 85% Christians.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan In fact, one group, and I would have to look up the combination of groups that produce this report, it's not liberals, it's like a council of Catholic bishops- Right.

Dan Beecher Okay ...

Dan McClellan and an evangelical group, and all this. They came up with a report, and they said that one in 12 Christians in the United States, you just look at everybody in the United States, you whittle it down to the Christians, one in 12 Christians is at risk of deportation because of Trump's policies.

Dan Beecher Wow.

Dan McClellan Almost 10% of the Christians in the United States are at risk of deportation because of what Trump is doing. So if these are not the stranger, if these are not the xenos, if these are not the ones in prison- Right ... that this non-parable is telling you, if you want to be on the right hand, you better go visit them. You better welcome them.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan You better give them clothing. You better give them food. You better give them something to drink. If you're taking that seriously, then these are those folks.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan That is who is being targeted right now.

Dan Beecher Even if you're going with the interpretation that this only means Christians- Right ... you're still in trouble. That's not where you want to be.

Dan McClellan Yeah. I don't know if Stuckey realizes this and then is intentionally trying to say, "Oh, well, I'm going to interpret it as Christians who are persecuted Christians because they're Christians."

Dan Beecher Because- Right ...

Dan McClellan that would then allow her to paint all those folks outside of that circle.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan "We're not persecuting you because of your Christianity, persecuting you because of the color of your skin and the nation that you came from."

Dan Beecher But I- Right.

Dan McClellan Or your persecution in your other country- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher back in Venezuela or whatever, doesn't count because it wasn't persecution because you're a Christian.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher It was persecution because of X, Y, and Z factors in that country.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher And- And therefore, we don't have to shelter you, and we don't have to be kind to you.

Dan McClellan Yeah. This is a, you are not my neighbor- Right ... kind of reading of this passage. But when we look at verses 35 and 36, "I was hungry, I was thirsty, I was a stranger, I was naked, I was sick, I was in prison." This is not people who are persecuted because they are Christians. These are just people who are fallen on hard times- Yeah ... for whatever reason. Because this is- Who need help ... about a variety of different socioeconomic problems. Sickness, thirst, hunger, being a foreigner, being in prison. These are not signs of somebody who's been persecuted specifically because they're Christian. So I don't buy that reading. I think that is a particularly callous reading that is doing precisely what Jesus repeatedly said in the New Testament, "Stop doing that." Which is precisely trying to justify yourself by saying, "Yeah, well, who's my neighbor?"

Dan Beecher Yeah. It does seem like we talk about the context. It seems like the greater context of Jesus's message- Even if he's using different words, neighbor versus brother, whatever, it does seem like every time he talks about a foreigner, every time he talks about a stranger in need, he's very clear. You open the door, you help this person.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher But I think that you are being disingenuous to accuse Ali Beth Stuckey of being somehow mean. You're saying that the author of the book "Toxic Empathy" is somehow not being kind to other people in the world? How dare you, sir?

Dan McClellan Yes. We're back to this new right-wing authoritarian talking point. Wait a minute, the problem is empathy because Jesus was big on being like, "Oh, don't go too far."

Dan Beecher Yeah. Reel it back, you guys.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher You went way overboard with kindness- Yeah ... and caring of other people. Just dial that back a lot.

Dan McClellan Love your neighbor, but don't go nuts.

Dan Beecher Don't be crazy about it.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Don't be nuts.

Dan McClellan That's just irrational.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And here is the other part of this argument that I think is bafflingly stupid.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Because what the argument is, is, "Hey, it's great to do these things, but not at the expense of law and order or peace."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan God is a God of order and of peace and all this kind of stuff. But what baffles me, and it's always like, but that doesn't justify getting rid of border laws and open borders and illegal immigration. And what baffles me is that nobody's arguing, as far as I can tell, maybe there are some folks out there, in fact, I'm sure there are some folks out there. But as far as I can tell, the person that she's responding to in that video, the overwhelming majority of the folks that I have seen comment on this on social media are not saying, "Get rid of all immigration laws."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan "Get rid of all enforcement of immigration laws. Let everybody in. Don't you dare kick anyone out, irrespective of what crimes they commit."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan I don't see anybody saying that. What I see people saying is we can enforce these laws, which by the way, there's not a ton at stake.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan If you overstay a visa, that's not even a criminal offense. That's a civil offense.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan That's like a parking ticket.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan If you cross the border without documentation and you're not seeking asylum, if you're seeking asylum, you can get into the country any way you want, whether you- Yeah.

