Saul didn’t genocide ENOUGH?

Dan McClellan Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan 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 are things today, Dan?

Dan Beecher I got my combat boots on and I'm ready to go.

Dan McClellan And they're made for walking and combating.

Dan Beecher And combating. But misinformation combating. They would be useless- Yes ... as boots on the ground in a war theater.

Dan McClellan But- Yes ...

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Dan McClellan I am struggling to speak the way I have spent the last, oh, 30 years of my life speaking, because I have a new accoutrement that is- Yes.

Dan Beecher You are newly adorned.

Dan McClellan Yes. I have invisible aligners on my teeth because I have decided I've been self-conscious about this for long enough, I'm just going to get them straightened out, and was not prepared for... My brain must have just blocked out the memory of how awful it was to have somebody attach stuff to my teeth and just be like, "All right, we'll see you in a year or so."

Dan Beecher "I'm just going to wrench these and- Yeah ... make you deeply uncomfortable, and then we'll chat later."

Dan McClellan Yeah. So I got them put on a day and a half ago, and so I'm still not used to this, and still not used to speaking with these things in my mouth. So if I sputter and spit and trip over my words, that's the main reason why. So apologies to all our listeners.

Dan Beecher And if I do that, I have no excuse.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

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Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher Well, applications will be accepted wherever, in the comment section or something. Anyway, we got a crazy one today. We're dipping our toes in some controversial waters.

Dan McClellan Going to get heavy.

Dan Beecher Yeah. It's going to get heavy. It's going to be crazy. It's just a chapter and verse.

Dan McClellan We're just talking about a Bible story from the Hebrew Bible.

Dan Beecher We do that all the time, but this one has echoed through history into the now times, and is being invoked in a way that you're going to tell me how scared I should be about this invocation of this story. Just so that we don't bury the lead too much, it is an invocation by a man named Netanyahu.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher All right. So let's just do it. Let's- Let's do it ... do this chapter and verse.

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher So, the chapter and verse is about the character of Amalek.

Dan McClellan 1 Samuel 15 is going to be about the people of Amalek.

Dan Beecher Sure.

Dan McClellan But yes, the- Oh, yes.

Dan Beecher Well, and- ...

Dan McClellan the people of Amalek take their name from a character.

Dan Beecher A person, right.

Dan McClellan A person. An individual as it were, or as it really wasn't, but- As it was written.

Dan Beecher As it is written to have been, yes.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher So who was Amalek and who are the people?

Dan McClellan So we have two occurrences of the name Amalek in the Book of Genesis, specifically in chapter 36 of the Book of Genesis. We have Timna, who was a concubine of Eliphaz, and this is Esau's son.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So of Esau fame.

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan And she bore Amalek to Eliphaz. And then, these were the sons of Adah, Esau's wife, and then it goes on from there. And then we have Korah, Gatam, and Amalek are the clans of Eliphaz in the land of Edom, and they are the sons of Adah.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan That should be sufficient groundwork to lay our scene in- Yeah.

Dan Beecher It's hard for me to follow all of that, because I don't know who the good guys and the bad guys are in the begats.

Dan McClellan But- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher presumably Amalek is just descended from people.

Dan McClellan Yes. Well, Amalek was a grandson of- Of Esau ... Esau, right. And Esau is the brother of Jacob.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And there's bad blood for a little bit between Jacob and Esau. There's the famous story of him coming, he's got to cross the Jabbok River, and he's going to meet up with Esau again. He's afraid Esau's going to try and kill him. Esau really misses him, and it's a whole story. It's a whole thing. It's a whole thing. But Esau becomes the ancestors of the Edomites and other peoples.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so Amalek immediately is non-Israelite, obviously, and is an other. But the main kind of Chokepoint of the friction with Amalek occurs in Exodus 17. So this is where the Israelites, they have come out of Egypt, they're making their way toward the land, and then we have this famous story in Rephidim, where the children of Amalek, the Amalekites or Amalekites, come and fight against Israel. And this is a story where as long as Moses and Aaron and Hur were on the top of the hill, and as long as Moses had his hands up, the Israelites were defeating Amalek.

Dan Beecher Oh, right.

Dan McClellan But if he dropped them, then the Amalekites were defeating Israel, and so Hur and Aaron had to prop up an arm on each side for Moses, and that way they defeat Amalek. Now, this event sticks in the craw of Israel.

Dan Beecher Yeah, it's a real sore spot.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It's one of those sore spots where they tell their children and their children's children about it sort of thing.

