The Heart of Pharaoh

Dan Beecher My favorite of the tricks that he was like, "Okay. Hey, put your hand in your robe. Okay, pull it out.

Dan McClellan Leprosy.

Dan Beecher Ah." And he's like, "Ah. Wait, why? Why did you do that?" And he's like, "Okay, put it back in your robe. Now it's cured." That is not a good trick. Don't do that.

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, and I'm going to give it a little podcast voice, where we increase public access to the academic... I don't know if that's public- ... podcast voice, but we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. I feel like I'm supposed to speak softer on the podcast.

Dan Beecher I think your voice is technically a podcast voice because you've been doing a podcast for two years now.

Dan McClellan It's been that long?

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Well, there's a joke that, for whatever reason, I heard four or five different times when I was a missionary in South America, in Uruguay specifically. Folks would say, "We've been married for 10 years, but it really only feels like one year underwater." Or with my head underwater, or something like that.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And I was always like, "That's a dumb joke," but- You know that that's your wife you're talking about, right?

Dan Beecher Yeah. That's your spouse.

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher Well, today, coming up on the show, we're talking about a couple things. We just had Easter.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher We lived through it. We saw the other side of it.

Dan McClellan I still got the Reese's Easter egg bag on my counter.

Dan Beecher Well, that's insane. You haven't eaten those yet?

Dan McClellan No, no.

Dan Beecher Ah.

Dan McClellan I'm rationing them because- Okay ... I had non-alcoholic fatty liver disease for a while, lost 30 pounds, got rid of it, and gained 40.

Dan Beecher Oh, wow.

Dan McClellan So now I have it back again, so- Oh, fun ... I've got to- Okay.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan I've got to try to pull it back a little bit.

Dan Beecher Well, all right.

Dan McClellan I only have two fistfuls at a time.

Dan Beecher Fair enough. Anyway, what we're going to be talking about this week on our Taking Issue is the issue of... It's not anything to do really with what is celebrated on Easter, just when is celebrated on Easter.

Dan McClellan When is it celebrated?

Dan Beecher So, yeah. We're going to talk about the dating of Easter. I dated her.

Dan McClellan This was a question that was... You dated somebody named Easter? Is that what you were saying?

Dan Beecher I dated her sister for a little while, but- Your si- Okay.

Dan McClellan I had an uncle who used to be like, "You know, I always love that Garth Brooks song, 'If Tomorrow Never Comes.' By the way, did I ever tell you about my girlfriend Tomorrow?"

Dan Beecher And- Badoosh.

Dan McClellan Badoosh.

Dan Beecher Yeah. We'll just glide right past that and move on. In the second half of this week's show, we are going to be talking about a heart, speaking of love.

Dan McClellan We're going to talk about the heart of Pharaoh, and its hardening.

Dan Beecher Hmm. The hardening thereof.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And it's actually a fascinating topic that I'm really glad we're talking about- Yeah ... because it's something that has gotten at me ever since I read that book of Exodus.

Dan McClellan Yes. And it hardened into chocolate- It did ... which is why on Easter, which is based on Passover- Yeah ... which is based on the- It sounds like- ... event we're talking about ...

Dan Beecher God is hardening your liver.

Dan McClellan So- ...

Dan Beecher that's what's happening.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Anyway, should we do our thing?

Dan McClellan Let's do it.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Let's dive into Taking Issue.

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher The issue at hand is the dating of Easter, and- Yes ... here's the thing about Easter, is that I remember as a kid being a little weirded out by Easter because I could never figure out when it was supposed to happen, and it always snuck up on me.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Now, look, I was a kid with ADHD. Most things snuck up on me. Many times, I'd get to school and they'd be like, "You excited about the field trip?" And I'd be like, "What? The what now? There's a what? Where are we going?"

Dan McClellan See, I'm exactly like this. When I had a 9:00 to 5:00 and I had- Uh-huh ... to go into an office and everything, my wife would be like, "Remember, Monday's a holiday, a federal holiday. You don't have to go into work on Monday." I'd be like, "What holiday is it?"

Dan Beecher Exactly.

Dan McClellan Or she'd be like, "We got something on Memorial Day." And I'm like, "What month is that in?"

Dan Beecher So yeah. But Easter is especially tricky, because it moves around. It's got a whole month that it could be- Yeah ... anywhere in the middle of. And then add to that, now, I didn't know this growing up, but there's two Easters- Yeah ... in the world- Yes ... calculated differently.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Although not this year.

