Sister wives
It's a lie! This week we're looking at a very odd falsehood in the Bible. And the really weird part is that it's told multiple times, by multiple important biblical people, including the grand-daddy of the biblical lineage himself, Abraham. Then, we'll look an interesting little bit of home decor from biblical times. Teraphim seem to be little humanoid icons that folks kept around the house, but what was the purpose of them? Were they small? Big? Both? Were they decorative art pieces, or important religious oracles? Or maybe just dolls for the kids? Dr. Dan will walk us through it!
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Dan Beecher I would say that God was the master of mixed messaging.
Dan McClellan "I'm going to kill you- Yeah ...
Dan Beecher if you don't let her go." "I didn't do anything." "I know, because I stopped you."
Dan McClellan Yeah. Bit of a narcissist.
Dan Beecher Okay, then keep... Just keep stopping me then. What are you doing?
Dan McClellan 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 good.
Dan McClellan Good.
Dan Beecher It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher And we are going to be looking at some very weird stuff- ... in the Bible, and I'm excited about it.
Dan McClellan Awesome.
Dan Beecher In the first half, we're going to be talking about, we're taking issue in the first one.
Dan McClellan There we go.
Dan Beecher The taking issue is specifically about lying about your wife being your sister? Question mark?
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher I don't know. It's a weird one.
Dan McClellan It seems to be a habit on the part of some folks.
Dan Beecher Yeah. It's a family tradition by the time we get through things.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher And then in the second half of the show, we're going with what is that, and we're talking about something that your text to me auto-corrected as seraphim- ... but it's not that, it's teraphim.
Dan McClellan Yes. Isn't that a light chicken gravy that you- Oh, it's delicious. That's a callback to Three Amigos, by the way. But moving on. Yeah, teraphim.
Dan Beecher I'm excited about that.
Dan McClellan So, let's start this off with taking issue.
Dan Beecher All right. And as we said before, we're taking issue with lying and saying that your wife is your sister.
Dan McClellan Yes.
Dan Beecher It happens multiple times, and it's very confusing to me. So, let's start in Genesis 12, and this is Abram or Avram and- Mm-hmm ...
Dan McClellan Saraih.
Dan Beecher We're not yet Abraham and Sarah yet.
Dan McClellan Yeah, Sarai.
Dan Beecher Sarai.
Dan McClellan That's right. So, there's a famine in the land, as is the wont of that particular land.
Dan Beecher Sure.
Dan McClellan So, they head down to- It's famine prone.
Dan Beecher Yes.
Dan McClellan They head down to Egypt, to gare, to sojourn, to reside there. The famine was very severe in the land. When they're about to get to Egypt and Abram pulls over and he's like, "Look, sweetie," and the NRSVUE has him say, "I know well that you are a woman beautiful in appearance."
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan "And when the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife.' Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say you are my sister so that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared on your account." We don't get anything by way of response from Sarai. She's not really an independent agent in this narrative. But that's exactly what happens.
Dan Beecher Which is weird because this has big implications for her.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher It's not like this is just, "Hey, tell a quick white lie, and we'll all be good."
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher This becomes very meaningful in her life.
Dan McClellan Yeah. You would think she would've been like, "Well, wait a minute."
Dan Beecher "Hang on."
Dan McClellan "Doesn't that mean they're going to all be pursuing me?"
Dan Beecher Can this be a discussion? Because I feel like- Yeah ... you're just dictating something that maybe I need to be a part of. And what a weird thing. Is there any explanation or do we have a reason to believe that people would be fine with him having a hot sister, but murder him if he has a hot wife? What's going on here?
Dan McClellan Yeah. Well, I think it's something that a lot of men, particularly members of the male loneliness epidemic these days, a lot of them fantasize about being able to get with some celebrity or another, and then if they find out she's married, all of a sudden they're disappointed, as if this actually ruined some plans they had for the future. And certainly, they develop resentment for- Yeah ... the spouse of this person that they really had the hots for. And so you can imagine that anciently, if a guy comes into town with a hot wife, that there would be people who would be like, "Wow, she's really hot. Let's just get rid of her husband," and then- It might be worth killing him- Yeah ...
Dan Beecher so we can have her.
Dan McClellan Whereas- If there's brother and sister, they're like, "Oh, he's not a threat," and they don't have to kill him.
Dan Beecher But it turns out that it's not just that, because the Pharaoh apparently finds out about this new, exceedingly beautiful woman.
Dan McClellan Yes.
Dan Beecher If this went all the way to the Pharaoh- ... that is a crazy beautiful woman.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher And Pharaoh decides, "Oh, I need her. I will take her as my wife." And Abraham seems to go along with it, question mark?
Dan McClellan Yeah. Polygamy is normative in this time period, but for two different men to be sharing the same wife is problematic. Abraham seems to be like, "Well, let's just see where this goes."
Dan Beecher And- Look, I'm not going to say he's wrong now.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher I've already been saying, "You're my sister."
Dan McClellan This is- Yeah. Like, "If they were going to kill me before, they're going to kill me twice as much now."
Dan Beecher So- "They'll kill me extra now."
Dan McClellan Yeah. And the Pharaoh is very nice to Abram. For her sake, he dealt well with Abram, and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male and female slaves. Female donkeys and camels.
Dan Beecher I literally, when I read that, I did a . Wait, we're not done with donkeys? It was just so weird. Why are we separating male and female donkeys with male and...
Dan McClellan Like- Yeah ...
Dan Beecher male donkeys, male and female slaves, and then also female donkeys. It just seems- Yeah, just wanted to, we needed to circle back to this because I almost forgot about the female donkeys. It's not great writing.
Dan McClellan We got those, too.
Dan Beecher Yeah. But, one sympathizes. At that point, you had to write everything longhand, and frankly- Yeah ... if you've skipped a thing, you're not going to- Yeah ... go back and edit. You don't have Microsoft Word at your disposal, so.
Dan McClellan Yeah. I could see them being like, "Damn track changes. I cannot figure this out."
Dan Beecher Where is find and replace on this papyrus or whatever?