Dan Beecher Or rather, you're supposed to be able to.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher You should be able to just show up- According to US law- Right ...

Dan McClellan you are allowed to, which is a point I will come back around to.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan But you can show up anywhere, at a border crossing, crossing the border somewhere else. If you are seeking asylum, it is legal to do that. But even if you do cross the border without documentation and climb over Trump's fence like six-year-olds can do- ... that's a criminal offense, but it's a misdemeanor.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan The notion that we should be snatching people off the streets, hurling them into vans, and sending them to the gulag for a misdemeanor- Right ... is pretty Machiavellian.

Dan Beecher It's like the least violent crime available. It is just literally walking.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It is the crime of climbing, or whatever.

Dan McClellan Wait, you're here, and you're not supposed to be here.

Dan Beecher Right. Where- Not only is it not a violent crime, but they love to talk about criminals. These are criminals.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Other than the crime of actually crossing the border without documentation, we have data on this. We know that actually, the immigrant population is far less criminally minded- Oh, yeah ... and commits far less crime- Yes ... than native-born people.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher We want these people in our country.

Dan McClellan We- You're safer around undocumented immigrants- They're safer ... than native-born Americans ...

Dan Beecher We are doing better with them here.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And so people are not saying, "Let's get rid of the laws. We're advocating for lawlessness."

Dan Beecher No.

Dan McClellan We can enforce all of these laws- Yeah ... without breaking up families- Yeah ... without brutalizing people, without trying to terrorize them so that they will stop trying to get into the country. That's the concern.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan When people are quoting scripture, people are quoting Leviticus 19:33 and 34, or quoting the whatever of the sheep and the goats, it's not because they're advocating for lawlessness, it's because they're recognizing we can enforce this without being jerks about it. We can enforce it without hurting people. We can enforce these things appropriately without cracking down on immigration, without demonizing and dehumanizing and violating the constitutional rights of these folks.

Dan Beecher And to- Yeah. And to be clear, they have constitutional rights, too.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Oh, yeah. You don't have to be born here to have... Our Constitution protects every person within our borders.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Every single one of them.

Dan McClellan Due process is guaranteed to every person who is- Right ... within the United States.

Dan Beecher Right. Can I just quickly, since you mentioned it, let's jump to Leviticus 19.

Dan McClellan Ooh, yeah, Leviticus 19.

Dan Beecher Because you skimmed over it, so- Yes ... let's hit it.

Dan McClellan And- 33 and 34 ... importantly, because here's where some people get into the Hebrew, and they're like, "Oh, I know the Hebrew," and are just flat out lying. So 33 and 34. And the NRSV uses the word alien there.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan This is a term of art in the Hebrew Bible, and so it gets translated weird ways. A resident foreigner is how the NET translates it. But 33 and 34 say, "When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien." "The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the native-born among you. You shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. I am Adonai your God."

Dan Beecher Yeah, that's pretty unambiguous if you ask me.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It does not leave a lot of room for interpretation.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Except I'm sure that they find room for interpretation.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So what do they say?

Dan McClellan So you've got a noun and a verb here. The noun is 'ger,' and it is related to the verb 'gur.'

Dan Beecher And what they say is that- I feel like you're making it up now. Just be ger and gur. Come on, do better.

Dan McClellan You just- ...

Dan Beecher come up with more interesting ones.

Dan McClellan The argument, and there was a video I responded to where somebody quoted the NIV, where it says the foreigner resides with you in your land. And this content creator was like, "Well, the word you changed there was gur, and that means sojourner, and you changed it to resides." And one, you're arguing it's a noun, it's a verb. And two, they were quoting directly from the NIV. They didn't change anything. But what they insisted this meant was somebody who was residing in the land with permission and legally.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan They retroject this notion of immigration laws into the Bible as if everybody who traveled on camelback or whatever into another nation had a border crossing where somebody was like, "Papers, let's see your papers." That didn't exist in that time period.

