The Dave Ramsey Takedown

Dan McClellan We've got a fever, and the only prescription is to sell everything that you own and give the money to the poor.

Dan Beecher Yeah, exactly.

Dan McClellan Cowbell. 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 combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan?

Dan Beecher It's a good day for combating misinformation.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And we've got some combating to do.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And also for- And a worthy opponent at that.

Dan McClellan Also a good day for coordinating with your typewriter. Your shirt seems to have some pink in it.

Dan Beecher For those listening at home, that won't make a lot of sense.

Dan McClellan No.

Dan Beecher But if you're watching us on the YouTube, yes, I've got a little- ... I've got a little bit of pink in my shirt.

Dan McClellan Right on.

Dan Beecher I got a pink typewriter behind me. Everything's coming up roses.

Dan McClellan And I'm just wearing Wolverine as normal.

Dan Beecher As per uzhe.

Dan McClellan Indeed. Big fan of roses, though.

Dan Beecher Definitely.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Logan, all about the roses. Yeah, we're going to be combating some misinformation being spread by a very high-profile individual.

Dan Beecher Yeah. It's one Mr.

Dan McClellan Dave Ramsey.

Dan Beecher Okay. We're coming for Dave.

Dan McClellan I was trying to tease a little bit, tease it out, have them wondering, "Well, who is it, Dans?"

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher Fine.

Dan McClellan All right, mate. You're the expert.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher On this show, I am definitely the expert. So, our first segment is going to be a taking issue, because we are taking issue with Mr.

Dan McClellan Ramsey.

Dan Beecher And then, we're going to do a what is it, and we're going to be talking about... What are we talking about? The Deuteronomical?

Dan McClellan Wow.

Dan Beecher I think Deuteronomical is the correct term.

Dan McClellan Deuteronomonomona, phenomenon, monomena. We probably can't sing that.

Dan Beecher Yeah, well.

Dan McClellan Deuteronomistic history.

Dan Beecher Yeah, okay.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And the Deuteronomist, and the Deuteronomistic school, and even a little bit about Deuteronomy.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So, yeah.

Dan Beecher None of it has anything to do with the dude, though, unfortunately. So, you Lebowski-ites can relax.

Dan McClellan We're not into the whole brevity thing.

Dan Beecher That's true. We'll save that for TikTok.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher All right. Well, hey, let's launch in with take an issue. And this week, the issue we are taking is with one Mr. Dave Ramsey, who was made to feel quite... I'm just going to say he seemed pretty defensive.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher He was asked a question on his show. For those of you who don't know, Dave Ramsey is a financial guru. He's a personal finance guy. His whole deal is that he'll teach you how to get out of debt and get rich. And my personal opinion of his approach is that it is not very realistic or effective. But that's neither here nor there, because the thing that makes him salient to our podcast is that he brands himself as the Christian personal finance guy.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And that's weird. That's a weird thing to do.

Dan McClellan Well, there are others. He's not the only one- No ... who is like, "Jesus will help you get wealthy."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Mainly, he's going to help me get wealthy, though.

Dan Beecher It does seem like every time someone says, "Jesus will help you get wealthy," they're the ones whose bank accounts seem to grow from it.

Dan McClellan Yes, indeed.

Dan Beecher That's neither here nor there in terms of Dave Ramsey. So, here's the deal. He's got a show, he's probably got multiple shows. And on a recent episode, he was asked about... I'll just read the question, and then we can sort of go over- Yeah ... how he answered. So the question was, "How is it considered ethical for people to own so many houses? I was wondering how, as a Christian, this isn't seen as greed. Don't you know that buying up all these homes is what's causing the housing shortage?" Now, for those of you who aren't in the United States of America, I'm guessing this is happening all over the world, but there's some real problems happening in the housing sector here in the US. It's getting really dicey out there.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And part of that is that, yeah, there are lots of people and organizations and companies that are buying up housing, and then rather than selling them, they're hoarding them, and they'll rent them. But it has become very difficult and very expensive to buy a house in the United States.

Dan McClellan Yeah. There are a lot more houses that get purchased by investors, real estate investors, than by people who are going to live in those houses- Right ... than has been the case in the past. And I think I saw another video where somebody said there's a shortage of almost five million homes in the US, and there are more than five million homes that are owned by investors, folks who own multiple different properties. What is the one that they kept bringing up? BlackRock, Blackstone?

Dan Beecher Blackstone, yes.