Dan McClellan And then, verse 17 says, "The Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife," which is odd because presumably God knows that Abraham is lying to them.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan So Pharaoh doesn't know what's going on. And Pharaoh calls Abram and said, "What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?" And we've got no explanation of how he discovered this.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan It's just that suddenly, the dice started rolling against Pharaoh, and he's like, "Wait a minute. This is his wife." And then goes and instead of actually just, "Ah," sword in the chest- Right ... he's like, "What are you doing to me, man? Why did you say she is my sister so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and be gone." So he just dismisses him.
Dan Beecher Yeah. I think you're right that killing Abraham would've been the easier path on all of this.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher I mean, Abraham's the liar. Pharaoh didn't do anything wrong. But God seems to be punishing Pharaoh for a sin he didn't even know. This is a very Oedipal moment. You're committing a sin you don't even know you're committing, and yet you're going to be the one that's punished. I think that- Yes ... that's a sketchy take.
Dan McClellan Yeah, almost Kafkaesque.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan It's like, "I didn't ask to wake up in these circumstances. What is going on here?" And maybe Pharaoh is like, "Well, God is breathing down my neck, so maybe I'm just going to be a little hands-off with this dude. I'm not going to run him through," as probably was his wont in that time period for folks who deceived him and- Yeah ... caused trouble. But Pharaoh gives his men orders concerning him, and they set him on the way with his wife and all that he had.
Dan Beecher So Abram got kicked out of Egypt for- And apparently, this is a scam that actually works great for them because they walk away- ... with all those sheep and oxen and male and female donkeys and slaves.
Dan McClellan They rolled.
Dan Beecher They made out like bandits- Yeah, and- ... on this front ...
Dan McClellan and they come up, and they come into the land of Canaan. And this is what leads us into somebody kidnaps Lot, and he's got to go to war with these five kings. And then we get the Melchizedek episode, and it keeps repeating that Abraham is a wealthy dude. And it does seem like Abram's enriched somewhat by his time in Egypt. And you can imagine Abram being like, "Should I just keep all of this stuff? We'll go. We'll go. We'll go."
Dan Beecher And- Yeah. You don't ask. You just say, "Okay, we're going." Yeah, you just say, "Okay." And then you just tell your slaves to gather up all of your donkeys and- Yeah.
Dan McClellan Let's just- I need this. I'm taking this. That's all I need. That's all I need.
Dan Beecher And apparently, the scam works so... Now, it is interesting. You just made me think that maybe, I feel like there's a lot of etiologies contained in these stories- Oh, yeah ... a lot of explanations of... So now, what you just said made me think that maybe this story is the etiology for why Abraham is suddenly wealthy, why the story has now become that he is a rich person.
Dan McClellan Hmm.
Dan Beecher And it's just the trip to Egypt was the origin story of his wealth.
Dan McClellan It could be because we've got toward the end of Genesis 11, verse 31, "Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot, son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram's wife, and they went out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, and they settled there." And then we have the Lord visiting Abram, saying, "Leave your father's house. I'll make of you a great nation." It doesn't mention Abram's wealth. It mentions that he was 75 years old when he departed from Haran, so presumably, he's got Social Security that's covering at least his necessaries.
Dan Beecher Hmm.
Dan McClellan And it says, "Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother's son Lot and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran," and that's a reference to enslaved folks, "and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan," blah, blah, blah. And so it sounds like they already had possessions.
Dan Beecher Okay.
Dan McClellan It doesn't say that they were just bricked up with money.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan But it does suggest that they had acquisitions. But then, yeah, they go down to Egypt to reside there as a sojourner, a gere, as it were. And yeah, now I'm going to look again at the passage that says, "He caused it to be well with Abram."
Dan Beecher "...
Dan McClellan in menservants, and there were to him flocks and..." So, it sounds like these are things that the Pharaoh is giving to Abram as a part of his treating him well, because of his sister. It's not just that, it's like Pharaoh was nice to him. Oh, by the way, Abraham also had lots of male donkeys, male and female slaves, as well as female donkeys. So, it sounds like that is trying to account for his acquisition of wealth, at least to some degree. It's not like they were impoverished beforehand, and they left rich, but this is kind of similar to what happens with Jacob later on as well.
Dan Beecher Yeah. But- You mentioned, by the way, I'm just going to briefly touch on the fact that you mentioned that back in chapter 11, Terah took his son Abram and his godson Lot, son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, and that's all it calls her. And I bring that up, I don't know why I'm bringing up that it only calls her his daughter-in-law, but maybe chapter 20 will expose something about that, because I think that that's an interesting point. Because chapter 20, he's now Abraham.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher Takes his wife, and they go- Sarai ... again, they go away.
Dan McClellan Well, and here's something interesting, before we get to that.
Dan Beecher Okay.
Dan McClellan There's this classic thing where, in this ancient literature, people's names keep getting changed, kind of arbitrarily.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan And there are a lot of scholars who think that these are editorial seams, that these are different versions of these stories where the character's name was different in the other version of the story. And so maybe these are just different traditions that are being brought together, and at some point, they were like, "He's Abram over here, he's Abraham over there." And they're like, "Well, come up with a reason for his name to..." "God changed his name to Abraham. There we go. We're good."
Dan Beecher Done.
Dan McClellan So yeah, these are ways that they might be stitching these different traditions together. And it is the consensus view that the stories of Abraham, the stories of Isaac, the stories of Jacob, all circulated independently of each other before being stitched together into the single lineage.
Dan Beecher Okay.
Dan McClellan That they initially were not so related to each other.
Dan Beecher So. That makes a lot of sense to me. And what also makes sense is that the same story could just take on some different things and then be listed as two different stories.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher And why am I bringing that up? Because of chapter 20.
Dan McClellan Yes.
Dan Beecher Where Abraham and Sarah, not Abram and Sarai, are now, instead of going to Egypt, they are going to- Gerar ... yes, in the region of Negev, between Kadesh and Shur, just in case you wanted to know sort of specifically where Gerar is.
Dan McClellan So Gerar is what?
Dan Beecher Where is that?