Dan Beecher Well, the whole concept of immigration law is really new, very recent.

Dan McClellan Surprisingly recent, yeah.

Dan Beecher In the whole world.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It just was invented recently.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher In the last 120, I don't know, couple hundred years, few hundred years.

Dan McClellan Well, in the United States, the closest we come to an immigration law is probably, and there was a, oh, shoot, I forget what it was called. There was an act in 1790. I forget what it was called, but basically it said that the only people that could become citizens were freeborn White people.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So that's the earliest thing we could refer to as an immigration law, but that was just about citizenship. That wasn't even about just coming into the country. For almost 100 years after that, anybody could just come into the country. But I think it is important to point out that our immigration laws are founded on White supremacy.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And then we get to 1882 where we get the Chinese Exclusion Act, which is self-explanatory.

Dan Beecher Yeah. It was well-named.

Dan McClellan Yes. It's a bad act- It was accurate, yeah ...

Dan Beecher but it was named correctly.

Dan McClellan Somebody, I hope they got their flowers for coming up with a name- ... that really honed in on the substance of the act. But that was the first time that they started saying, "Hey, we want to keep certain people out."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan The laws were precisely about saying, "These are undesirable people."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Not just anyone who's outside of our country, but specifically you.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And then in the 1920s, we get a bunch of acts that are saying, "Okay, we're going to have quotas on how many people we're going to take from every country." And if you were from Northern or Western Europe, you got a higher quota.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan If you were from Southern or Eastern Europe, or heaven help you, Asia or Africa, your quotas were significantly less. So still, it was White supremacy.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan But this is only 100 years ago when we started establishing the immigration laws as we know them today. But I want to circle back to the thing I said I would circle back to.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan When it comes to lawlessness, when it comes to obeying the law, the primary violators of the law right now are the Trump administration.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan Violating the constitutional rights, violating due process, and talking about changing the law.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Talking about trying to find ways to deport US citizens. Talking about how they, "Oh, we don't need to obey all of this stuff." Even the Department of Homeland Security has been excoriated in hearings for even their spending is illegal.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Congress has allocated funds that they're not using, which is against the law, and instead, they're reallocating those funds to other things, which is against the law, and they're going to run out of money well before the end of the fiscal year, which is against the law. So, excuse me. The notion that we need to violate all these constitutional rights and break all these laws in order to brutalize folks who are committing civil offenses or misdemeanors because they're breaking the law- Yeah ... is just profoundly stupid.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan There's not another word for it. It is dumb, this argument.

Dan Beecher And the fact that the argument is being made by people like Stucky and people who are trying to come at it from a, quote unquote, "from a Christian perspective," when there are verses like the Leviticus verses- Mm-hmm ... where it's just so clear. "When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress them." That's just so clear. That's just so easy.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And it's literally like you say, it's what our laws require. Non-oppressive treatment is a whole thing. But not anymore.

Dan McClellan I don't know.

Dan Beecher Maybe that's gone now.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So I get particularly annoyed when people try to leverage their faith and their reading of the Bible to endorse and justify and excuse hurting people.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Like going out of their way to hurt people. Significantly increasing the deficit and the debt in order to hurt people.

