The Indiana Jones Episode!

Dan McClellan Did the Red Hulk ever lift Thor's hammer in...

Dan Beecher I guess it was- Now we're crossing the streams. We're crossing the streams.

Dan McClellan We're crossing the streams, and you know you can't cross streams. It's just, don't cross the streams. 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, because why not? And we combat the spread of misinformation about the same, because we all know why. How are things today, Dan?

Dan Beecher Things are great.

Dan McClellan Awesome. Today's going to be fun.

Dan Beecher Yeah. We're going cinematic on this one.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher Yes. Because we are taking a trip down Indiana way. We're going to go down the Indiana Jones trail, if you will.

Dan McClellan No. Well, that was the name of the dog, not the road that he grew up on or anything.

Dan Beecher I don't know.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Anyway, moving on.

Dan Beecher Moving on.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So, we're going to start, as one does on one's Indiana Jones special- Mm-hmm ... with the Ark of the Covenant.

Dan McClellan The Ark of the Covenant, yeah.

Dan Beecher We will not be doing any raiding- No ...

Dan McClellan per se, but we will be talking- That would be unethical of us, as Indiana Jones was frequently.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Oh, yeah. He wasn't tremendously concerned about ethics.

Dan McClellan No.

Dan Beecher Unless he was, and then it was like, "Why are you even bothering with that?" And then, for our second thing, we're going to do the Grail, the Holy Grail.

Dan McClellan The Grail, yes.

Dan Beecher A grail.

Dan McClellan A grail. We're going to skip right over the middle one, the one that my wife hates. But I was like, "Why did we pay for the three-movie set if you refuse to have that movie on in this house?"

Dan Beecher There's no Temples of Doom in- No ...

Dan McClellan the Bible.

Dan Beecher Yeah. That is unrelated. And we're going to Om Nom Shi Bai right by that one. And if we have time at the end, we'll talk about a crystal skull. We'll see. But for now, let's dive in with the Ark of the Covenant.

Dan McClellan All right. So, we've all heard of the Ark of the Covenant.

Dan Beecher Yes. It is a very famous thing, but what the heck is it? It's funny because it is very much in pop culture, not just in Indiana Jones movies, but in other things.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher We all know that it is now resting comfortably in a US government warehouse.

Dan McClellan Yes. And it's evidently magnetic or something.

Dan Beecher I don't know.

Dan McClellan Burns holes and stuff. But, yeah, what's funny is the Bible has two arks, and- Oh, yeah ... and this is two different Hebrew words. They're not the same word.

Dan Beecher Oh, really?

Dan McClellan But they get translated as ark.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So, one is a giant boat- Yes ... an enormous, unplausibly, implausibly- Unplausibly, yes.

Dan McClellan Me fail English?

Dan Beecher ... unplausibly large boat.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Me fail English? And then the other is a box.

Dan McClellan Yes. And they're both kind of box-ish. The Hebrew word for Noah's Ark is a chest, a casket, something like that. And the Hebrew word for the Ark of the Covenant, "aron," is a same thing. It just means a box.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And this Hebrew word is used in places to refer to the sarcophagus into which Joseph's corpse was placed in Genesis.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Jehoiada placed an "aron" next to the altar for the collection of money for the temple. We have a few different uses of this. And then we also have the phrase... Well, we have several phrases. There's several titles for this thing. We have Ark of the Testimony in Exodus 25, we have Ark of the Covenant in Joshua 3:6, Ark of the Adonai in Joshua 3, Ark of the God, 1 Samuel 3.

Dan Beecher So, it's got a bunch of different names, but the central theme- These are all referring to the Ark of the Covenant, to the same ark?

Dan McClellan As far as we know, yeah.

Dan Beecher To the same box?

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And so- Let me ask you this.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher If you were translating this, because no one says ark in any context other than the biblical context.

Dan McClellan The Bible.

Dan Beecher Yeah. So, if you were translating this, would you be tempted to use the word box? The box of the covenant.

Dan McClellan I don't know.