Dan McClellan What is that? Well, actually, I think of Gerar as being... So the Negev is the southern desert.
Dan Beecher Okay.
Dan McClellan And, Gerar looks like it is an ancient city in the Negev. Yeah, associated with Abraham and Isaac, so it's a little northwest of Be'er Sheva, which is Beersheba.
Dan Beecher And- But it's not Egypt ...
Dan McClellan was it a Philistine town?
Dan Beecher We're nowhere near Egypt.
Dan McClellan No, we're not in Egypt. You've got the Sinai Peninsula in between Egypt and this region. I have to have at least driven by that, if not through it, the last time I was in Israel and Palestine, but it looks like it's identified as a Philistine town.
Dan Beecher Got it.
Dan McClellan So yeah. And that's going to come up in the third iteration of this story.
Dan Beecher Yes, indeed.
Dan McClellan But we might have a story where Abram and Sarai go to Egypt, and they have another story where Abraham and Sarah go to Gerar, and they're like, "Keep them both. We'll make it work."
Dan Beecher Just keep it all in.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher So, what we have is Abraham and Sarah go to Gerar. Abraham said of his wife Sarah, "She is my sister."
Dan McClellan And to- King Abimelech Yeah. Which would be, "My father is king."
Dan Beecher Oh, okay. King, my father is king.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher It basically follows the same structure.
Dan McClellan Yes. Only here, it's explained how he finds out.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan Because God comes to Abimelech in a dream. I also want to point out something interesting here. It's going to be God, not Adonai, not the Lord, who's the deity throughout this entire chapter until the very last verse, and I think that's interesting. We'll get back to that. But, God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, "You are about to die because of the woman you have taken, for she is a married woman." Dun-dun-dun.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan And then Abimelech is like, "I didn't touch her."
Dan Beecher Yeah, that's another distinction from chapter 12, because there's no mention of Pharaoh not touching her.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher It does seem very much like Pharaoh did whatever he did. Took her in a wifely fashion.
Dan McClellan Yeah. And my wife and I watched the episode of "Firefly" last night, where Kaylee is like, "Wash, tell me I'm pretty." And she goes, "If I were unwed, I would take you in a manly fashion."
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan Because I'm pretty? Because you're pretty. And we have this weird statement. Abimelech says, "Lord, will you destroy an innocent people?" So he's talking back to God. And the innocent people is odd because he seems to think God is going to destroy his whole nation.
Dan Beecher Yeah. Or at very least, many proximate humans about.
Dan McClellan Yeah. You're going to have a lot of collateral damage here- Yeah ... if you try to waste me. "Did he not himself say to me, 'She is my sister,' and she herself said, 'He is my brother.' I did this in the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands."
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan And then God is like, "Yes, I know you did this in the integrity of your heart. Furthermore, 'twas I who kept you from sinning against me, therefore I did not let you touch her." So God is like, "I going to kill you." And then he's like, "I didn't do anything wrong." And he's like, "Exactly."
Dan Beecher "I know."
Dan McClellan "I was the one who made sure you didn't do anything wrong."
Dan Beecher God- "You're welcome."
Dan McClellan Yes. I think we've got a bit of a complex going on here.
Dan Beecher Well, there are mixed messages.
Dan McClellan Yes.
Dan Beecher I would say that God was the master of mixed messaging.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher "I'm going to kill you if you don't let her go." "I didn't do anything." "I know because I stopped you."
Dan McClellan Yeah, bit of a narcissist.
Dan Beecher "Okay, well just keep stopping me then. What are you doing?"
Dan McClellan And then God says, "Now then, return the man's wife for he is a prophet and he will pray for you, and you shall live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all that are yours." So maybe that's the threat to the rest of the nation.
Dan Beecher Eh.
Dan McClellan Yeah. "So Abimelech rose early in the morning and called all his servants and told them all these things, and the men were very much afraid. Then Abimelech..." What do we got here? It starts in verse three. God came to Abimelech in verse three, verse eight, so we get a good six verses explaining how Abimelech finds out. In chapter 12, it just skips from he wanted her as a wife, and then God is trying to kill him, and then he knows. "Then Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, 'What have you done to us? How have I sinned against you that you have brought such great guilt on me and my kingdom? You have done things to me that ought not to be done.'" And he says, "What were you thinking that you did this? We want an explanation." Again, it would be easier to just take the sword and run him through, but- Right ... here Abimelech is like, "I just got to know, man."
Dan Beecher Well, there was a dream. At least in this case, we have the explanation of God saying to Abimelech, "You got to treat him right. You got to do nice things," and whatever. Because there's no explanation for Pharaoh being nice.
Dan McClellan Yeah. But here it sounds like Abimelech's like, "All right, I'm supposed to be nice to you because God said so." And Abraham's excuse is, "I did it because I thought surely there is no fear of God in this place and they will kill me because of my wife. And when God caused me to wander from... Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife." So you've got a half-sister situation.
Dan Beecher This is why I highlighted the fact that chapter 11 actually says daughter-in-law and not daughter of the... Because woof, this to me reads as an ideology or an explanation as to why he's not lying, to make Abraham not a liar. But I feel like we made it worse, not better. You know what I mean?
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher At least by today's standards, I don't know what half-sister business, how that would've been received in ancient times, but yikes.
Dan McClellan Yeah. You do wonder what his browser history looks like. But anciently, there was a sense in which you wanted to keep things in the family, just not too close in the family.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan Because what that meant was that the property was staying within the family.
Dan Beecher Sure.
Dan McClellan That it was not going to be appropriated by people from other families. And so there was a genealogical proximity that was ideal, but the "we share the same dad," that feels a little too close.
Dan Beecher It's a little rough.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher It's a little rough. And also, why didn't we hear the same thing back in chapter 12? That seems like a pertinent piece of information.
Dan McClellan Yeah. And the chapter 12 might be the earlier version of this story because it moves in fits and starts. It's quicker. You don't have all the detail and the explanation, and that's how stories tend to grow.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan They tend to accrete to them more explanations. And then, "Abimelech took sheep and oxen and male and female slaves, and gave them to Abraham and restored his wife Sarah to him." And Abimelech says, "My land is before you, settle where it pleases you." Which is Abraham's making out like a bandit.