Dan McClellan Blackstone, yeah, is an example of that.

Dan Beecher But- They're a hedge fund.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So this is just an investment group that is finding ways to make money, and frankly, housing, it's fine. It's fine to make a profit off of housing. That's not a problem. But when your model is to- ... buy enough housing to be strong enough. Some of these companies are so strong that they literally have the muscle to drive up all the prices of the homes that they've purchased just so that they can then sell them for more or have high rental costs.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And evidently though, they're not the main drivers of the problem. What's funny about this video is Dave Immediate was like, "That has nothing to do with the housing crisis." And then with some back and forth with the other person on the show, he was like, "Okay, maybe it has something to do with the housing crisis."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "But not as much as those idiots on TikTok say." And the other person's like, "You're on TikTok." And he's like, "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

Dan Beecher It is amazing because his first response, the question is obviously meant to be a theological one.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Or an ethical one.

Dan Beecher An ethical one.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher But it's framed in a Christian framework, and that is about greed.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So maybe let's start with that. What does the Bible tell us about greed? We've talked about Jesus saying that wealth is bad.

Dan McClellan Yeah. I'll do you one better.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan We actually have in the Bible criticism of people who buy up properties.

Dan Beecher Oh, really?

Dan McClellan Yeah. And this goes back to the prophetic critique. So we've talked about this before on the show. In the eighth century, you had these kings who had 40-year reigns, and there was a lot of economic growth. There was a lot of population growth. They were trading internationally. The northern kingdom of Israel was doing well. You had new cities popping up all over the place. The southern kingdom of Judah was doing well. They didn't really have many cities. Mainly it was just Jerusalem was the main city. But you went from a subsistence society where you might have a handful of acres and you're growing stuff, and you're mainly growing enough to keep your household alive and then have a little extra to take down to the farmer's market on the weekend.

Dan Beecher Sure.

Dan McClellan And what you do is you diversify your crops so that if something happens and one crop goes south, it doesn't totally devastate you.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And what happens when you start to get a lot more income and a lot more centralized control is in the eighth century, it converted to what's called a command economy, where the people who had the money and the people who were buying up the crops and controlling what was grown are telling you what to grow. And it was mainly olive oil, wine, things like that, that are being shipped off, being sold internationally. And so your people who live in the big cities with all the money are directing what folks out in the fields are selling, and they don't care about the diversification of the crops. And so it's a lot more dicey. You're a lot more vulnerable in a command economy. And also you're going to have to borrow money. And in the subsistence economy, usually the population centers are smaller, and you have survival loans that are meted out within a community. And they might not charge interest. They might charge only a tiny bit of interest. They would say, "Pay us back when you can."

Dan Beecher But with a command economy- But it's just to get you by for the six months- Right ... until your next crop comes in and you're able to sort of make things happen for yourself.

Dan McClellan Right. In the command economy, you're getting loans from the wealthy people in the city centers who could not care less what happens to you and demand to be paid back in bullion when the crops are being harvested, when they're the least valuable. Everything works for the wealthy folks and against the poor folks out in the field in a command economy, and this is what's happening- Boy, I'm glad we've got rid of that.

Dan Beecher That doesn't sound like a good system at all.

Dan McClellan And then if you forfeit, or if you... Oh, shoot. I'm forgetting the word. I'm not an economist, as everybody already knows. But, if you don't pay back your loan, they take over control of your property, and then guess what? You're working your own land just to give everything to the person who now owns your land.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan You've become basically a serf. You've been enslaved to your own property, and that just allows land consolidation and debt consolidation on the part of the wealthy folks. And so this creates huge social inequities, and this is what's going on in the eighth century, and you have the eighth-century prophets coming out hard against this. And so in Isaiah chapter 5, and it starts in chapter 1, and the prophetic critique is where they're like, "I hate your sacrifices and your offerings, and I do not delight in the blood of bulls," and all this kind of stuff. And really the idea is you're all grinding the faces of the poor, and then you're turning around and you're going, "Look how pious I am-" Yeah ... at the festivals and everything, and that's the height of sin. But in Isaiah 5 he says, "Woe to those who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land. The Lord of hosts has sworn in my hearing, 'Surely many houses shall be desolate, large and beautiful houses without inhabitant. For 10 acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield a mere ephah.'" So basically, he's threatening all the wealthy people who are out there engaged in this land consolidation, who are exploiting the economy, who are taking advantage of the justice system, who are doing all these things to make themselves wealthy.