Dan Beecher Well, I- You've got to come up with something other than ark.

Dan McClellan Yeah. I wonder what the Common English Bible uses there, because that's intended for folks where English is a second language or something like that.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan It's intended for folks who don't understand it on as high a level.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So, at some point, I'm going to have to look up and see what they call "yan box" if they say- The chest of the covenant? The- Oh, they do say chest.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan Right there.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "The soles of the priests' feet, who are carrying the chest of the Lord- Okay ... the ruler of the whole earth." So, chest also works, and this is all describing the same thing.

Dan Beecher It's a box.

Dan McClellan It's a box.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It's a box.

Dan Beecher And it is a box that is described in Exodus. So, before we get to stories about the box- Mm-hmm ... maybe I'll just go through quickly and describe this thing. So apparently, in Exodus 25, we have how God is commanding this should be made.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And it's made of acacia wood, but I don't want to call it acacia wood. I want to call it what the King James Version calls it, which is... Oh, I've forgotten. Hang on. I'm going to click over to King James just because- Is it shittim?

Dan McClellan Shittim wood. Shittim wood, yes.

Dan Beecher That is my favorite thing in the world. Okay, because I'm not saying anything dirty, I promise.

Dan McClellan No. It's just, that's what the ark is made of.

Dan Beecher It's made of shittim wood. And like the other ark, we have measurements in cubits.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher So two cubits and a half is the length, and a cubit and a half is the width, and a cubit and a half is the height. So, a nice rectangular box.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And there are a few different ways to measure what a cubit is.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan So it's not exactly clear what the exact dimensions are of this box, but it is something that is made of wood, but then covered, overlaid with precious metals, gold- Yeah ... and the like.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Which... Go ahead.

Dan Beecher Well, we were talking last week about the Letter of Jeremiah, is that who it was?

Dan McClellan Uh-huh.

Dan Beecher That we were talking about, and how he mocked the gods of the Babylonians because they were just wood with gold overlaid over them. And then this week I come here and I read all about this- This thing- ... thing that is basically their- ...

Dan McClellan constructed of wood and overlaid with gold ...

Dan Beecher their god that is constructed of wood with gold and silver overlaid over it.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And I was like, "Come on, you guys."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher This seems to be the thing that you do.

Dan McClellan Yeah, this is a little on the nose. And you know what? There is so much more to it than that because there are a bunch of ways that the Ark of the Covenant is functioning. In form and function, it is a divine image.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And this is something that scholars have noted for a long time. For instance, and I think there's a little nuance to it, but for instance, you have things that are being placed before Adonai, "lifnei Adonai," or it is set before the testimony, which would be what the Ark of the Covenant is carrying.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan So if you can imagine this box up there on a pedestal or something like that, and somebody comes and bows down and places an offering in front of the box.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan It's like, hmm, the vibes here are, it's giving divine image- ... is what my 13-year-old would say. She would say- Right ... "Look, chat, it's giving divine image."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And she will not stop addressing the chat in our living room when no one else is around. I don't understand this slang.

Dan Beecher But- It's fine. Young people have their own thing.

Dan McClellan Yeah. This closely parallels conventions from ancient West Asia, where treaties and things like that are placed at the feet of or before the divine image.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so you have some places in the Hebrew Bible where it says they place these things in the ark, and then you have other places where it says they put things before the ark. And one scholar has argued this is probably a diachronic change, where initially it was replacing things before the ark, which is using the ark as a divine image, and later on, they were like, "What if we said they put it in the ark? Then it sounds less like a divine image."

Dan Beecher Well, we know what happens when you open the ark. Your face melts off.

Dan McClellan Yeah, you get hemorrhoids. Well, hemorrhoids first.

Dan Beecher That's right. We talked about the hemorrhoids.

Dan McClellan It progresses to- Yeah ... the face melting.