Dan Beecher Yeah. This is what I'm saying.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher He just keeps collecting. This is a scam he needs to run at every kingdom in the surrounding areas.
Dan McClellan Yeah. We're going to have Abraham's 12 where they go into- Every time they organize a new scam to fool the leader into further enriching them.
Dan Beecher By almost marrying or marrying his wife.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher And then, "Ha, she's not my sister."
Dan McClellan And you'd think God would get a little tired of this.
Dan Beecher Right?
Dan McClellan Like, "We've done this many times already, Abraham. I'm not doing your dirty work for you anymore."
Dan Beecher Well, so even if the "she's actually my sister" thing makes him not a liar, which, come on, guys. Then we can jump to- Well, hang on. I want to- Oh, okay ...
Dan McClellan finish this chapter. I don't want to move on just yet.
Dan Beecher Okay.
Dan McClellan And then Abimelech says to Sarah, "Look, I've given your brother a thousand pieces of silver. It is your exoneration before all who are with you. You are completely vindicated." And then we have this weird thing, the second to last verse, the penultimate verse, if you're nasty.
Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.
Dan McClellan "Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, and also healed his wife and female slaves so that they bore children."
Dan Beecher Oh yeah, that was a weird one.
Dan McClellan Now, if we've been reading along, nobody has said anything- No ... about any of this. This is something that's coming along here at the end, and Abraham prays to God again, and God healed Abimelech. And this is a detail that seems out of nowhere. And then we get to the last verse, which is the only verse in the entire chapter where the divine name occurs.
Dan Beecher Oh.
Dan McClellan And here's the interesting thing about the Book of Genesis. You have the divine name all over the place. You do not have a single person who has the theophoric elements, Yod He Vav He, or any variation of it, in their name.
Dan Beecher Okay.
Dan McClellan Nobody has a name that has the Tetragrammaton in it. That is the most common theophoric element in names in every other part of the Hebrew Bible. Entirely absent from the entire Book of Genesis, which leads some people to conclude these stories don't seem to come from a time and a place where anyone knew who Adonai was.
Dan Beecher Okay.
Dan McClellan Everybody seems to just be El, Elohim, Eloah, Elyon, or something else. And so, this is why, and here we've got no knowledge of Adonai until the very end. "For Adonai had closed fast all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham's wife." So, we've tacked on to the end of this story a resolution to this odd verse, where it's like, "So Abraham prayed to God to fix this other thing that we didn't talk about." And then you can imagine on the manuscripts in the margins, somebody was like, "Because God had closed the wombs of the..."
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan Only it uses this other name for God. So, I think this is just another interesting example bubbling to the surface of clearly some editorial seams.
Dan Beecher So, in verse 17, what is the word that is used for God?
Dan McClellan Elohim.
Dan Beecher Elohim. And then in verse 18, it's the Tetragrammaton.
Dan McClellan It's the Tetragrammaton, yeah.
Dan Beecher All right.
Dan McClellan So, it's Elohim throughout all of chapter 20.
Dan Beecher Okay.
Dan McClellan Starting in verse three.
Dan Beecher Interesting.
Dan McClellan "When God came to Abimelech."
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan So, I think this is a secondary addition to the text from a later author who's writing in a period when now suddenly we know who Adonai is. But I digress.
Dan Beecher Makes sense to me.
Dan McClellan But then now- We get the birth of Isaac- Now, yes ... and then we move on.
Dan Beecher Now we move on. And by the way, I do want to mention that Sarah must've been incredibly hot, because by the time we get to chapter 20, she is old.
Dan McClellan She is- Well, yeah, Abraham's already 75 when he sets out, so- Yeah ... yeah, I don't know what... So, I mean, I'm just saying- We know a little bit more about Abraham's browser- I'm just saying- ...
Dan Beecher history ... she kept her hotness deep into her- Yeah ... age, and I love that.
Dan McClellan It makes you wonder how old the Pharaoh and Abimelech were as well.
Dan Beecher Right? That- Played by- Yeah ...
Dan McClellan Helen Mirren.
Dan Beecher Here we go.
Dan McClellan All right.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan They were...
Dan Beecher So now we jump to Genesis 26.
Dan McClellan Yes.
Dan Beecher And it's a whole new story, nothing like anything we've read before, because it's Isaac now.
Dan McClellan Yeah. And- Funny enough, though, the very first verse says, "There was a famine in the land." Not the famine from the first time with Abraham. This is definitely- This is a different famine ... Don't think this is the same.
Dan Beecher Yeah. This is a totally different famine.
Dan McClellan Yeah. And now Isaac- Now let us proceed to tell the exact same story.
Dan Beecher Right. "Isaac went to Gerar, to King Abimelech of the Philistines."
Dan McClellan So- And now we have another different detail. Suddenly, Abimelech is king of the Philistines.
Dan Beecher Right. Because we've added even more details to the story.
Dan McClellan Who... And by the way, this is supposed to be what, like 1900 BCE, something like that, depending on where you date Abraham? The Philistines don't exist yet. The Philistines don't arrive until after the invasion of the Sea Peoples, where we have these folks from different parts of the central Mediterranean who are basically migrating to the coastline here. That is where the Philistines probably ethnically come from if we take the existence of Mycenaean pottery popping up in the 12th century BCE as an indication of the cultural origins of the Philistines. So, the Philistines do not exist When Isaac is alive.
Dan Beecher You shut your dirty mouth. They exist because they're right here.
Dan McClellan Yeah. So, Gerar was known as a Philistine territory at certain parts of Israelite history.
Dan Beecher Sure.
Dan McClellan And so when they're sharing this story, they're like, "Isaac came to Gerar." "Oh, where the Philistines are?"
Dan Beecher "Yeah.
Dan McClellan Where the Philistines are." And they write that in.
Dan Beecher Which is interesting because presumably when we know about Philistines, they have a different god than these people.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher I guess it's too early to call them Israelites, than these Abrahamites- Yeah ...