Dan Beecher And this is- Are you sure he wasn't talking about Florida? Because this literally sounds exactly like Florida to me. Do you know how many homes are sitting vacant in Florida right now?

Dan McClellan All I think about it when I hear vacants is The Wire.

Dan Beecher It's literally- In Baltimore ... it's like hundreds of thousands of homes. It might be a million homes.

Dan McClellan That doesn't surprise me. They're probably multimillion-dollar homes, too.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Or they were. Good luck buying or selling them now.

Dan McClellan Anyway. But this is the beating heart of the prophetic critique because wealth is all being centralized among a minority of the elite, and it is leaving the poor, and the orphan, and the widow, and the oppressed out to dry.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so that's Isaiah, and Micah, and Amos, and Hosea. They're all just dragging the wealthy because they are doing precisely what Dave Ramsey is talking about. Well- And so even in the Hebrew Bible, we have direct condemnation of what Dave Ramsey is about to try to very pathetically defend.

Dan Beecher Yeah, because here's what he comes back with. He doesn't answer, he doesn't address the ethical question at all to start with. What he first tries to just do is say, "No, people buying multiple homes is not what's driving the housing crisis." And then the woman that he's talking to says, "Well, what about Blackstone?" As you said. And he goes, "Oh, yeah. Well, Blackstone kind of is, yeah, that's kind of bad." And then he makes this weird thing as though this somehow makes a real differentiation. He's like, "Well, hedge funds don't have a soul." Which, yeah, I guess. But the guys that make the decisions there do.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher The people who profit off of them do. This thing isn't operating as an autonomous unit.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Hedge funds don't pop up out of the ocean fully formed and ready to make choices.

Dan McClellan Yeah. They're run by people who profit off of them.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And as I mentioned to you earlier, it sounds like he's taking limited liability corporation a little too far, as if your moral culpability before God can be offloaded to your corporation.

Dan Beecher To the LLC.

Dan McClellan He's like, "It's not me who did this. It's my LLC that did this." And that's clearly not a sentient entity. And so the culpability just dissolves like a fart in the wind.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "I can't be responsible for any of this."

Dan Beecher I like the idea of Dave Ramsey showing up to the pearly gates and showing his articles of incorporation to St. Peter or whatever.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So here's the deal. He then goes on to say he says, "I own, I don't know, 15 to 20 houses and a bunch of commercial real estate." Which the thought of not even knowing how many houses you own- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan and then being like- While the majority of the upcoming generation will never own- Right ... a single home.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And he's like, "I don't know. I got some.

Dan Beecher I don't know." Well, and also he's talking about Blackstone like it's this horrible thing. Dude, that's you. That's who you are. If you own upwards of 20 houses, and come on, if he's saying 15 to 20, he owns 40.

Dan McClellan Yeah. It's more like 30 or 40.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan But yeah.

Dan Beecher And as well as commercial real estate. You're literally no different than Blackstone at that point, except in scale.

Dan McClellan And then he gets to the really juicy part. And I want to go ahead and read this.

Dan Beecher Go for it.

Dan McClellan And he says, somebody says, "How is that not greed?" And he says, "Because I don't own anything, Greg. I'm a Christian, and that means God owns it, and I'm managing it for him. So I guess you're calling God greedy." And I'm reading word for word from a transcript- Yeah ... of this video. That is- He literally said that. Which is another- That is astounding ... it's another attempt to be like, "Well, the LLC owns it, not me."

Dan Beecher Right. "I'm just-" Only this time it's God LLC.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It is the Lord Limited Liability Company.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah. It's such a dodge, right?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It's such an obvious dodge because very clearly, maybe he could claim that if he were giving all of the proceeds to all of these things to a charity.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Maybe then he could claim, "You know what? I'm managing this for God." You know what I mean?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher I can understand that being a claim if he's not benefiting from the increase of this business venture.

Dan McClellan But- Yeah. And certainly this sounds like this concept only exists when it is reified for the sake of defending his moral stance.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Because I'm sure at no point whatsoever is he ever counting his sacks of bags that have dollar signs painted on them with the idea of how am I going to serve God?

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan God is not the one who is cashing the checks. God is not the one who's jetting off to the Seychelles to enjoy being a steward of God's property.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan This is a defense that exists only for the sake of defense.

Dan Beecher Yeah. And good heavens, is that a pathetic attempt to say that- Even if your license plate says something Christian on it, if it's on a Ferrari, that's you benefiting.