Dan McClellan I discovered this with my old 9:00 to 5:00 when I was making plans to take my first trip to Athens to go start work on the translation of the Book of Mormon into modern Greek. And I was talking with some folks over there who were going to help me identify translators and reviewers and stuff like that. And I was like, "Well, what about this date?" And they were like, "Well, that's the week of Easter." And I was like, "No, it isn't, duh.

Dan Beecher Idiot."

Dan McClellan "Yes, it is." And they were like, "You have to experience Easter in Greece, but don't come out here and expect us to work."

Dan Beecher So- Interesting ...

Dan McClellan yeah. I have not been out there during the week of Easter. But yeah, and I was like, "Oh, I didn't know that they did things differently- Yeah ... out there." So there's a- So let's discuss- ... there's an island There's an island that has a lot of Catholics in it.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And the Catholics have been like, "We will adopt the Orthodox date for Easter so we can all get along."

Dan Beecher Just so we can all be friends.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher All right. Well, I think that's fine. It doesn't seem-- I'm sure that there are Catholics and/or Eastern Orthodox Christians who would argue with me about this, but the date that you celebrate it doesn't feel like it should matter.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It feels like the thing that's being celebrated should be the important thing.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher But, no, the date is very important. So let's talk about, first of all, should we talk about how it's calculated first, or should we talk about why it is tricky to calculate first?

Dan McClellan Well, I want to talk about how it has changed.

Dan Beecher Ooh, okay.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So I'm going to go back to prior to the Council of Nicaea. Now, I am wont to get very upset when people say, "This happened at the Council of Nicaea." Because no, it didn't almost every time.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan This is one thing that did happen- Dan Brown.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan This is one thing that did happen at the Council of Nicaea. They established a new mechanism for calculating the date of Easter. So before that, there were two main traditions for calculating the date of Easter, and one was based on the Jewish Passover.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And they called these folks the Quartodecimans, because they always celebrated Easter on the 14th of Nisan, which is the name of the Jewish month in which Passover is celebrated. Because Passover is closely connected with Jesus's resurrection, Easter is supposed to celebrate Jesus's resurrection, we're just going to celebrate it on the Passover, irrespective of what day of the week it might fall on.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So if it's on hump day, we're going to celebrate it on hump day. If it's on Friday eve, we're going to celebrate it on Friday eve. Doesn't matter. And then you had other folks who were like, "No, it's got to be on the Lord's day because he resurrected on a Sunday. Sunday's the Lord's day. Sunday is the Christian Sabbath. We have to celebrate it on a Sunday." Which means, usually, it would be the first Sunday after the 14th of Nisan.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So after the Passover. So it was different for different people. And then you had people in different areas who would be like, "We're going to do our own calculations." And particularly in places like Alexandria and Egypt, where that was a kind of hub of a lot of the Greco-Roman science at the time.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so you had a lot of people who were into the astrology and stuff. So the Alexandrian church was the nerds when it came to- ... how to do this. And this was a controversy because you might think, "Who cares?" But it has a lot to do-- Well, in their mind, it had a lot to do with recognition of Jesus's resurrection, and some people were like, "We shouldn't be celebrating the Passover. It's not about the Passover, it's about the resurrection." And then the other people would be like, "But the resurrection happened on the Passover, so let's do it." And so it was a big fight. And then at Nicaea, Constantine came in and just locked the kids in the room and said, "Figure it out." And what they decided was-- And there was another problem as well, is that if you were following whoever's method, you might have to wait for them to send you a letter and saying, "This year, we decree that it should be celebrated on this day."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And they wanted a way, one, to unify the church, but two, they wanted it to be something that people could figure out on their own without having to wait for a festal letter or something like that.

Dan Beecher And they were solving the problem of, this is not difficult enough to figure out.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So let's find a way. This is nowhere near convoluted enough. Let's solve that issue.

Dan McClellan So. And an additional issue was they wanted to decouple it from the celebration of Passover. They did not want to celebrate Easter on the same day that Jewish folks were celebrating the Passover.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And so what they came up with is it must be celebrated on a Sunday, so they sided against the Quartodecimans. They said, "You guys are wrong. We're doing it on a Sunday." It must not coincide with the Jewish Passover. And what they sided on was the Sunday after the first full moon after or on the spring equinox.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And they had this ecclesiastically authoritative date for the equinox, which I'm pretty sure March 21st was the date.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So it was basically we hit the 21st, next full moon, it's the Sunday after that.