Dan McClellan or whatever. But in this case, no.
Dan Beecher Abimelech, the god that talks to him is presumably the same god that... We're just using one god for everybody.
Dan McClellan Yeah. It's like how when Jonah goes to Nineveh and preaches, and they're like, "Got to pray to God."
Dan Beecher And- Yeah ...
Dan McClellan it's like, "Wait, but you have a different god." But Abimelech would be a Hebrew name, it would not be a Philistine name.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan And Hebrew doesn't exist in this time period either, so.
Dan Beecher Okay, fair.
Dan McClellan So, there are a couple of chronological wrinkles. Just a few- To iron out ...
Dan Beecher I like that in chapter 26, the Lord appeared to Isaac and said... First of all, the Lord appeared to Isaac? That's so confusing. Anyway, and said, "Do not go down to Egypt." Just making it clear, this did not take place in Egypt.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher "Settle in the land that I shall show you." It does feel like he's just running the family scam now.
Dan McClellan He's- Well, and the narrator is working very hard to convince you that this is not the same story.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan Because it's like, different famine, and they didn't go to Egypt. God said, "Don't go to Egypt. You got to go here instead." But they're residing in the land as an alien. "I will be with you. I will bless you. For to you and to your descendants, I will give all these lands, and I will fulfill the oath that I swore to your father Abraham." So, it's getting pretty wordy here.
Dan Beecher Yeah. And didn't Abraham, back in chapter 20, we just had Abraham settling on a nice plot of land in that land already. So, apparently Abraham left, and now Isaac's got to go and get it again. But Isaac has a wife now- Mm-hmm ... named Rebecca.
Dan McClellan Yeah. And you imagine she's got to be super hot, too, just because- Oh, yeah ... that righteousness means you got a hot wife in the- Right ... in the Hebrew Bible.
Dan Beecher Because Isaac immediately jumps to the same shtick. "She's my sister- Yeah ... so don't kill me- ... because she's my sister, so that's cool."
Dan McClellan Yeah. And they don't seem to plan this beforehand, because verse seven says, "When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, 'She is my sister,' for he was afraid to say, 'My wife,' thinking, 'Or else the men of the place might kill me for the sake of Rebecca because she is attractive in appearance.'"
Dan Beecher Man. So, if this is a- If you have a good-looking wife, you just can't travel.
Dan McClellan That's just- Yeah, it's a blessing and a curse- ... because you're just always under threat of death.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan "And when Isaac had been there a long time, King Abimelech of the Philistines looked out a window and saw him." And here's where it gets- ... a little weird, because we've got this verb. It's a participle, , from the verbal root, , which might mean to laugh, and this is where , Isaac, the name, comes from. But we also have... And is this a PL? Yes, it's a PL participle. We also have this sense, to joke, to dally with, or to fondle.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan So, we've got the translation in the NRSVUE says, "King Abimelech of the Philistines looked out a window and saw him fondling his wife, Rebecca."
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan So, that's exactly what he said.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan And so here, he does not, and I think this is an even later version, because in the other two, the king's immediately is like, "Wife her."
Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.
Dan McClellan And here, Abimelech is just like, "Man, what?" So, Abimelech called for Isaac and said, "So she is your wife. Why then did you say, 'She is my sister?'"
Dan Beecher And Isaac was like, "Because-" Apparently not recognizing that this is the same shtick he dealt with just a few years ago with Isaac's dad.
Dan McClellan Yeah. He's got a very short-term memory.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan Or why didn't he think, "Ew. These are some weirdos who are coming from-" Right.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan Well, yeah.
Dan Beecher Why did he jump to that instead of like- Yeah ... "Oh, this guy is fondling his sister. That's not okay."
Dan McClellan Yeah. That's not his sister, that's his wife. At least with Abraham, he's like, "She's kind of my sister." So, a lot of unanswered questions- Yeah ... regarding the progression of this narrative. And there's no mention of Abimelech being cursed, of any wombs being shut- Right ... in his land. There's no mention of a dream.
Dan Beecher Well, there's no mention of Abimelech taking her as- Right ... his wife this time.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher So, there's no- He's learned that lesson.
Dan McClellan Yeah. Nobody has done anything wrong, and so no problems have arisen as a result. But Abimelech says, "What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us." So, the guilt is actually just a hypothetical that's set off- Right ... into the future- Right ... because nobody, I guess maybe they're a little more prudish, and they're like, "We can't tell the story where somebody actually comes at Rebecca lustfully or even proposes to her or anything like that." So, Abimelech warned all the people saying, "Whoever touches this man or his wife shall be put to death." Which is kind of odd.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan Because previously, he was like, "Ooh, if God weren't breathing down my neck, I would just hurt you."
Dan Beecher I would.
Dan McClellan Yeah. And here, there's no threats, but he's like, "Nobody lay a finger on Abraham." So Abraham falls under a weird kind of protective order, because he has screwed over, or at least potentially screwed over, Abimelech and his people. And then we have the mention that Isaac sowed seed in that land, and in the same year reaped a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him.
Dan Beecher And that's how he becomes rich.
Dan McClellan Yes.
Dan Beecher Because Isaac doesn't manage to get a cartload of donkeys and female donkeys, and slaves and female slaves, and whatever.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher Anyway, so he has to get rich off of reaping a hundredfold. That's a good reaping.
Dan McClellan Yeah. As a consequence of lying.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan So yeah. The lesson here is if you want to get rich, lie and manipulate and scheme.
Dan Beecher Yeah. I have definitely seen a few Christians take that lesson to heart.
Dan McClellan Oh, yeah. That's the prosperity gospel.
Dan Beecher Yeah, exactly.
Dan McClellan All right.
Dan Beecher Well, there's that story.
Dan McClellan I don't know.
Dan Beecher I don't know what to do with that.
Dan McClellan Yeah. This was evidently some kind of popular story in the ancient world.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan "Gather around the campfire, children, and let me tell you the tale of when we got rich by lying to a king."