Dan McClellan You got it.

Dan Beecher Yeah. So there you go.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher I think that it's It's kind of astounding that he's willing to say that. "Oh, I guess you're calling God greedy now." No, we're talking to you, Dave. And- That's who...

Dan McClellan Yeah And then he goes on to give a hard time to people who have bathrooms in their homes.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Where he's like, "If you make 36-" Right.

Dan Beecher This is another look over there sort of a dodge or something.

Dan McClellan It's whataboutism.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Here- Yeah ... it's like if you make $36,000 a year, you're in the richest 1% globally, which is entirely false. I looked it up. It's more like $175,000 a year to be in the top 1% globally.

Dan Beecher Oh, really?

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And if you're talking about the top 1% in the US, it's like 800 something thousand dollars- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher a year.

Dan McClellan So not only is it not true, but it's just pure whataboutism. You're just trying to s- Yeah.

Dan Beecher The point that he's making, he says, "If you've got three bathrooms, you have more than most people in the world. Why are you not greedy? If you have two cars, you have two cars more than most people in the world. If you make $38,000 a year, you're in the top 1% of income. How are you not greedy?" And his point, and then he says another astounding thing, which is, "Amounts don't create greed. Greed is a spirit. It's not an amount." I mean, okay. But- And you can have greedy poor people.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And you can have selfless wealthy people. That's a lot more rare. But yeah, this is another attempt to just dodge the fact that no, if you're always trying to get more, that's what avarice is. That's what- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher greed is.

Dan McClellan Right. You're not happy with what you have. And I don't think the biggest concern is this qualifies as greed. I think the biggest concern is this is unethical if you hold yourself out to be a Christian. Whether it's greedy or not, it's unethical to be causing suffering on the part of others just so you can hoard more for yourself.

Dan Beecher Yeah, I think that is the point. I do think that there are, and I don't have it pulled up. One of the things that we talk about all the time on this show is the fact that the Bible can be used to bolster many different conflicting positions.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And I think that there are some scripture that definitely lean the other direction. That it's like- Yeah ... good to be wealthy, and that wealth makes up for a positive thing.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And a lot of these scripture writers were writing in the times of kings who had wealth, and they would've gotten in big trouble if they had written anything else.

Dan McClellan Well, and a lot of the Hebrew Bible, a lot of the wisdom literature, this is written by the social elites, and they are there to promote their own worldview and their own interests. So the author of Proverbs obviously doesn't have a hard time with wealth when he's like, "Ah, a virtuous woman who has a bunch of slaves and goes out and purchases- Right ... fields in the marketplace," and all this kind of stuff. That's a very wealthy person. The New Testament is written to serve the interests of minority communities and largely oppressed communities. Now, the authors are not speaking on behalf of communities. They're writing for literary purposes. But earliest Christianity was derided as a religion for women and slaves.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan These were the poor and the downtrodden, which is why in the New Testament you don't really have the same kind of rhetoric you have in Proverbs and in Samuel and Kings. The New Testament, you have Jesus telling the rich young ruler, "Oh, if you want to inherit eternal life, go sell everything you have and give all the money to the poor." Now, I don't know how Dave Ramsey- ... reconciles this with... What would he have said to Jesus in response?

Dan Beecher Like- Right ...

Dan McClellan "Well, this isn't my stuff."

Dan Beecher I don't know.

Dan McClellan "I don't own any of this."

Dan Beecher "I can't sell this.

Dan McClellan It's God's.

Dan Beecher This belongs to God. How could I possibly sell it?"

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah. It seems like, especially a Christian. We talk about justifying wealth with proverbs. But yeah, if you're a Christian, theoretically, the teachings of Jesus and the New Testament should be the more dominant guide.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And it feels really clear about the hoarding of wealth and the making other people miserable- Yeah ... because you want more.

Dan McClellan And it's not just an individual thing. It's a social thing. These are people who are causing social inequities and causing economic problems for people who they've never met and have nothing to do with them. And I can think of another example that's even more directly related to this. Jesus condemns folks for, and I forget where this passage is. I haven't read it in a while. But he condemns people who say Corban. Do you remember that? Okay, that's in Mark 7.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan "But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free." Oh, I just read the KJV accidentally.

Dan Beecher Ah, shame on you.