Dan McClellan Yeah. They are uniquely upset about Amalek having attacked them, even though they're getting ready to go attack everybody. And Exodus 17:14, "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Write this as a remembrance in a book and recite it in the hearing of Joshua.

Dan Beecher I...'"

Dan McClellan And this is important, "I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven."

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan So God is promising to blot out the memory of Amalek, and this is a big deal.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And we're going to get to 1 Samuel 15, but there's another story in Deuteronomy 25. You have a handful of commands, and then you have a handful of verses where out of nowhere, Moses, the author of Deuteronomy, presumably, haven't looked into it.

Dan Beecher Anyway, out of nowhere, verse seven- I feel that you have looked into it.

Dan McClellan We're moving past that.

Dan Beecher I think there's something you're not telling us, Dan.

Dan McClellan Where in verse 17 it says, "Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey out of Egypt, how he attacked you on the way when you were faint and weary, and struck down all who lagged behind you. He did not fear God. Therefore, when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies on every hand, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget."

Dan Beecher So- I love the idea of, "You shall blot out the remembrance, and don't forget."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher "Remember what Amalek did, and then blot out the remembrance of Amalek."

Dan McClellan Well, this is- Yeah ... this is one of the things where a lot of folks will say, "We're supposed to forget Amalek, but remember what Amalek did." And so it's kind of a maybe you need some kind of code name then- Right ... so you don't remember. Like we- And this is not unheard of. The divine name.

Dan Beecher Oh, right.

Dan McClellan We don't know how it was pronounced.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan We know it's a name. We have the letters. We forgot how to pronounce it. So it's not like this is an impossible thing, but yeah, it is every time they say to forget Amalek, they mention Amalek.

Dan Beecher So- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan it's not like the one guy, you know who I'm talking about. The guy with the thing who did the thing.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah. We don't remember his name anymore, but we remember this dude did some gnarly stuff to us.

Dan Beecher So- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan so the campaign of blotting out remembrance is off to a rocky start.

Dan Beecher Or at very least, a confusing start.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And that brings us, I think, to 1 Samuel 17, where we have Samuel going to Saul. He's anointing him king.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And, "The Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel. Now therefore listen to the words of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did in opposing the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and attack Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.'"

Dan Beecher That's a lot.

Dan McClellan That is- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher very extreme.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher I feel like it's a bit much, to be perfectly honest with you.

Dan McClellan Yeah. This is commanding not just genocide, but even all of their property.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Even all their livestock. And there's a name for this.

Dan Beecher This is herem.

Dan McClellan Okay. And this is a kind of ritual slaughter, but not just ritual slaughter for the sake of ritual slaughter. Ritual slaughter as a means of purifying the land.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan It's like human sacrifice, and there's a reason it has to be everybody, because there's a sense in which you are deleting the bloodline because you understand the bloodline to be contaminated.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so it's a means of removing the people from the land so that the land can be purged of that evil and be wholly sanctified.

Dan Beecher And to be clear, sorry, I suddenly just realized that it keeps using the word Amalek, but it means the nation of Amalek. We're not talking about- Yes ...

Dan McClellan the guy.

Dan Beecher The guy is long since dead.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And we're well after that. Even the Exodus stuff is not talking about- Yes ... the guy Amalek. It's talking about the nation of Amalek.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And in the Hebrew, it kind of toggles around between referring to Amalek and the people of Ammon, or the sons of Amalek, not Ammon, excuse me.

Dan Beecher Woo.

Dan McClellan The people of Amalek or the sons of Amalek. So, you'll see Amalekites sometimes in translation. Other times you'll see Amalek.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So, Saul gets the people, 200,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 soldiers of Judah, comes to the city of the Amalekites to lay in wait in the valley. And then you have this little aside where Saul somehow says to the Kenites, "Withdraw from among the Amalekites, or I will destroy you with them. For you showed kindness to all the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt." So the Kenites withdrew from the Amalekites. And there's a theory- Okay.

Dan Beecher Yeah. That's an interesting thing to... Did he have walkie-talkies that would- ...

Dan McClellan all the Kenites are on one frequency and...

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And the thing is, there's a theory that, the Kenite-Midianite hypothesis is one iteration of this theory, that the people of Israel, at least in the Exodus story, seem to have some kind of close relationship with Midianites and Kenites. And the Kenites are supposed to be the ancestors of Cain.

Dan Beecher Oh, you mean the descendants of Cain?