Dan Beecher Right. And so bam, bam- How did they make sure that that avoids being on Passover? I don't know when Passover is.

Dan McClellan I don't know.

Dan Beecher Because- Is that date of the March 21st or whatever, that's just after Passover every year?

Dan McClellan I'm pretty sure. I would have to go back and look at exactly how they determined Passover. But the Jewish calendar was lunisolar, and so Passover was based on the phases of the moon.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So I think it was a way to guarantee that it would always be after the summer solstice.

Dan Beecher So Passover's on the new moon, Easter's after the full moon, something like that.

Dan McClellan Well, Passover would be on the full moon. Um, so I think that by saying it's the Sunday after, they're saying it's the Sunday after Passover.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Or something like that.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay. So Passover is on the full moon, and then this is like the Sunday after that.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And so that was what they decided at Nicaea, and everything was just working grand, until we had something called the Gregorian calendar reform. Do you recall the story of- Pope Gregory ...

Dan Beecher Pope Gregory. Was like, "I am getting really annoyed with the time slip that happens- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan every four years."

Dan Beecher Got slippage. We're slipping.

Dan McClellan Jerry. Can't deal with the slippage.

Dan Beecher Yeah, it was something like that. They were discovering the problem of things not working out to exactly a number of days every year.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So you were losing days, or you were gaining days, or whatever it is.

Dan McClellan Because the Julian calendar counted exactly 364.25 days for the year and had a leap year every four years no matter what. And the reality is that it's something like 364.2415, or something like that, days in a year, which means you lose a day every, what is it? It's like four or five days every 400 years or something. I think today the difference between the Julian and the Gregorian calendars is 13 days.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So things have- Meaning that- ... time kept on slipping.

Dan Beecher So the Julian calendar, people have kept following that. That's still rolling.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And then the Gregorian calendar, and since they started, and it was the same day, and now it's been long enough that they are 14 days different.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So the Eastern Orthodox Churches were like, "We're not doing that silly Gregorian thing. We're sticking with the Julian calendar. I'm a Julian man."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so slowly the date of Easter has slipped away.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So that now it's like 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar. So I think 1582 is when that reform was instituted.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And I think there might be a difference in when they identify... Well, because of that, the equinox is calculated to be on a different date.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Which creates a difference.

Dan Beecher So what that means is that many times, the Orthodox Easter and the Western Easter, the Catholic/Protestant Easter- Mm-hmm ... fall on different days.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher In fact they- But not always, as we learned this year.

Dan McClellan Not always. No, but last year, you know how far apart they were?

Dan Beecher No, I don't.

Dan McClellan Over a month.

Dan Beecher Oh, wow.

Dan McClellan I'd have to look it up, but I think that in 2024, Orthodox Easter was on May 5th, and Western Easter was on March 31st.

Dan Beecher Wow.

Dan McClellan So they were over a month apart because of that little difference.

Dan Beecher Well, and I read a thing that said that, and I wish I had it pulled up, but I don't. But I read a thing that said that in the next X number of years, there will be- Mm-hmm ... two or three more occurrences where they overlap, where they're on the same day again.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And then it won't happen again for like 1,000 years. Just as a quirk of how things are slipping or whatever.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So that's interesting. But that's only if everybody sticks to their guns and stays- Yeah ... on the calendar that they're currently going on.

Dan McClellan And there are campaigns to reform the date of Easter, and there are institutions who've been like, "This aggression will not stand." "We've got to fix this." In the United Kingdom, Parliament passed the Easter Act in 1928- Oh?

Dan Beecher ...

Dan McClellan which says the date of Easter will be the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan Although that legislation was never implemented.

Dan Beecher Interesting.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So we're just going to go completely rogue.

Dan Beecher Yeah. I guess Parliament was like, "Everybody listens to us. We rule the world, so we'll just do this."

Dan McClellan And everybody was like, "We're not doing that."

Dan Beecher You'd think in a country that has a state religion, it's plausible that they could've pulled it off, but apparently they weren't able to.

Dan McClellan Let's see. There was a summit in Aleppo in Syria in 1997. The World Council of Churches proposed a reform, and the reform was proposed for implementation starting in 2001, but it was not adopted by any member body. So I feel bad for whoever was so excited about getting their reform in front of the World Council of Churches, and everybody was like, "Ohi."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "No.

Dan Beecher No, thank you."

Dan McClellan In January 2016, Anglican Communion, Coptic Orthodox Church, Greek Orthodox Church, and Roman Catholic Church- Considered agreeing upon a universal date for Easter. That evidently fizzled. November 2022, the Patriarch of Constantinople said that they had been in conversation with the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Churches to try again, and it says the agreement is expected to be reached for the 1700s.