Dan McClellan I get one a year. The idea here is Corban is this word that's supposed to mean dedicated. And so what this is saying is that children are withholding- ... wealth, money, maybe items of property, of value from their parents who, in this situation, clearly need them or could be greatly benefited by them, by saying, "This is dedicated to God. I can't give it to you. I'm going to hold onto it. I'm going to benefit from it, but it's God's, so I'm afraid I can't turn it over to you." Which is pretty much exactly what Ramsey is saying- Yeah ... when he said, "Oh, my 15 or somewhere around about 20-ish homes, and various and sundry commercial real estate properties, I don't own any of them. They belong to God, but you can't have them."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Yeah. It's the exact same thing, and so it's being condemned here.

Dan Beecher Yeah. He goes on to justify all of this thinking with an amazing idea, which is that he says you can be a socialist if you want to, just don't blame Christianity. And then he says that it is that- And definitely don't read Acts four and five. Wait, what do Acts four and five say?

Dan McClellan That's where they said they had all things in common, and there were no- Oh, right ... poor among them.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And then Sapphira and Ananias were like, "Oh, yeah. This was the full amount that we sold our property for." And then God's like, zap.

Dan Beecher So- Right. Oh, that's right. They died, huh?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Wow.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So- So excuse me for laughing, but this was a long, long time ago, so.

Dan Beecher Yeah. So, he's saying you can be socialist if you want, but don't blame Christianity.

Dan McClellan And then he says- I will blame being socialist on Christianity.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher He seems to think that they're against one another, and he then says, "That's," and that's meaning being against the massive accumulation of wealth, I assume.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Or of things.

Dan Beecher He says that's a form of heresy called Gnosticism- ... that believes that the material is bad, and anyone that has material, their soul is in jeopardy. Now, you and I talked about Gnosticism a few episodes back. I don't remember that being the kind of material that we were talking about. Not owning material wealth.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher I don't think that was what it was all on about, but- No, that's Jesus.

Dan McClellan Jesus is the one who's saying, "Where you place your heart- ... wherever your treasure is, there your heart will be, and you cannot serve God and wealth and give away all that you own." That's Jesus.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan What Gnosticism is talking about is that the material world, not material wealth, but the entire material world is corrupt, and we are fundamentally spirits that are trying to escape from the fleshly prisons of the material world. Gnostics are not like, "If you're poor, you're cool, but if you have lots of stuff, you're evil." That's not Gnosticism.

Dan Beecher Right. This is some- But it does seem like one of the things that the Gnostics are against would be holding fast to the values of a material world.

Dan McClellan Absolutely.

Dan Beecher So, yeah. I think he does have something to fear from Gnosticism, for sure.

Dan McClellan Well, yeah. He's on the short end of the Gnostics and of Jesus. Both of them are like, "What?"

Dan Beecher No.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher You're not it, guy.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher There you go. The anti-Gnostic and the whole thing was just a very... It's funny because the initial question that somebody wrote into him didn't mention him at all. Didn't say anything about, "Hey, Dave, you personally, how can you justify..." It just said, "How do we justify this as a concept? Isn't it greed?" And the defensiveness of this man.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Dave was immediately like, "I took that personally."

Dan Beecher And- Dave just told on himself.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher He took the entire time to just tell on himself.

Dan McClellan And because within Christian nationalism, there's got to be some kind of reckoning. There's got to be some kind of discussion going on- Mm ... about what about the whole sell everything that you own? These people are talking, and they've got to be trying to convince each other that they're okay. Well, I mean- And so I think Ramsey was just like, "Time to rattle off the litany of excuses that- Yeah ... I've heard other people come up with for why it's okay to be monumentally wealthy in the face of such extreme social inequality in this world, and be a Christian at the same time." And then to even be like, "I'm a better Christian than you all. You all are awful Christians- Well, it- ... if you think this is wrong."

Dan Beecher His theory that all of my stuff, because I'm Christian, just by virtue of me being Christian, all of my stuff belongs to God. What he can then do is, by that logic, more accumulation means God has more stuff, and that's an inherently good thing. Now, he doesn't say how that's a good thing- ... but as long as God's accruing more stuff, that must be okay, and therefore, I'm a good person, and shut up, Greg.

Dan McClellan Well, and I imagine he has this parable in mind of the wise steward Where God gives them the talents and they invest it, and the one who is scared and buries their talent, and God comes back and says, "Where's my increase?" And they say, "Oh, I just buried it, but here's the talent back that you gave me." And then God is like, "Ha ha ha," and gets upset with them. That's probably an excuse he would ultimately end up appealing to, that he is the wise steward by generating all this increase. What the parable manifestly does not talk about, though, is all the bodies left in the wake of an entire generation that will never be able to own a house and can barely afford eggs right now.