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan And it gets repeated three different times, twice with the same characters, and then once with their children. And so I think it's clear that this is something that was in circulation with different tellings of very similar stories. And rather than an editor be like, "You can't tell the same story three times," they just were like, "We're keeping it all."
Dan Beecher And- This is why we have editors, people.
Dan McClellan So yeah.
Dan Beecher Yeah. So- We don't have them back then.
Dan McClellan All right.
Dan Beecher Well, we need to jump ahead.
Dan McClellan Okay.
Dan Beecher We're running long. So we're going to leave that as the muddy, weird series of stories that they are, and move on to What Is That? And this week's What Is That? comes to us from a few different stories.
Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.
Dan Beecher The one that you pointed out to me first was 1 Samuel 19.
Dan McClellan Uh-huh.
Dan Beecher And it's a story of David, and how David escapes from Saul, who-- Saul runs hot and cold on David, like violently.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher Yeah. I got whiplash reading the stories of Saul loving David, and then hating David, and then loving David, and then hating David.
Dan McClellan So- Somebody probably wanted him to be diagnosed with bipolar.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan Yeah. And this was something that is a bizarre feature of these stories. But yeah.
Dan Beecher But that's not what we're talking about today.
Dan McClellan No.
Dan Beecher What we're talking about today is a word that your autocorrect- ... had you send me a wrong text about it, which was- Yeah ... your autocorrect thought you were trying to say seraphim.
Dan McClellan Yes. I get the autocorrect, I don't know how many times people are like, "What do you mean, what the duck?" When they get texts from me. The autocorrect is mostly a curse, very rarely a blessing. But yeah, I don't know how many times I've turned in a paper when I was an undergrad when people were like, "You have periscope here. I think you probably wrote pericope." Which is just a fancy way to say a story, but then autocorrect changed it. So it was teraphim or terafim.
Dan Beecher Okay.
Dan McClellan Which is a fancy word that is sometimes translated, sometimes people transliterate it. You'll find teraphim in the texts. Usually, they will translate it like idol or something like that, or maybe household idol- Mm ... or image, or something like that. It is basically a divine image. And we're not sure exactly where the word comes from. Some people think it derives from the root rafa, which means to heal. And so it would be a divine image that was used to facilitate healing or something like that.
Dan Beecher Okay.
Dan McClellan So if somebody was sick, you would set these up, and these would've been probably anthropomorphic-ish, so they would've looked kind of human, statuettes that looked kind of human, and you would set them up to facilitate the transmission of some kind of divine agency or power that would whom, whom, whom, whom, and heal the individual.
Dan Beecher And I- We have this kind of thing today. A lot of Catholics have candles that have the image of a saint on them or something like that.
Dan McClellan Uh-huh.
Dan Beecher So, yeah, and that's a little humanoid sort of doll or statuary or something. Makes sense.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher They appear in several stories. The David story in-- Why don't we just quickly cover the 1 Samuel David story?
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher Because it's an interesting trick. And it kind of indicates that this might've been a pretty big one, because- Yeah, that's the other thing, is that the different stories have very clearly different sized teraphim.
Dan McClellan Yeah. We're going to get to one where they're very clearly small.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan But this one, Michal is the wife of David, and Saul's henchmen are after David, and he's got to escape. And so, 1 Samuel 19:13, "And Michal took a teraphim, an idol-" "And laid it on the bed. She put a net of goat's hair on its head and covered it with the clothes." So, we've got a "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" situation here- Right.
Dan Beecher Yeah ...
Dan McClellan with a teraphim that is close to life-size and gets a wig thrown on it, and they throw the clothes over it and everything.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan And the messengers came in, and the idol or teraphim was in the bed with the covering of goat's hair on its head, and Michal is like, "Shh, he's sleeping." And they were like- He's sick ...
Dan Beecher "Sick."
Dan McClellan Yeah, and verse 14 says, "And she did play the sounds of snoring on her stereo." And so this is a way to at least stall- Yeah ... the folks coming after David, giving him a little window that he can escape through. And this raises an interesting question. Why does the ostensibly pious and righteous king of Israel, David, whose heart was after the Lord, why does he have an idol in his room?
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan Because it doesn't say Michal ran off to skid row to go purchase one of these things. It just says she put an idol in the bed.
Dan Beecher And scholars think- She put the idol. Matter of fact- The idol ... it says the idol or an idol. It makes it very much seem like this is just the normal thing that you have about the house.
Dan McClellan Yeah. Everybody's got a teraphim or two.
Dan Beecher Yeah. You'd be dumb not to.
Dan McClellan Well, and this is something that is interesting when we look at Exodus 21 and Exodus 22, you have these rituals that people go through. One of them is if a debt slave decides they want to stay with their master for life, then you go to the doorframe, and they bore a hole in the ear of the person with an awl. And the doorframe is significant. This is the liminal space. This is the entry and exit. This is the boundary. So, it has significance. And then you also have if somebody loans something to somebody else, and then it is either stolen from them or they report that they don't know where it went, you don't have any evidence. What do you do? You bring the person to ha Elohim, the gods, and they have to swear an oath that they did not steal the thing. And this has been a source of angst for an awful lot of Bible readers. What does this mean? And it says, "Whomever the gods convict is the guilty party." And people are like, "What does this mean, bring them to the gods? What is this all about?" And this is where you get the idea that, oh, gods must mean judges. And no, that's not what's going on here. It's that there were divine images that represented gods that would've been accessible either in someone's house or in the city gate.
Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.
Dan McClellan Or there would've been some kind of cultic setup somewhere that you could go. So, anytime you needed to swear an oath or perform a ritual or an ordeal or something, you just went to ha Elohim, the gods, and then that was where you did it. So maybe these were the gods that- Hmm ... were in the palace to facilitate anything that you would do that needed divine guidance or oversight or something like that.
Dan Beecher Well, let's continue along that track and just talk about the story in Genesis 31 of Jacob- Hmm ... and Rachel escaping from Laban.
Dan McClellan Yeah. So, Jacob has had to serve Laban for 14 years now.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan Where he was like, "Give me Rachel. I'll serve you seven years." And then on the wedding night, Laban's like, "Ha ha, Leah.