Dan Beecher 1700s.

Dan McClellan 1700s.

Dan Beecher There you go.

Dan McClellan You can see why I ditch 100 takes for every TikTok video I put out. The agreement is expected to be reached for the 1700 anniversary of the Council of Nicaea in...

Dan Beecher What?

Dan McClellan 1700 years after 325?

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan This year.

Dan Beecher 2025.

Dan McClellan This year.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Okay. So we may get a change- Interesting ...

Dan Beecher this year. It's one of those things where, again, to my mind, it shouldn't matter what the actual date is. We don't know the date of the actual resurrection, the date of the killing of Jesus, and then the subsequent dates.

Dan McClellan Yes. And it was- Exactly ... not April 3rd, 30 CE, because a lunar eclipse does not cause darkness. We've been through that one.

Dan Beecher Yeah. We've been through that one.

Dan McClellan We've been through that one, yeah.

Dan Beecher But because we don't know the actual date, it seems silly to me to worry too much about it other than now there's an identity thing. Part of how an Eastern Orthodox Christian sees themselves as, well, we do this other thing that separates us- Yeah ... from these other guys, and that's important to them. You know what I mean?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher That could be important to them.

Dan McClellan It's our thing.

Dan Beecher It's our thing. So I can see why it has been, and may continue to be, an intractable problem.

Dan McClellan Though- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher if the Patriarch of Constantinople, and my understanding is that the Constantinople patriarch is first among equals in the patriarchate- Mm ... of the Orthodox, which is one of those phrases that doesn't make any sense. Doesn't make any sense.

Dan McClellan Yes, because it's an attempt to connect two incommensurate dots.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Square the circle.

Dan Beecher But if that guy's going to come to the table, that's an interesting question.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It does seem like, and you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but it seems like you go to the Gregorian. You know what I mean? They're the ones who should be taking the step because the Gregorian's just the more accurate calendar.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And I think that maybe a way you offer a compromise is just come up with a whole new system.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And not just say, "You adopt our system," but say, "Scrap the system. Let's come up with something new that we can all agree to."

Dan Beecher What would you do? What's your proposal? The Dan McClellan- Oh, I- ... official proposal for how you calculate Easter.

Dan McClellan I would just pick a date.

Dan Beecher I would, too. I feel like, yeah, April 6th is great.

Dan McClellan Whatever. Or just say the last Sunday in April or something like that.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher If you want to keep it a Sunday, that's fine.

Dan McClellan Yeah. I think everybody's moved past the... The other one was a little outdated. I think everybody's on Sunday now.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Moving away from the Sunday might be a bridge too far.

Dan Beecher There you go.

Dan McClellan And the First Council of Nicaea convened on May 20th.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And adjourned at the end of July 325 CE.

Dan Beecher So the theory is that these guys could do the same. They could meet.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Depending on when they decide they're going to celebrate the anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, Dan Brown- ... somewhere in May, June, or July. The Nicene Creed was formulated on June 19th, on Juneteenth- There you go ... of 325 CE. So maybe they pick that day, or maybe they go, "Mm, let's not step on too many toes here.

Dan Beecher Let's- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan find another date." We'll see. And maybe those talks broke down. Maybe they got upset and stormed out of the building and said- Yeah ... "We can't tolerate this. This aggression will not stand."

Dan Beecher Well, and also, I guess not for nothing, but there will be a different pope at the table.

Dan McClellan Yes, there will be.

Dan Beecher So that might throw a spanner in the works as well. Who knows- Yeah ... what will happen with that?

Dan McClellan That's always a fun, interesting experience watching the at least being around during the conclave, maybe not watching it, but I read something today that said the streaming of conclave shot up after the news of the pope's death made it around the world.

Dan Beecher Oh, yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah, because it's the new hot thing now.

Dan Beecher Do they stream it? Do they live stream what's going on there?

Dan McClellan No.

Dan Beecher The movie. Oh, the movie Conclave.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay. The movie with- That would be fascinating if they were like- Oh, yeah.

Dan McClellan But no, it's all very, very private.

Dan Beecher Yes. Very hush hush.

Dan McClellan So Ralph, and I probably need to see that movie- I haven't seen it either ... because I like Ralph Fiennes.

Dan Beecher He's a- Yeah, I like him a lot.

Dan McClellan I think it was one of his brothers, Joseph?