Dan Beecher Eventually. If you're a Nazi, your face is going to melt off. That's just how that's going to work. But, yeah, and we're going to get to more ways in which this is seen as a divine image when we get to 1 Samuel. But we're still in Exodus right now.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Because I want to describe the rest of it.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher So we've got a wooden box made of shittim- ... and then we've got gold and silver overlaid over it. Oh, no, is it just gold? It may just be gold.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yes. "Pure gold inside and outside- Yes ... you shall overlay it."

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher "You shall make a molding of gold upon it all around."

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And then you got four rings of gold that you can put two sticks through for holding it.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher So that's good that you got a way to transport it. That's always useful.

Dan McClellan Yep. Got to be mobile.

Dan Beecher And then you got a lid, and the lid or the cover is pure gold. I don't know why it feels like it has to specify the length and width of that. Just make it the same as the box. But it does. It says the same as the box.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And then two cherubim of gold- Hmm ... which everyone interprets to be angels, but whatever cherubim are.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Not angels. Not angels. There's no part of the Bible that calls them angels.

Dan Beecher But like divine critters of some sort.

Dan McClellan Yes, and these critters are, I think, comparable to the lamassu from Babylon. So they're like guardian- Right ... hybrid creatures that have wings, but they have the body of a horse, and they have the head of an eagle or a lion or something like that. Within the Bible, they seem to have more humanoid heads. And here's something interesting. There was what's called a closed shrine model, which is a little miniature shrine, and closed because it's enclosed, it's not an open model. That was discovered at Megiddo in Israel, and it's very, very old. It's very fragmentary, but it is a box that you would've put stuff in, and it has what look like cherubim at the corners- Hmm ... of this box. But it clearly was not intended to hide stuff because it has windows in it- Oh ... that you're supposed to be able to see through. And a shrine model was basically a way to miniaturize the temple.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And then you would put miniature divine images on the inside.

Dan Beecher And we found miniature divine- I was really hoping you were going to say you put miniature people inside and they could go, "Oh, I'm at the temple." "Oh, me too. I'm also at the temple."

Dan McClellan No, that's in Egypt.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan It's in Egypt where you have the burials where there are hundreds of little miniature people. And this replaced the subsidiary burials. So, if you were in really early Egypt, and you were one of the Pharaoh's assistants, you really didn't want the Pharaoh to die because- Because you had to go with him? You had to go with him.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan Yep. Everybody went with him, and you did not...

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It was unpleasant. After a while, they were like, "This is really inconvenient- Yeah ... and kind of ruins things for the next guy." So then they started making these models, and so you had models of the person who made the bread. You had models of the people who were the scribes. You had models of the people who made the bricks.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And then they were kind of reified as these souls in the afterlife for the Pharaoh instead of dispatching your entire administration.

Dan Beecher Yeah. You've got the heir to the throne going, "Ah, I really like Dad's bread maker. I'd really like- ... I would like to keep that guy if I can."

Dan McClellan Yeah. Don't- You know what?

Dan Beecher Make a model ...

Dan McClellan let's not lose him.

Dan Beecher Make a model of that guy. We'll just throw that in there.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Just put the blanket over him. He's like, "That doesn't look like the real one. That's the real one. It's the real one."

Dan Beecher It's him. Just trust me.

Dan McClellan "He's not moving. He's already dead, but-" Just trust.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher So we've got a box with gold. We've got cherubs on either end facing each other- Yeah ... with their wings over covering the box itself.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And the idea here is do not touch.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So these are the protective entities that are kind of guarding the entry to what I think is probably supposed to be a shrine model. In other words, a miniature version of the temple.

Dan Beecher And it does say, verse 22, says, "There I will meet with you, and from above the cover, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the covenant, I will tell you all that I am commanding you for the Israelites."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So, one thing to- So, is there going to be just a little god that's right in the middle- ... that's talking to you? His mouth appears.

Dan McClellan "Thus saith the Lord."

Dan Beecher "Pay no attention to the guy behind the curtain," sort of thing.