Dan Beecher Yeah. I find that parable deeply problematic, and maybe we should do it at some point. Yeah, I think that we're going to do it. Maybe we should do that parable here on the show, because it's a tricky one.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher For all of our talking about Jesus being very anti-wealth or whatever- Yeah ... that seems to fly in the face of it. So yeah, maybe we should address that.

Dan McClellan And he uses kings and wealthy folks and slave owners and things like that in a number of parables, which does kind of sound odd in light of the rest of his "blessed are the poor and the meek" rhetoric. So yeah, that would be interesting to look into.

Dan Beecher So maybe Dave Ramsey's right. Maybe with the parable of the talents, now you got me thinking maybe he's okay.

Dan McClellan Well, if the Old Testament prophets and Jesus have anything to say, well, yeah, but we're splitting Jesus along these parable and- Yeah ... because the parables are not really prescriptive. But, "Hey, go sell everything you have and give the money to the poor," is pretty prescriptive.

Dan Beecher That's pretty prescriptive.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher That's fairly unambiguous.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It's true.

Dan McClellan We've got a fever, and the only prescription- ... is to sell everything that you own and give the money to the poor.

Dan Beecher Yeah, exactly.

Dan McClellan Cowbell.

Dan Beecher So.

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher Well, that was great, and I hope Dave Ramsey comes after us for it.

Dan McClellan We could use the attention.

Dan Beecher That's right. Come at me, Ramsey. Yeah, don't go to him for your advice. Anyway, let's move on to... I'm sure now I'm going to get a lot of emails because I'm sure some of our listeners have felt like they've gotten great advice from Dave Ramsey. Anyway, so yes, our next thing is What's That? And the What's That for this thing is the Deuteronomistic history.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher I said all of those syllables.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher I'm just going to be clear that I achieved that much on the show today. So talk to me. You suggested this as a topic.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And I literally was like, "Well, what is that?" So let's start at the beginning and talk about the Deuteronomist. And what are we talking about here? What is this history? What are we on about?

Dan McClellan We're talking about a modern theoretical construct regarding the composition of not just the Pentateuch, but of several other books of the Hebrew Bible. Because we've talked a bit about the documentary hypothesis in the past, and this goes back to the 1700s. And this was developed into the 1800s, into the 1900s, into the 2000s. And we're not quite into the 2100s yet, but it will continue to develop. And the idea is basically that the Pentateuch was woven, stitched together from multiple different documentary sources in the classical iteration of the documentary hypothesis. And those sources are J for the Yahwist, E for the Elohist, P for the priestly source, and D for the Deuteronomist, or for Deuteronomy. Now, in the early 20th century, we had this German theologian named Martin Noth, who noticed that there was a lot of resonances in the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, and the Book of Deuteronomy.

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan He noticed a lot of literary callbacks and things like this, and he developed this theory that there was a redactor who was responsible for a single literary unit, a text that included Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, and he called this the Deuteronomistic history.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And it seems to be based on this covenant idea that God struck a covenant with Israel, and that theology is pervasive in all of these texts. And there's a lot of language that's similar. And one of the parts of this theory was that this redaction took place long after the events that are being narrated. And one of the reasons for this is he noticed that there were a lot of places where the narrative talks about how this thing was built, and it is there until this day. "Ad hayom hazeh" in Hebrew, until the day that this one.

Dan Beecher So meaning until right now.

Dan McClellan Yeah. As of the writing of this. As of the writing of this. And when you think about that, authors don't say, "Hey, this thing just happened." And you can go and see the remnants of the building, the battle, the whatever, and it remains down until this very day. Like, that's not something you say about something that you witnessed yourself.

Dan Beecher That's something you say about something- Yesterday they completed that building next door, and it remains there even now.

Dan McClellan Yeah. This is something you say about things that happened in hoary antiquity- Right ... but the results of which continue to be evident, and you can go check it out for yourself. And so, you have this "until this day" language, it occurs a handful of places toward the end of Genesis, like a couple times in Genesis 19, 22, 26, and then it's like 35, 47, 48. Once in Exodus, once in Numbers, and then a bunch of times in Deuteronomy and Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. And so one gets the idea that this redactor was kind of bringing a lot of stuff together and seems to be kind of stitching some of this stuff with this language.