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan Who played Martin Luther.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan ... in the movie Martin Luther, which I thought it was interesting.

Dan Beecher There you go.

Dan McClellan Yeah, it was my first kind of glimpse into all of that history, but it was fun.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah, Conclave would be... Did it win any Oscars?

Dan Beecher I don't remember.

Dan McClellan I don't remember. I think it was nominated for a handful.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan But.

Dan Beecher All right. Well, there you go. Do we have anything more we need to say about Easter and the dating thereof?

Dan McClellan I don't think so. I think we've covered most of the stuff I wanted to talk about, and even found some stuff that I didn't prepare to talk about- Yes, indeed ... to talk about.

Dan Beecher All right. Well, there you go. That's the Computus Paschalis for you, if you want to get fancy.

Dan McClellan That's a deep cut. Yeah, good.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Let's move on to our chapter and verse.

Dan McClellan Let's do it.

Dan Beecher And I'm excited about this one, as I said earlier, as I teased in the opening- Yes ... of the show, because when I read Exodus, there's this thing that keeps happening over and over again in chapter 4, in chapter 7, in chapter 10, in chapter 14, and if I read it the way I see it on the page- Mm-hmm ... it's mystifying. It's infuriating, is what it is. So let's talk a little bit about what...

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher So what we've got, we've got Moses, we've got Pharaoh.

Dan McClellan We can read Exodus 4:21.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan Okay. I think that kind of introduces what we're talking about a little bit.

Dan Beecher So this is Moses. He has left Egypt, and God is sending him back into Egypt to go and free his people- Mm-hmm ... from bondage under the Pharaoh.

Dan McClellan So this is Mount Horeb. This is burning bush. This is "I am that I am."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan The Val Kilmer flowing robes.

Dan Beecher Sure.

Dan McClellan Gracious.

Dan Beecher All that stuff. Get all of that in your head. You're a Val Kilmer guy. I, of course, am a- A Charlton Heston.

Dan McClellan Heston fella.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Who played God in that? Was it also Charlton Heston?

Dan Beecher It might've been. It was just a voice.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Well, and that's what it is in- Yeah.

Dan Beecher Anyway ...

Dan McClellan that's what everything is in "Prince of Egypt."

Dan Beecher That's, yes, exactly. In animated films, it's all just... Anyway, so verse 21 in chapter 4 says, "And the Lord said to Moses, 'When you go back to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders that I have put in your power.'" He gave him a whole bunch of tricks, a bag of tricks to go and do.

Dan McClellan A staff of tricks, you might say.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Indeed.

Dan Beecher Including the one, my favorite of the tricks that he was like, "Okay, hey, put your hand in your robe. Okay, pull it out.

Dan McClellan Leprosy.

Dan Beecher Ah!" And he's like, "Ah! Wait, why? Why did you do that?" And he's like, "Okay, put it back in your robe. Now it's cured." That is not a good trick. Don't do that.

Dan McClellan Anyway- Leprosy ...

Dan Beecher that was one of the tricks. Anyway, so he says, "When you go back to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go."

Dan McClellan That is- And I think we've mentioned before that if you're Moses- ... and God's like, "So here's what you're going to do at great personal threat to your- Yeah ... bodily safety, and I'm going to make it so it doesn't work."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And Moses is like, "What?"

Dan Beecher Yeah. You know that you're all-powerful, right?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Why don't you do the opposite and make it work?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Because I thought that was the goal.

Dan McClellan Yeah. God's like, "Well, I'm trying something. Hang on a minute."

Dan Beecher "I just want to see what happens. This is going to be funny."

Dan McClellan Yeah. "You're supposed to know what happens."

Dan Beecher "Shh." So what's going on here? First of all, talk to me a bit about what the original Hebrew has to say.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Ooh. Like, what are we reading here?

Dan McClellan Yeah, so it says heart, and the first thing to keep in mind is that the heart was the seat of both emotion and intelligence and cognition- Right ... in the Hebrew Bible. There's no word in the Hebrew Bible for brain.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Every time you see mind in a translation of the Old Testament, that's heart.

Dan Beecher Interesting.

Dan McClellan They located everything in the heart, and then your kidneys or your bowels were the seat of passions and fear and stuff like that. And then the verb is "chazaq," and it is probably the piel. Yeah, so the piel would be to put in a state of being hard.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So, "I will put his heart into a state of being hard," and the idea there, the imagery, is that he is not soft-hearted, he's hard-hearted. In other words- Right ... he's grr, he's obdurate.