Dan Beecher Psych."
Dan McClellan Yeah. And then Jacob's like, "What the hey, dude?" And Laban says, "Okay, tell you what, I'll give you the actual Rachel, I have the real, actual Rachel here, if you just serve me another seven years."
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan And rather than be like, "That's not how this works, old man," Jacob's like, "Cool. Seven years.
Dan Beecher I'll do it."
Dan McClellan "All right.
Dan Beecher Seven more years, I'll do it. It's fine."
Dan McClellan And then he basically lies to Laban and takes advantage of him and is able to get very rich.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan Like all of the patriarchal narratives are about how the patriarchs got phenomenally rich by deceiving people. And they're leaving, and it says, "Laban had gone to shear his sheep," this is Genesis 31:19, "And Rachel stole her father's teraphim." So Rachel, and it doesn't explain why- Yeah ... but Rachel just seems to be like, "I grew up with these. I'm the only one who plays with these. I'm taking them with me."
Dan Beecher "These are my favorite gods."
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher "I'm taking them."
Dan McClellan And they ride off, and Laban comes chasing after them like, "Hey, you took my gods." And in verse 34, it says, "Now Rachel had taken the teraphim," the household gods, "and put them in the camel's saddle and sat on them. Laban felt all about in the tent but did not find them." And she tells her father, "Hey, don't get angry with me because I'm not getting up because the way of women is upon me."
Dan Beecher Yeah, "I'm still sitting on my camel. Don't bother that, I'm on my period."
Dan McClellan Yes.
Dan Beecher "Don't worry about it. I'm on my period, so go away."
Dan McClellan "Yeah, I'm just sitting right here. Don't want to cause any problems." So he searched but did not find the household gods. And then you have the story where Jacob is like, "I swear, old man, I didn't take your gods." And they do a little ritual, and they swear by their gods, and everybody leaves happy.
Dan Beecher And presumably Rachel's just sitting on a camel the entire time.
Dan McClellan Yes.
Dan Beecher Throughout the entire ordeal- Yeah ... she's just chilling on the camel.
Dan McClellan Sitting on top of these teraphim, which- Yeah ... yeah, their size and shape seems, by this story to Be understood as rather small. Not the kind of teraphim you would put in somebody's bed to make it seem like an adult man- Right ... was sleeping there, but the kind that you would be able to- Yeah.
Dan Beecher David and Michal's was clearly a full-sized- Yeah ...
Dan McClellan human-sized- Yeah, this is the Costco version of the teraphim. While Rachel is, that's the Dollar Store version.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan But there are multiple of them, so- Yeah, they got the little guys.
Dan Beecher Yeah. They got a whole bunch of them. They got the little one.
Dan McClellan Yeah. And then we have a really cool story about teraphim, I think. I think it's a really cool story. In Judges 17 and 18, where we got a dude named Micah, and the chapter is just kind of like, so there was this dude named Micah, and he is represented as a devotee of Adonai. And the story is kind of weird. It starts off, "He said to his mother, 'The 1,100 pieces of silver that were taken from you, about which you uttered a curse and even spoke it in my hearing, that silver is in my possession. I took it.'"
Dan Beecher Oh.
Dan McClellan "But now I will return it to you." And his mother said, "May my son be blessed by Adonai." So, odd dynamic they have here.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan But he returns the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother, and his mother said, "I consecrate the silver to Adonai from my hand for my son to make an idol of cast metal." And, here it is pesel, which generally means a divine image. Umascha, which would mean a molten image. And there is a conjunction there, so it sounds like she's saying a divine image and a molten image. So scholars are actually split on whether this is two images that are being made or one that is just being further described.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan Yeah. But she makes this divine image, and it was in the house of Micah, and Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and teraphim and installed one of his sons, who became his priest. So this is the folk religion of the Judges period, where this is going on without direct supervision from authorized priests, where you got a guy who is like, "This is my shrine, and here, and my son is a priest."
Dan Beecher "And my kid is now a priest."
Dan McClellan Yeah. And the ephod would be a divinatory tool. This would be a way to contact God and all that kind of stuff, and the teraphim, they would be there to facilitate whatever kind of interactions that you need.
Dan Beecher Can I point out that we have now had several stories that seem to be in direct conflict with top 10 commandments?
Dan McClellan Top one commandments.
Dan Beecher Bearing false witness, and then a graven image.
Dan McClellan Yeah. Top two commandments, yeah.
Dan Beecher Literally, we've got an idol, a graven image thing happening here, and it doesn't seem to be a problem.
Dan McClellan Well, the Genesis stories are pre-Law of Moses.
Dan Beecher Sure.
Dan McClellan This one is not, and scholars would suggest that this is... The stories in Judges are bizarre. They're not exactly examples of how the Mosaic Law is a success- Right ... because we talked about Jephthah and human sacrifice, and here we've got private cult installations and people installing their sons as priests and everything. And in the middle of Judges 17, there was a young man of Bethlehem of Judah, of the clan of Judah. He was a Levite residing there. So this is a legitimate candidate for the priesthood. And he is wandering around because he wants to find another place to live, and Zillow is still a few thousand years away from being- Sure ...
Dan Beecher invented.
Dan McClellan But it was still inaccurate in all of its estimates anyway, even back then. And he stumbles across Micah, and Micah's like, "Hey, where are you from?" He's like, "Oh, I'm a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah. I'm looking for a place to live." And Micah's like, "Stay with me and be to me a father and a priest, and I will give you 10 pieces of silver a year and a set of clothes, and you're living." So he's like, "Room and board, just be my priest since you're legit."
Dan Beecher And- "My son is not doing a good job. I need a much better priest."
Dan McClellan So, Micah installs the Levite, and he becomes his priest. And then he says, "Now I know that Adonai will prosper me because the Levite has become my priest." Earlier, he was kind of on the fence about maybe because- He's doing his best.
Dan Beecher Right. He's like, "I need a priest.
Dan McClellan I don't know.
Dan Beecher You, come here, kid."