Dan Beecher And- Why are we calling this person the redactor rather than the collector or the bringing together-er, or the... You know what I mean?

Dan McClellan I think the MCU probably has copyright on the collector.

Dan Beecher So- The T'Vaar group- That's a good point ...

Dan McClellan I think is run by the collector. But it's a literary theory. It's part of the documentary hypothesis that this person was not writing any of these things. They were basically drawing them together, weaving them together to create this literary superstructure that is known as the Deuteronomistic history. And it can be woven into theories about the development of Deuteronomy. There are arguments about whether or not the Deuteronomistic history was there from the very beginning with the very first layers of Deuteronomy that may have been composed just before Josiah, may have been composed by Josiah, may have been collected by the scribes of Josiah. So traditionally, Genesis, or not Genesis, Deuteronomy 12 through 24 is identified as one of the earliest layers of Deuteronomy, and so there's an argument that the Deuteronomistic history is already coming together with that earliest layer. But it's phenomenally complex, and- Yeah ... you have a lot of different people arguing a lot of different positions. There's a really good book from about 15 years ago called "The So-called Deuteronomistic History" by Thomas Romer, who is a... Did we? I think we ran into him at SBL.

Dan Beecher Oh, yeah?

Dan McClellan Yeah. Remember we were coming out of the book exhibit at one point, and I was like, "Hold on, I got to talk to that guy."

Dan Beecher That's right.

Dan McClellan And I thought it was somebody else.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan And he was like, "No, I'm-" Oh, yeah.

Dan Beecher "...

Dan McClellan Thomas." And I was like, "Oh, yeah." I was like, "We want to have you on the podcast," and he gave me his card. Which reminds me, I need to reach out to him.

Dan Beecher But- Yes, you do ...

Dan McClellan he wrote this wonderful book, and he has this theory that within Deuteronomy 12, you can see three different literary layers, the very earliest layer of Deuteronomy, and then a later redaction, and then a later redaction. And when you get deep in the weeds, it gets really complex and really annoying. But I think that the theory itself is such a fascinating one. And once you know the details of it, it's interesting to be reading through the text and be like, "Ah. The Deuteronomist rears his head again."

Dan Beecher So in- Meaning you're catching moments of sort of a reiteration or an idea that has sort of come back around, or...

Dan McClellan Yeah. And these are things that kind of point to the main rhetorical goals of this redactor, which are related to cult centralization, the idea that everything, all worship needs to be focused on the temple in Jerusalem, needs to be focused exclusively on Adonai, needs to go exclusively through the prescribed priesthood. And there's some other language that I talked about that we find in Deuteronomy when I mentioned this to you, the idea that God is going to choose a place to place his name or cause his name to dwell.

Dan Beecher Okay, yeah.

Dan McClellan And you were like, "I don't know what you're talking about." But- I was like, "Okay, great." But this is one of the hints that- You know, Dave Ramsey has some places- ...

Dan Beecher if God wants to find a place for his name to dwell, Dave- 15 or 20 or 30 or so ... they actually belong to God, so he could just claim them.

Dan McClellan And so one of the interesting things is the book of Deuteronomy is supposed to have been written long before Jerusalem became the location of God's temple. And so- Oh, yeah.

Dan Beecher I can see that being a problem.

Dan McClellan But it's being written well after it has been established.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan But the king wants Deuteronomy to centralize worship in Jerusalem. So the way they get around this is by having God talk cryptically about the place I will choose, which- ... is always a substitution for Jerusalem.

Dan Beecher Right, okay.

Dan McClellan Like, the foregone conclusion is that Jerusalem is where we're headed.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan But I love the fact that the phrase is the place God will choose to cause his name to dwell. And I think the Hebrew is "l'shaken sh'mo sham," literally to cause to dwell his name there. And this plays into what is known as name theology, which is something that we find in Deuteronomy and pops up in a few places in the Deuteronomistic history, and this is the idea that God does not dwell bodily or personally in the temple, but God's name is there- And God's name is kind of the manifestation of God's power and authority, and this relates to work I've done on divine images.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And my argument is that this is about the inscription of the divine name on a divine image that is placed in the temple, and in that sense, the divine name is dwelling in that divine image.

Dan Beecher It almost wouldn't even have to be inscribed. My understanding of your theory of divine imagery or whatever, yes, an inscription would be one thing, but it can also be theoretical, right?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It could also be just like the concept of God's name is enough to carry sort of the weight of God's presence or something.