Dan Beecher He's mean, and he's probably hard in the sense of unmovable or a stone.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Not going to show compassion- Right ... in other words. And it quite explicitly says, "I will harden his heart."

Dan Beecher Wow.

Dan McClellan Yeah, which is, hmm. And then when we get to chapter 7, which is when Moses finally is having to do all this crap that God- Right ... told him to do, even though he also told him, "And none of it's going to work."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "And I'm going to make sure of it."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It kind of takes, I imagine it would take the wind out of your sails and Moses would just be like, "Let my people go."

Dan Beecher Please let them go.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan I knew that was going to happen. And then again, in Exodus 7:3, and I love Exodus 7:1, God tells Moses, "I will make you a god to Pharaoh."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "But I'm not going to let Pharaoh let your people go."

Dan Beecher Well, and it's not very much of a, "I will make you a god," because what he's about to do is the rod into a snake trick.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Which is a good trick. That's really awesome. But then, yeah, Pharaoh's guys can do the same trick.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So, I don't know how god-like Pharaoh sees him in that moment.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And God says again in verse three, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and I will multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt." And this is kind of the theme- Yeah ... is that God is like, "Wait, no, I'm doing something here. I want him to say no all these times so I can fiddle with all these signs and wonders."

Dan Beecher So I can do more tricks.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher I'm putting on a show, and- If he says yes at any time, then I don't get to do all of my whole- I got a whole list ... I got a whole list of things- Yeah ... that I want to- I'm a prop comic.

Dan McClellan I got a whole bunch of props I work with. And this one's a frog, and look, it's lice.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Look at all the locusts, ta-da. Got a whole set here, and it's ruined if Pharaoh is like, "Yeah, sure, whatever, go."

Dan Beecher Yeah, it's fine.

Dan McClellan So really what's going on here is God wants to show off because God wants this reputation that's going to spread around the world. "Look what God did."

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan And God is like, "I have fixed the deck so that I get to show off."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan But after that, you get a couple of Exodus 7:13, it just said, and here's a peculiarity. It's just a call, and he hardened the heart of Pharaoh. And so maybe God is supposed to be the subject of that verb.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan But like the NRSVUE says, "However, Pharaoh's heart was hardened."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Makes it passive, takes away the subject.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Doesn't say who's doing it.

Dan Beecher So- But just 10 verses ago, we learned who's doing it.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher He literally said, God literally said, "I'm going to do this." And then in verse 13, it says, "However, his heart was hardened."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So I think we can safely infer who's doing the acting on that.

Dan McClellan Yeah. The antecedent is still active here.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan But then we get into chapter eight, and things shift a little bit. In verse 15, it says, "When Pharaoh saw that there was a respite," well, there it says, "He made his heart heavy." You have the hif'il, which is the causative of the verbal root kaabad, which means to be heavy. So Pharaoh caused his own heart to be heavy and would not listen to them.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And then in verse 32, it does it again, "And Pharaoh caused his heart to be heavy." Let me see if chazaq is ever used with Pharaoh as the subject, because they're using different verbs here. I don't think I picked up on that previously.

Dan Beecher What does chazaq mean?

Dan McClellan Chazaq means to be strong- Okay ... or firm or something like that. It's frequently used to mean to grab hold of somebody or something, or something like that.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan And here it can mean to be hard, to put in a state of being hard.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So it looks like when God is doing it, it's one verb, and at least so far, when it's Pharaoh doing it to himself, it's a different verb.

Dan Beecher Interesting.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Doesn't say whether he uses his left or right hand, but- I was going to say, the jokes are all there.

Dan Beecher The jokes. We hear it, too. We're just- We're just trying not to make the jokes about- We were going to leave them on the table, but- ... making himself hard. We hear it. Don't worry about it. It's his heart, you guys. Grow up.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So then we got in chapter nine. Yeah, so they're using two different verbs here. Sometimes it's God, sometimes it's Pharaoh, and I think the idea here is probably to create some narrative tension- Mm ... and say it's a give and a take.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan God has their sovereignty, which they're going to exercise. They're going to get what they want. But it's also showing that Pharaoh is also taking action himself. Pharaoh is taking some responsibility himself for hardening his own heart. So it's not all God. Again, we're trying to square a circle here and eat our cake and have it, too. If you say, "Have your cake and eat it, too," by the way, on social media, you will get dragged to hell. Because it's supposed to be eat first? Yeah, that's the idea.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And so every time I say it, I make sure to say, "Eat your cake and have it, too," even though it's not because that's- Because of the internet pedants Yeah. But every time I do it, I get a bunch of people who are like, "Thank you for saying it right."