Dan McClellan Excuse me.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan I get the direction mixed up occasionally. But, yeah, the descendants of Cain. But they have some kind of close relationship with Moses. Like Moses' father-in-law was a Midianite priest.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so, the Kenites and the Midianites are somehow connected. So here we have kind of this nod to the notion that we're friends with the Kenites, so we're going to let the Kenites go. So anyway, the Kenites bounce. Saul defeats the Amalekites from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt, and then he takes King Agag of the Amalekites alive, but utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. And in the Hebrew, this is the causative form of the verb haram, which is related to the noun herem. And so Saul does this and spared Agag, and took the best of the sheep and the cattle and the fatted calves and the lambs and all that was valuable and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless, they utterly destroyed. And so- Uh-oh ... that is not what he was told to do.

Dan Beecher You were specifically told to destroy- Yes ... all of the everythings. So, I don't know what's... So now we're in trouble.

Dan McClellan Yes. And then the word of the Lord comes to Samuel. I don't know if Saul made it back to the camp yet or if Samuel is just getting this revelation. He's like, "Oh, no, I got a call coming in." This can't be good.

Dan Beecher Samuel's working out at the gym and suddenly hears a beep.

Dan McClellan And then God says, "I regret that I made Saul king." And he's like, "Oh, man."

Dan Beecher Son of a...

Dan McClellan "For he has turned back from following me and has not carried out my commands. Samuel was angry, and he cried out to the Lord all night." So he rises early in the morning to meet Saul and then- I invested in this guy.

Dan Beecher Come on, man.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And Samuel was told, "Saul went to Carmel, where he set up a monument for himself, and on returning, he passed on down to Gilgal. Samuel came to Saul. Saul said to him, 'May you be blessed by the Lord. I have carried out the command of the Lord.'" "But Samuel said, 'What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears and the lowing of cattle that I hear?'"

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.

Dan McClellan And Saul says, "They brought them from the Amalekites. For the people spared the best of the sheep and the cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God. But the rest we have utterly destroyed." Then Samuel said to Saul, "Stop. I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night." He replied, "Speak." Samuel said, "Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel, and the Lord sent you on a mission and said, 'Go utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.' Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?" Now Saul defends himself. He's like, "No, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I even got their king, and I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites." And then Samuel says, "Yeah, but you took the sheep and the cattle. You took the best things." And Samuel then gives a little poem. "Has the Lord as great..." Because whenever the boss breaks out the poetry, you know something- Yeah, exactly ... something bad is happening.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "To obey is better than sacrifice." It's a famous verse that we get here. And the poem evidently convinces Saul that he was wrong, and he says, "I have sinned, I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. I pray, pardon my sin. Return with me so that I may worship the Lord." And Samuel says, "Nuh-uh, not going to do it. Wouldn't be prudent. I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel." So Samuel turns to go, gives him the cold shoulder.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And Saul grabs his robe, and it tears. The hem of his robe tears. And Samuel, you can see Samuel pausing and kind of glancing down over his shoulder because he realizes he's torn the hem of his robe and he goes, "The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this very day." As a, like this is an apropos symbol.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "And has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you."

Dan Beecher Oh, no. Dun-dun-dun.

Dan McClellan Yes. And Saul again says, "I have sinned, yet honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel." And, yeah.

Dan Beecher There you go.

Dan McClellan Samuel turned away. Saul worshiped the Lord. Then Samuel says, "Bring me Agag."

Dan Beecher And they bring him Agag and says- "Bring me Agag" could be a line from a very different story, but that's- We'll just go with Agag, the king of the Amalekites.

Dan McClellan Yeah, Saul was like, "Whoa, hey now, hey now." And but they bring the king of the Amalekites and he's got this very metal line where he says, "Surely death is bitter." And then Samuel says, "As your sword has made women childless, so your mother shall be childless among women. Hack, hack, hack. Stab, stab, stab."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Saw, saw, saw. It says that Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So this was back when the prophets were real men, when they took the dismemberment- They took matters into their own hands. Yeah, they took the dismemberment of their enemies into their own hands- Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yikes ...

Dan McClellan before the Lord, because this evidently is what the Lord enjoys seeing according to this narrative.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So anyway, and Samuel never sees Saul again until the day of his death.

Dan Beecher Wow.

Dan McClellan So, Saul was like, "Yeah, we'll take some sheep, we'll take some cattle. We'll go, but to make it good and legit, we'll offer them as sacrifices to God, and we'll bring the king and we'll do what we please with the king," and thought that was a good idea, and nope.