Dan McClellan Yeah, and that's what we see once we get into Greco-Roman period Judaism and the New Testament. I made a video today where I was talking about the times in the Gospel of John where Jesus is like, "Yes, you gave your name to me, and through your name I have guarded my followers." And the reception of the name is so important to this early Christology, but it's not like God was inscribing the name of God on Jesus. This is just an abstract notion of the name as a vehicle for divine agency. So yeah, it doesn't even have to be material. By this time, it has become abstract and conceptual.

Dan Beecher Well, even the Ten Commandments, demanding that you not take the name of the Lord in vain was a concept that somehow just invoking the name had its own power.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And that's a power that you shouldn't use vainly. You shouldn't use for silly- Yeah ... or untoward purposes.

Dan McClellan And at the same time, though, to speak the name is to materialize the name.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan At least in the sense that what we hear as sound waves is material. And we tend to think of things that we can't feel and see and touch as existing a different way than the things that we can see and feel and touch, but auditory things are material. And anciently, I think they would've thought of speech as something that's actually materially affecting the world around us, and so that would've lent itself to this understanding of names as powerful because- Yeah ... they are affecting the world. So yeah, that's another way, and in my opinion, one of my theories that I develop in my book, "Adonai's Divine Images," and that I've got to further develop in a paper I'm going to be presenting at a conference later this year, is that the pronunciation of the name became taboo precisely because it was reifying the divine presence outside of the temple, and therefore, in an inappropriate location. And so you couldn't say the divine name, unless you were in the temple, and once the temple was destroyed, eh, then you can never say the divine name.

Dan Beecher Yeah. That's another topic for another show because the temple itself is such an important concept, and it feels like it shifts a bunch of times.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher The way that it's talked about and the way that it is conceptualized changes, and it seems so odd to me that the temple was destroyed, and then that's just it. You know what I mean? And they had rebuilt it before- Mm-hmm ... but that was the last time. We're just done with the temple for now.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And I think circumstances prevented them. Rome, they couldn't come back and be like, "Hey, Rome, can we rebuild our temple?" Because Rome had done other stuff in the area, and they were persona non grata there for quite some time. And there are a bunch of people who are trying to get the Third Temple rebuilt. The Temple Institute is preparing all of the implements and utensils and things like that that would be needed in the temple. Most, if not all of those things, are already built and being stored.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan In fact, if you go into Jerusalem today through, oh, shoot, I forget which gate you've got to go through, but it's the gate on the northwest side. And round the corner, they have on display a menorah that has been built for use in a future temple.

Dan Beecher Huh.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So it's in a big glass case, glass, plexiglass, I don't know. I assume it's supposed to be pretty durable and indestructible, but you can go see the menorah that they have constructed.

Dan Beecher Not unlike the Deuteronomistic idea of there will be, at some point- Yeah. Where God chooses to- Where God chooses- ... call his name to dwell.

Dan McClellan Yeah Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah. You like how I circled it back?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher I was like, "We've gone a bit afield from the Deuteronomistic history."

Dan McClellan But that project is, I tend to think of the Deuteronomistic project, Deuteronomy, and the Deuteronomistic history as probably the most influential literary campaign in the history of the world in terms of its influence. And people talk about the Quran and stuff like that. You don't have a Quran without Judaism.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so what Josiah did- And what the authors of Deuteronomy and the rest of the Deuteronomistic history did was recreate the history of Israel in their past in a certain way, which influenced everything that came after related to the temple. And it came right before the temple was destroyed, and then it gets further revised and redacted after the destruction of the temple, and probably after the rebuilding of the temple as well. And that creates a pretty thick layer of ideology that gets passed down, and within a few centuries, becomes scripture and becomes the word of God, and ever since has, to some degree, governed how people think about temple and temple sacrifices and all that kind of stuff. But, and now we're uncovering temples that were built six miles from Jerusalem- Oh, wow ... that were operative during the First Temple period. The Tel Motza temple, for instance, is one of them. We got the Arad temple down south in the Negev as well. So we know there were multiple temples operating prior to the exile, and I think that lends credence to the theory that Josiah was like, "I'm going to put a stop to all this nonsense," to the theory that Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic history were an attempt to centralize and consolidate worship and control over it. But yeah, we ought to do a show on the First Temple- Yeah ... and what we know and don't know about it. I think that would be fun.