Dan Beecher Right. Like- Well, remind me which scripture it was where Jesus said that the cruelty is the point. I'm pretty sure he must have said that at some point, because that seems to be the guiding principle of the Trump administration's immigration policy.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Well, and if we're talking about the Gospel of Matthew, there's a Hebrew Bible scripture that is quoted no less than two times just in the Gospel of Matthew itself, and that's Hosea 6:6, where Jesus repeatedly says, "I will have mercy and not sacrifice." And in one of those passages, he tells the people, "Go and learn what that means." And in another passage, he excoriates people for focusing on the minutia of the law in ways that advance their social standing, and then says, "They ignore the weightier matters of the law," which have to do with justice, with righteousness, with equity.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan With people having equal access in society. And a lot of people don't think equity was a concept back then. It 100% was, because just like the framers of our Constitution, the folks who were writing the Gospels and parts of the Hebrew Bible knew that the last thing you wanted was an unstable society.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Because that led to rebellion. That led to uprising, that led to instability, and so they always emphasize the need for equity. Doesn't mean that there is no rich, and there is no poor, but it means that you are providing for everybody: the widow, the orphan, the poor, the oppressed, the foreigner. They all have mechanisms within society that allow them to get what they need.

Dan Beecher Well, I think that is a good summary of why the Trump administration is bad, and Ally Bank Stucky- ... can go Stucky herself. That could be misinterpreted. Let's pretend I didn't say it, and move on- ... to our next thing, which is Artifacts and Fiction. And this particular Artifacts and Fiction, we're talking about... You say the name. You say the name of this island. I'm not going to say it first.

Dan McClellan Okay. So I say Elephantine.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan I have heard Elephantiny. I have heard Elephantine.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan I have not heard Elephantine in reference to the island. I have heard that as an adjective.

Dan Beecher Right. And that is not what we're... It's the same word. It is spelled exactly the same as the adjective.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher But this is an island in the Nile in southern Egypt.

Dan McClellan And I will tell you the Greek transliteration. I don't know if the Greek is a transliteration of Coptic or what, but the Greek is Elephantini.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So that's why I go with Elephantini, because I think that's the closest.

Dan Beecher So- All right ...

Dan McClellan but that's just me. Don't take my word for it.

Dan Beecher We will make that the official pronunciation of the island- ... for this episode of the show, and then people can feel free to comment their various and sundry other pronunciations.

Dan McClellan Fair enough.

Dan Beecher Okay, we're talking about an island in the middle of the Nile.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher Why? Why are we talking about this island? What is special about it?

Dan McClellan Because it looks like an elephant. No, because it is- This is the location of an ancient Jewish temple. So this is a place where there was a Jewish garrison. There was a Jewish group of some kind that lived there in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. So between- Wow ... around 500 BCE down to in the 300s BCE. There were Jewish folks who lived on this island, and there was a temple there. And this is- And that's a big deal, right? Because- That's a big deal ...

Dan Beecher they weren't supposed to have temples outside of Jerusalem, were they?

Dan McClellan Well, according to the Deuteronomistic literature, which probably hadn't been written yet.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan Because these groups were probably Jewish folks who, during the 7th century, leading up to the Babylonian exile, probably were like, "Yo, this party's dead anyway. We're going to bounce." And they dipped on out of there and probably made their way into Egypt and down the Nile, or up the Nile, depending on how you look at it- Up or down, yeah ... to Elephantine, which is by Aswan. It is right by the Upper Nile.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And set up shop there. And at some point, they seem to have created a temple down there, and they were making all kinds of offerings. And we've discovered hundreds of papyri, of texts- Mm ... from in and around this place, a lot of them in Aramaic, a lot of them related to the Jewish community that was located there. And there's one reference to something that seems like it could be about a Passover- Hmm.

Dan Beecher Celebration.

Dan McClellan Okay. However, it does not seem to line up with how Passover is represented in the Book of Exodus.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Which suggests that when these people came down here, when they left the land of Judah and came down here, they probably didn't have the Torah. They probably didn't have any part of the Torah. They probably had knowledge of some kind of festival that would later become written into this narrative as the Passover, and would have all these rules and regulations about it, that, by the way, are themselves inconsistent from one book to another in the Torah. But they don't show any awareness of the Torah and the specific laws and legislation, and including the Deuteronomistic literature, which is where- And you said that this was what time period?

Dan Beecher This was fourth and fifth century BCE?

Dan McClellan So fifth and fourth century BCE is when we have a lot of these texts from.

Dan Beecher Okay. And- So, and presumably, my understanding was that the tradition is that the Torah came from long before then.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Probably not.

Dan McClellan Probably not.