Dan Beecher That was- It went badly.

Dan McClellan Yes. And that is what results in David being anointed king.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher That's right.

Dan McClellan So if you ever wondered why was Saul rejected as king, why did David take his place? It's because he was given the command to commit genocide and didn't do it well enough.

Dan Beecher Didn't go all the way.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher He kept one guy and a bunch of livestock and- Yeah ... that was his undoing.

Dan McClellan And oddly enough, though, by the end of the story, all of the Amalekites are dead because they killed everybody but the king.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And it's really the cattle and the livestock that are at issue. That are the problem.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And the king doesn't survive. Samuel hacks him up. So, technically the genocide worked- Yeah ... until you get to the end of the Book of 1 Samuel.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Because in 1 Samuel, chapter 30, we have David now who's in charge. David and his men come to Ziklag on the third day.

Dan Beecher Good name.

Dan McClellan The Amalekites had made a raid on the Negev and on Ziklag. They had attacked Ziklag and burned it down and taken captive the women and all who were in it.

Dan Beecher Okay. So- I see a problem.

Dan McClellan Yes. The Amalekites are around.

Dan Beecher They're fine.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And in numbers great enough to do some attacking. It's not just like three.

Dan McClellan Yeah. It's not this plucky band of survivors that hid in a- That put on some Kenite clothes and snuck away.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah. This is a war-capable people.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And this is something that apologists have to deal with. But they get a two-for-one when it comes to this. The apologetic argument is twofold.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Because you get this criticism. This is a God who commands genocide and gets upset when you don't adequately genocide other people.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan But then the Amalekites are back, and the same thing happens in the Book of Joshua. Chapters 10 and 11 are like God commands to go slaughter all of these towns of the Canaanites and leave nothing alive that breathes. And it rattles off the names of some places like Lachish and some other names and says, yeah, they left no survivors. Killed everybody.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Right. Over and over again. Killed everybody. No survivors. And then a half a chapter later, it's like, "So anyway, all these towns hadn't been conquered yet." It's like, wait a minute, we just went and killed everybody and left no survivors in those towns. So there are a couple different places where we have commands for genocide that are not necessarily right next to, but are near references to those people who were supposed to have been genocided still being around. And don't even bring up the fact that they just barely survived.

Dan Beecher It's like- Right ...

Dan McClellan yeah, they were around. And so for the apologists, the idea is, okay, well, we got to negotiate between the two. They both have to be true because we are presupposing univocality.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan We can't say, well, one was just propaganda. They didn't get it right. The other one is the true one. You can't do that. That's not allowed. So how do you do that? You make up a scholarly development, a scholarly conclusion.

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan You say that scholars have discovered that the references to killing every man, woman, child, and cattle and sheep and ox and donkey is actually this common ancient Near Eastern wartime rhetoric that is really just a way to refer to complete victory. To say, "We left no survivors. We killed everything that breathed," is just a way to say we won the battle.

Dan Beecher And that way- I mean, yeah, that's a hell of an exaggeration, but okay.

Dan McClellan Yes. It is hyperbolic- Yeah ... wartime rhetoric, and that way you can have your cake after you have already eaten it.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan You can say, well, the text is technically true because it's just rhetorical. Everybody who heard it or read it would've known, oh, this just means they won the battle.

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.

Dan McClellan And the texts that say these people were still around are also true. And so you get to preserve univocality, and also you dodge the accusation of a genocidal God.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And the only problem is that that claim is entirely fabricated.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan It doesn't have any support. This is not some ancient West Asian literary convention where you say, "Oh yeah, we totally genocided them and killed every man, woman, and child among them and left no survivors, and we killed everything that breathed." Yeah, that's just not how that worked. And you can see elsewhere, because Israel goes to battle a number of times in the Pentateuch and in Joshua and Judges and Samuel and Kings, and sometimes they lose the battles, but frequently they win the battles, and the narrator, for whatever reason, doesn't feel it necessary to say, "And we killed every man living- Right ... woman, and child, and left nothing alive that breathed, and we..." Most of the time that Israel wins a battle, they don't feel the need to say that. It's only in the context of this herem, in this ritual slaughter really, in the commands for genocide, that we see that as the description of what they were supposed to do and what they did. So, it's a rather silly apologetic argument. But what we do have here is a lot of bad blood for Amalek, which unfortunately survives down to today.