Dan McClellan And then there were some Danites that were also looking for a place to live. Evidently, this was a buyer's market.
Dan Beecher And- And Danites are people who listen to "The Data Over Dogma" show.
Dan McClellan Yes.
Dan Beecher Is that correct? Is that who a Danite is?
Dan McClellan Yes. Members of the tribe of Dan, not to be confused with the mercenary group of early Mormons who went by Danites.
Dan Beecher Right. That was a very different set of Danites. By the way, patrons of the show, chime in as to whether you would like to be referred to as the tribe of Dan.
Dan McClellan Oh, gosh.
Dan Beecher Because that's a possibility. I'm just throwing it out there. You can be a member of the tribe of Dan. We can start branding that way if we want to. We can do whatever we want.
Dan McClellan Yeah. So the Danites send some people, five valiant men, to spy out a territory for them to live in. Again, Zillow, inaccurate, but not in existence.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan And they also show up at Micah's house because all roads lead to Micah's house, evidently. And it says, this is Judges 18:3, "While they were at Micah's house, they recognized the voice of the young Levite. So they went over and asked him, 'Who brought you here? What are you doing in this place? What is your business here?'" And he's like, "Oh, yeah, this dude's paying me to be a priest." And they say, "Inquire of God that we may know whether the mission we are undertaking will succeed." They're looking for territory for the Danites, the tribe of Dan, to settle. "The priest replied, 'Go in peace. The mission you are on is under the eye of Adonai.'" Doesn't tell us he was like, "Excuse me a minute," and ran off and donned his ephod or did whatever he needed to do before his graven image or his teraphim or whatever.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan But says, "Yes, God will prosper your mission." And then they come to Laish, they observe the people who are living there securely, after the manner of the Sidonians, quiet and unsuspecting, lacking nothing on earth and possessing wealth. Furthermore, they were far from the Sidonians and had no dealings with Aram. And so the Danites are like, "Nice-looking place." And they said, "Let's go invade and conquer them."
Dan Beecher Yoink.
Dan McClellan "Yeah, let's get a five-finger discount." And so they set out, they camp in Kiriath-Jearim in Judah. From there, they passed on to the hill country of Ephraim. And again, because all roads lead to Micah's house, they stop in. And they said, "Do you know that in these buildings there are an ephod, teraphim, and an idol of cast metal? Now therefore consider what you will do." So they came to the house of the young Levite, and Micah, and they greet him, and they basically said, "We're taking your priest and all your stuff." And they're like, "Be to us a father and a priest." So evidently, priests were just a hot commodity back then.
Dan Beecher Yeah. You've got to get yourself a priest, man.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher It's the new Cabbage Patch Doll.
Dan McClellan And you know you've got a good priest when a bunch of mercenaries basically show up at the door and be like, "We're taking all your stuff. Do you want to come with us?" And the priest is like, "Yeah, cool.
Dan Beecher Let's do it." Sounds great.
Dan McClellan That is a priest full of integrity.
Dan Beecher Uh-huh.
Dan McClellan So he took the ephod, the teraphim, and the idol, and went along with the people. And then when they're some distance away, the men who were in the houses near Micah's house were called out, and they overtook the Danites. They shouted to the Danites, who turned around and said to Micah, "What is the matter that you come with such a company?" So they're like, "We stole your stuff. Why are you here?" He replied, "You take my gods that I made and the priest and go away, and what have I left? How then can you ask me what is the matter?" So just like the reader, Micah is confused.
Dan Beecher Uh-huh.
Dan McClellan "Why would you wonder what I'm doing here?" And the Danites said to him, "You had better not let your voice be heard among us, or else hot-tempered fellows will attack you, and you will lose your life and the lives of your household." Then the Danites went their way. When Micah saw that they were too strong for him, he turned and went back to his home.
Dan Beecher Aw.
Dan McClellan And the Danites go on, and they settle in Laish, and they rename it Dan. And to this day, you can go visit, well, probably not this day, but up until recently, you could go visit the territory of Dan up in the north. A very nice nature reserve that they have up there.
Dan Beecher Hmm.
Dan McClellan Lovely area, but an odd story about how- Yes ... they came upon this priest, and they're like, "Priest, come with us." And the priest is like, "Okay." And Micah's like, "How dare you?" And they're like, "You better shut your mouth, little man, or you're going to find yourself at the wrong end of a sword."
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan And he's like, "Okay."
Dan Beecher Okay.
Dan McClellan And turns around and leaves.
Dan Beecher Yep.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher Well, that's not a very nice tribe of Dan.
Dan McClellan No.
Dan Beecher Our tribe of Dan is much nicer than that.
Dan McClellan We have T-shirts.
Dan Beecher We should make Tribe of Dan T-shirts. That would be actually kind of fun. So one of the points, though, that I think is fascinating is that in all of this, the teraphim that we were talking about- Mm-hmm ... are never condemned by God or by the Bible or by anything.
Dan McClellan No.
Dan Beecher That just seems like it's a normal thing.
Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.
Dan Beecher Even a good thing. These Danites are like, "Yeah, I want to get me some of that."
Dan McClellan Yeah. Everybody needs a good priest. Yeah, just a peculiarity of some of these early Hebrew Bible narratives that elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, they never go back and be like, "Hey, this is why they were doing that thing back there." You've just got to try to negotiate with it yourself.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan But it seems very clear that for the patriarchs and others in the early history of Israel, there was really not a problem with having these divine images.
Dan Beecher There you go. It's a fascinating fact of- ... the ancient world, and I love it. If you, friends, would like to become a part of making this show happen, if you would like to join the tribe of Dan, we're patent pending. Please feel free to join us at patreon.com/dataoverdogma, where you can give just a bit of your money, you choose how much, which can get you access to an early and ad-free version of every episode. Also, potentially you can get the after party, which is bonus content. We do it every week. And yeah, we really appreciate our patrons deeply. If you want to contact us, it's contact@dataoverdogmapod.com. Thanks so much to Roger Gowdy for editing the show, and we'll talk to you again next week.
Dan McClellan Bye, everybody.