Dan Beecher Okay. The- Was the discovery of these papyri one of the major reasons why we think probably not? It certainly- Or is this just supporting evidence?

Dan McClellan It's supporting evidence.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan But scholars have been hypothesizing for a while that the Pentateuch, the Torah, the first five books of Moses, probably came together piecemeal over the course of several centuries, and probably did not come together as a single collection of texts until fifth or fourth century CE is kind of a traditional dating, but these days- Oh, wow. Yeah, so we have the Priestly literature, which is probably post-exilic. It's probably coming from the late sixth or the early fifth century BCE. Deuteronomy was the earliest layers probably were brought together at the end of the seventh century BCE. You have other traditions that are probably from earlier and other traditions that are from later. But in light of what we have from Elephantine and in light of other evidence that suggests we don't have widespread awareness of the legislation of the Torah, much less enforcement of that legislation, until the middle of the second century BCE. So there are some scholars, Yonatan Adler is one of them, for instance, who just published a book called "The Origins of Judaism." He argues it seems likely that the Maccabean Revolts, the Hasmonean dynasty that was established with the Maccabean Revolt, with taking back over the temple, with rededicating the temple in the 160s BCE, the creation of that kingdom was probably the period at which they were like, "Hey, let's use these texts. Let's make everybody aware of them. Let's use this as an identity marker, as a way to circle the wagons around our ethnos, around our people, and create this people group." So you have arguments that understand the Pentateuch, the Torah, to be disseminated somewhere between maybe the fifth century BCE down to the middle of the second century BCE. And so it was not pre-exilic. It was definitely- Wow ... post-exilic. And because the people who occupied Elephantine probably left the land of Israel and Judah prior to the exile, they just were not aware of it.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And there are a couple of other interesting things about this. So first of all, we have this temple, which gets destroyed. Probably around 410 BCE, you have locals, Egyptians, who are upset and have the temple in Elephantine destroyed. And we have some letters that people wrote that were sent to Jerusalem, to Judah. There was a Persian governor of this region, and these letters are written to them saying, "Hey, we're petitioning you to allow us to rebuild our temple, because we know that Judah is in charge of our customs, our traditions. We want permission."

Dan Beecher So- Interesting ...

Dan McClellan a guy named Yedania, or Yedania or Jedania, if you like, who in one of the letters does not identify himself as a member of the priestly class. But in a revised version of the same letter, we actually have multiple different copies of some of these letters, where they're scratching stuff out and writing new stuff in and all that kind of stuff. In another one, he identifies himself as a priest, and then you have the Judeans or the Judahites or the Jews of Elephantine writing to Bagavaya, or Bagoyas, I think, or Bogyes or something. There are a few different versions of this name that we find in Josephus and the Elephantine stuff. But this is somebody who probably around 407 BCE was the Persian-installed head of Judea. They write this letter, "To our lord Bagavaya, governor of Judah, your servants Jedaniah and his colleagues, the priests who are in Elephantine, the fortress." And tells the story, "In the month of Tammuz, year 14 of Darius the king, when Arsarnes had departed and gone to the king, the priests of Khnum, the god, who are in Elephantine, the fortress, in agreement with Vedrangha, who was chief here, said, 'The temple of Adonai, the god which is in Elephantine, the fortress, let them remove from there.'" And so they go and demolish the temple.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan And so this letter is saying, "Now your servants Jedaniah or Jedaniah and his colleagues and the Jews, all of them citizens of Elephantine, thus say, 'If to our Lord it is good, take thought of that temple, to rebuild it, since they do not let us rebuild it. Regard your obligees and your friends who are here in Egypt. May a letter from you be sent to them about the Temple of Adonai, the God, to rebuild it in Elephantine, the fortress, just as it had been built formerly.'" And we have a couple different copies of this letter, and then we have another letter that is an offer of payment for reconstructing the temple, where Jedaniah or Jedaniah, son of Gemaria by name, and then you've got a bunch of other names, Mausi, son of Nathan, Shemaiah, son of Haggai, Hosea, son of Jotham, Hosea, son of Natum. You got all these people who are basically saying, "Let us pay to reconstruct the temple." And it seems like they were allowed to rebuild the temple. This is the conclusion of, I think, the majority of the scholars, because we have another letter that was written in a later time period, where somebody's talking about, "Oh, I had this house and I gave it to my..." It's basically this legal document, where somebody's complaining about a contract or something like that. And they're describing where the house is, and then they describe it in one part as, "West of it is the temple of Adonai, and the street- Okay ... of the king is between them." So a later letter seems to identify the temple of Adonai as presumably a functional building.