Dan Beecher And so I mean, but I understand.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Anybody who feels strongly about that, I don't feel strongly about that.

Dan Beecher No.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And if you do feel strongly about that, consider not. You don't need to. It doesn't- Yeah.

Dan McClellan Same thing for I could care less versus I couldn't care less.

Dan Beecher Yeah. It means the same thing.

Dan McClellan I could care less.

Dan Beecher Yeah. And I couldn't care less. So, there you go.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So, there you go. Yeah, and then we've got God says in chapter 10 verse one, "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his officials.'"

Dan Beecher I love that he keeps, like just don't tell Moses. If you've done that and you're sending Moses in, just don't tell him, "I'm sending you on this futile endeavor."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It just seems mean.

Dan McClellan Yeah. At some point he had to have been like, "Kind of taking the wind out of my sails here- ... Lord of the universe." Also- I'm just going through the motions now.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It feels like a shallow victory when for the Lord- The puppet master is just playing their game and- Yeah.

Dan Beecher I mean, it just seems like you're not getting... Yes, you get to do your signs and wonders, but it's not like the Pharaoh was supposed to be this really nice guy, and God is tricking him into being mean. He was already mean, right?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Or was he? That's the other question. Maybe he was kind of a cool dude, and the Lord just kept messing with him.

Dan McClellan Well, we do have, let me pull up what's going on here because if this is the same Pharaoh, now Moses took off for 40 years.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan And I think when God visits Moses, he says that there's a new Pharaoh. There's a new Pharaoh that arises that enslaves.

Dan Beecher Okay. Yeah, because it's Yul Brynner now.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Now, in Exodus 1:8, "Now a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph." And Moses is supposed to be wandering for a bit before he shows up at Horeb and God's like, "I got a job for you. It's not going to work, but still got a job for you."

Dan Beecher You have to do it. It's just going to be a failure.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Over and over and over.

Dan McClellan I want to say it's a different Pharaoh because if it's the Pharaoh that Moses split from, then one, the Pharaoh should know him, but two, I don't know how harsh that Pharaoh was, but probably wasn't very nice.

Dan Beecher Well, Cecil B. DeMille had it be the guy that was raised as his brother.

Dan McClellan Oh. Because it's Yul Brynner.

Dan Beecher But it is, he ascended to the throne I think while Moses was in the wilderness. So yeah, who knows?

Dan McClellan Yeah. So, I have not read through the entire story of the Exodus for a bit, so Exodus specialists are going to be ashamed of me.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan That's true.

Dan Beecher I'm ashamed of you.

Dan McClellan I'm pretty sure it's a different Pharaoh. By the way, I looked it up. It was actually Cecil B. DeMille who voiced- Who voiced God?

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Perfect.

Dan Beecher And it says- That is perfect ...

Dan McClellan evidently some people suggest that Charlton Heston's voice was overlaid also to give it that tenor.

Dan Beecher Oh, sure.

Dan McClellan That tone. You got to have multiple voices for God.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Because he's actually three people, so that all makes sense.

Dan McClellan Three persons.

Dan Beecher Yep.

Dan McClellan One usia.

Dan Beecher Yeah. So, okay. Are we to chapter 14 yet? In the plagues- Mm-hmm ... so basically, I have an article that has a whole roundup of the various plagues.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher And in the first, I think five, the wording is that Pharaoh's heart became hard or hardened. He hardened his own heart, as you said, all of that sort of thing. And then we're back to, by plague six, this is chapter nine I think, the Lord hardens Pharaoh's heart. And then Pharaoh hardened his own heart, and then locusts, he hardened. So, God announces that he hardened Pharaoh's heart.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And then chapter 10, in the darkness, God hardened Pharaoh's heart. So, we're getting back to God hardening Pharaoh's heart.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And it looks like 9:34 is when the last time Pharaoh hardened his own heart.

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.

Dan McClellan And after that, it is God every time.

Dan Beecher Right. So, I guess the question is, what are we to make of this? What's going on here?