Dan Beecher Yeah. I was going to say, we teased something. We got to swing it back around to that.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And that is the line that Benjamin Netanyahu has used many times, several times since October 7th a few years back when the first bombs started dropping in the Israel and Palestine war.

Dan McClellan Yeah, there was the terrorist attack on October 7th- Right ... 2023, I believe it was. And then in response, you have Hamas described as, or equated with Amalek. And then more recently, we have seen Netanyahu say that, "We read in this week's Torah portion, 'Remember what Amalek did to you.' We remember, and we act," in response to Iran- Right ... attacking Israel. And so we have the prime minister of the modern nation of Israel comparing Hamas, and depending on how you look at it, maybe all of Gaza- Right ... or maybe Palestinians, and Iran to Amalek. Now, to be clear, there's no indication whatsoever that any of them have any relationship to any people that ever actually existed named Amalek.

Dan Beecher So- Well, there shouldn't be any more people named- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan Amalek. Yeah, there shouldn't. And so the identification is definitely a rhetorical thing.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan There's not actually any literal relationship there. And so it's a very disturbing identification because it's basically saying we need to wipe out every last man, woman, and child of these people.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Or at the very least, that is a valid interpretation of what... That is a way that you can interpret that phrasing and that invocation.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher I know that the Prime Minister's office came out and said, "Well, what a preposterous thing. Why would you ever possibly associate the Prime Minister bringing up Amalek in this way with total annihilation of an enemy?" And it's just like, okay. I think we've all read the same Bible here. We know what happened to the Amalekites. What are you talking about?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher But I think there is sort of some plausible deniability in that they basically just say, no, it's a reference to when the Amalekites attacked Israel, or rather than when the Israelites attacked them back later on or something.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And I don't know the significance of just doing the remember thing.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Because that's what he said. "We read in this week's Torah portion, 'Remember what Amalek did to you.' We remember, and we act." Well, it just happened. This came immediately after the attack, and then- Right ... he told IDF soldiers, "You must remember what Amalek has done to you," says our Holy Bible. And we do remember. But the other part of it, and this comes in a pair.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It's not only remember, it's also blot out the memory of that people. And to appeal to one without the other seems kind of silly- Yeah ... in my opinion. To say, "Well, we must remember." It's like, well, this just happened. Remembering is not the issue- Right ...

Dan Beecher here.

Dan McClellan And Israel, in the Hebrew Bible, has a number of enemies that attack them Why is this one the one that gets called to the front of the classroom?

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Why is this the one that you must remember? It is pretty significant that this is also the one where God says, "I will blot them out," and where we get the command to kill every man and woman, every child and infant. And there are an awful lot of people who specialize in genocide and in geopolitics who say there is a good case to make that this is an attempt at genocide.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Well, the Gaza thing, yes.

Dan McClellan The Gaza, yeah. Specifically Gaza.

Dan Beecher Iran- The Iran thing remains to be seen, what Netanyahu has in store for Iran. But I do have to say that regardless, even if we were to take him at his office's word that he didn't mean to invoke a genocidal idea with bringing up Amalek, just framing it in a holy war and scriptural context is basically asking his people to give him carte blanche because he is blessed by God to do whatever it is that he's doing.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher That's what he's asking for.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And that's pretty creepy, too.

Dan McClellan And it is appealing to the notion that the people on the other side of this are enemies to God.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And I think that's phenomenally dangerous. Anytime we try to equate these wars, these battles with the side of God versus the side of God's enemies, I think we are raising the stakes to a dangerous level.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan To the level where we can dehumanize the other side, and we can excuse all manner of atrocity.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And we see that kind of thing all the time.

Dan Beecher 100%.

Dan McClellan It's gross.

Dan Beecher It's not good. But it's an interesting Bible story. Well, Dan, I don't know about you, but I'm just going to say it, I'm opposed to genocide, basically in all of its forms, ancient and modern.

Dan McClellan Yes. That, I believe, is the official position of the Data Over Dogma podcast.

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan Long held and immovable.

Dan Beecher Yes, indeed.

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher Well, if you would like to become a part of keeping this thing going and helping us out and also get access to the afterparty and an ad-free version of every episode, you can go over to patreon.com/dataoverdogma and sign up. Give us a little bit of your money, and it'll go a long way, and we really, really appreciate those who do. Thanks so much to Roger Gowdy for editing the show, to J.J. Neward for being our producer, and thanks to all you all for tuning in.

Dan McClellan Bye, everybody.