Dan Beecher And when you say Adonai, just to clarify, in this case, we are talking about the Tetragrammaton?

Dan McClellan Well, kinda. The consonants are YHW, so three of the four letters of the Tetragrammaton.

Dan Beecher The trigrammaton?

Dan McClellan Yes. There's an even more interesting letter, in my opinion.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan It's not a letter, it's an oath text.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So, we have someone who, there was an ass. It was a good ass. It was a donkey.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan And somebody had ownership of it, and someone else was like, "Hey, I'll give you money for half ownership, in exchange for this other donkey," or something like that.

Dan Beecher They even- We're time-sharing on donkeys now?

Dan McClellan Is that- Yeah.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Yeah. It was two weeks on and- Sure ... and then, you know. And it was really hard to get out of this contract. But the person who was offered this deal, they evidently never closed the deal, and that guy died, and then his son showed up and was like, "Hey, I want my half of the ass." And so this person had to go into court, and they had to swear an oath saying that this deal was never closed.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And it says, "The oath which Menahem, son of Shallum, son of Hushaha swore," or will swear, "to Meshulam, son of Nathan, by," and then we have some divine names, "Herem, the god, by the place of prostration, and by Anat Yahw," which seems to be the combination of the feminine divine name Anat and the trigrammaton.

Dan Beecher Wow.

Dan McClellan Which is not unknown, because we sometimes see Anat paired with Bethel, which is another name of a deity. We see Anat-Bethel, which some people think is just the name of the female version, some people think is the divine pairing. Whatever the case, we've got one of these Jewish folks, who has a very Jewish name, Menahem, who is swearing by not only a foreign deity named Herem, according to the reconstruction of this text, but is also swearing by Anat Yahw- Wow ... which would seem to be a divine pairing, a divine couple.

Dan Beecher Huh.

Dan McClellan God and God's wife, who is not Asherah here, but Anat, perhaps by analogy with this Anat Bethel divine pair.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So, this group is a not orthodox group according to what we have in the Hebrew Bible. But if they bounced prior to Josiah's reforms, then it would've maybe been perfectly natural for them to be worshiping Adonai alongside Adonai's consort, partner, or wife. And so maybe Anat Yahw or Anat Adonai was somebody they took with them or was a development of the divine pair that originally was Asherah and- Right ...

Dan Beecher Adonai.

Dan McClellan Or maybe Asherah was with El and these people left before even the conflation of Adonai and El.

Dan Beecher Huh.

Dan McClellan We don't know for sure, but it's such a tantalizing little datum that we- Yeah ... have these texts that attest to these practices and these dogmas that don't fit what the later-developed Pentateuch would require followers of the Bible do. And there's so much research that is being conducted. Elephantine is such a fascinating location, and there are books by, I've got friends who have published books on Elephantine. In fact, there's I'm trying to remember the name of the book. I can't remember. But we have a friend of mine named Colin Cornell, who works a lot with deities in ancient Southwest Asia, wrote a paper called "Elephantine Trespasses: Theological Arguments in Recent Religion History." That is about what these texts might tell us about the religiosity of the Jewish folks who were located at Elephantine. But I think it's cool stuff.

Dan Beecher It would be tempting to say that these people isolated themselves, and therefore, you can't conclude anything because they are isolates, they are different, and whatever. But the fact that they're writing back to Judah, it seems like there was definitely transmission between the old culture and themselves.

Dan McClellan Yeah. This wasn't a Blue Lagoon thing where they were like, "There are more of us out there?" They definitely know headquarters is in Judah.

Dan Beecher Yeah.