Dan McClellan Yeah. A lot of people don't like thinking of God as playing puppet master with the lives and the agency of their creation, but- Right ... that's what the text is saying. And I think literarily, rhetorically, the idea seems to be to kind of play from both sides of the plate. To attribute this partially to Pharaoh, but also partially to God, because again, God's got signs and wonders that he's just burning to get out of him, and God wants the world to know about all of this, and so if that means livestock got to die, if that means firstborns got to go. This narrative has some things it's got to get to. It's got to achieve certain things.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so those have to be elements of the story. But I'm sure that whoever was writing this was like, "Well, let's have a little from God. Let's have a little from Pharaoh." And then we create some tension. We help people realize that it's a joint effort between deity and humanity to save the Hebrews from Egypt or to provide the resistance to the saving of the Hebrews from Egypt.

Dan Beecher Sorry to interrupt. But it suddenly occurs to me that maybe the narrative structure here is that those first five plagues, blood, frogs, gnats, flies, you can kind of believe that's not enough to convince Pharaoh on his own.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher But then when you start to get to all of the livestock dying, the boils, the hail, locusts, when it starts to get really nasty- God's like, "Uh-oh, Pharaoh's losing his resolve.

Dan McClellan I've got to get in there."

Dan Beecher Right. Or at least the author is like, "People are not going to believe that this guy was okay with- Yeah ... was still saying no to this."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So they've got to come up with a way to make it believable that Pharaoh is still not letting these people go- Yeah ... even though seriously insane stuff is happening.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And I'm sure that plays into it. I'm sure there's a lesson about obstinacy and a lesson about obedience, where Moses is doing everything God says to do- Yeah ... and Pharaoh is the one who is not, even though sometimes it's someone else pulling the strings.

Dan Beecher Namely, God.

Dan McClellan Yeah. But it is troubling for a contemporary reader of this text, someone who thinks of God a certain way, as a respecter of agency, and as someone who would not toy with people's lives and just arbitrarily destroy them just for the sake of showing off, or showing off the actual taking of the lives.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Because the signs and wonders are all the things I'm destroying and- Yeah, and it's- ... the firstborn children.

Dan Beecher Yeah, culminating in that firstborn- Yeah ... firstborn children thing, that's horrific.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So it does seem like it'd be a lot nicer if God softened Pharaoh's heart, went the other direction, and after the first trick, Pharaoh's just like, "Oh, yeah, you better take these people and skedaddle."

Dan McClellan I've got more sense than that. And then you get the institution of the Passover, where it's like, "Remember all this happened." And from a mortal perspective, it's like, "Okay, we're remembering that things sucked and we were delivered." But if you're thinking of this from God's perspective, he's like, "I want you to remember when I did all this cool stuff. Remember the show I put on when I- Yeah ... had all those kids killed?" Which I think makes it clear that this is a narrative that was constructed to serve certain rhetorical purposes associated with identity markers and a sacred past that we've got to keep in mind in order to construct and curate our boundaries today, and keep in mind who we are and all that kind of stuff.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So I think it definitely originates in the human literary imagination and with the curation of social memory.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan In other words, this was not written by God.

Dan Beecher Right. Nor was it written about an event that actually occurred.

Dan McClellan It's a pretty narcissistic, megalomaniacal deity who sacrifices all of these humans for the sake of putting on a show.

Dan Beecher Not to mention the livestock.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher We don't even have to go into all of the livestock that had to die for this story to occur.

Dan McClellan Jonah got that message.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Where at the end of Jonah, God was like, "And then the livestock. You can't remember the..." "That's some good cattle."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And here, yeah, they totally missed out on that.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher Well, there you go. I'm going to harden my heart and say that that's enough of that. I'm cutting it off.

Dan McClellan I didn't get to use the line, though.

Dan Beecher Oh, please use the line.

Dan McClellan Hard-hearted harbinger of haggis.

Dan Beecher Yes. If we didn't have enough '90s pop culture references- Yeah ... it wouldn't even be our show.

Dan McClellan I think we haven't gotten to the So I Married an Axe Murderer for a while, so- Yeah ... it was due. I think it was due.

Dan Beecher It was time. It was time.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Pete, pants, no.

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher Friends, thank you so much for tuning in. If you would like to be a part of making our show continue on and feel so good about yourself in doing so, you can go to patreon.com/dataoverdogma and sign up to be one of our patrons where you can get early access to an ad-free version of every show. You can get access to the after party, which is bonus content that we do every week, and it's often a lot of fun, and every now and then a dud. But don't think about that. Don't think about that. And also, you'll get our undying love, which I think is the most valuable thing of all. Our show, by the way, is edited by Roger Gowdy. Thank you so much. If you would like to reach us, please feel free to reach out at contact@dataoverdogmapod.com, and we'll talk to you again next week.