Dan McClellan No. I think one thing to note is this part of Exodus is being written much later. In fact, the ark probably didn't exist anymore- Oh, right ... when that part of Exodus was written. They're kind of like, "Make it gold. Make it this length. Give it poles. Remember, it has to have poles." And so they're probably reconstructing what they wanted the ark to be, and they have the sense that this is supposed to be reifying God's presence. And so they kind of describe it more as a throne, like God is enthroned between the cherubim. That's one way that the language there is commonly interpreted.

Dan Beecher Huh.

Dan McClellan And that's why they call the lid the mercy seat, because it's the seat of the throne on which God is sitting, although not really.

Dan Beecher That is really hard to... All I can do is picture this tiny little God that's just like, "Ha-ha. I will give you commands." Well, if- I don't think that's what's intended.

Dan McClellan No, but if you look at, there's an ivory plaque that is also from, I believe it was found in Megiddo. The motifs are all Egyptian, but there's a ruler sitting on a throne, and the armrests are cherubs, cherubim.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And so the idea of cherubim flanking a throne on which the ruler sits is something that was in circulation back then. And so I think this imagery is kind of coming together, and they're like, "Well, let's make it seem like the throne." I think in earlier time periods, it was probably more like, "This is the miniature temple that we can cart around so that our deity, whose presence is inside the temple, can go with us where we need to go."

Dan Beecher Well, since you mentioned that- Yeah ... let's jump ahead to Joshua and talk a little bit about Jericho because we know- Ooh, yeah ... because this is one of the places that we know the ark plays a big role.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher Because they march the ark around the city, and they march the ark through the river and all of this stuff, which I find to be really interesting.

Dan McClellan It becomes this- It's a war palladium.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Kind of. It is their banner. It is what they kind of rally around because it represents the presence of God, and that's what makes the waters of the Jordan River stop. That's what allows them to- Right ... to march across. This is God's presence. The waters are all going to stop, and then they- It's a pretty solid trick right there.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It's hard to duplicate. Penn and Teller would have no chance- ... figuring out what's going on there. And then they march it around the city seven times and then blow the trumpets, and legend tells that the walls came a-tumbling down.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And yeah, that's the presence of God. God there doing the miracles for them, so fighting on their behalf.

Dan Beecher Yeah. It definitely- is a magic box. This box, in and of itself, it is imbued with God's power- Yeah ... in some very strong way.

Dan McClellan I don't know if you looked these verses up, but if you go to Numbers 10. Did you happen to look at Numbers 10?

Dan Beecher Oh, no, I don't have Numbers 10. That's not- Okay ... one that I've got.

Dan McClellan So, verses 35 and 36. They're talking about the cloud during the day, and the fire during the night, and all this. And then it says, "Whenever the ark set out, Moses would say, 'Arise, Adonai. Enemies be scattered, and your foes flee before you.' And whenever it came to rest, he would say, 'Return, Adonai, thousands of Israel.'" And so, the movement of the ark represented the movement of God.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And where the ark was, God was. And so, yeah, this is manifesting the presence of God.

Dan Beecher And- And he's saying, "God, to this box."

Dan McClellan We don't have any stage direction here. We don't know exactly what direction he's pointed, but yeah, it seems to be, if he is not speaking to the ark as if it is Adonai, he is speaking about the movement of the ark as if it is Adonai's movement. So, they're very closely entangled, and I think that makes the story of the ark narrative that much more significant. And unless you wanted to stay in Joshua for a little bit longer.

Dan Beecher No, I'm fine.

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher Eventually, we've got to get to Samuel anyway.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher We don't have to stick around, because we've talked about the story of Joshua, and I just think it's interesting how they use it. Because in the Joshua story, it's basically all of the Israelites. Is that right? They're traveling together.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And then they'll pitch a tent, and make a sort of makeshift temple, and put the ark in the middle of it.

Dan McClellan Yeah. The tabernacle is the traveling temple that they have.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And then they have camps that are supposed to be on all four sides.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Which, by the way, if you see anybody say that the camp, when it's laid out in the wilderness, looks like a cross- ... that's totally made up. It does not look like a cross.

Dan Beecher If it's on all four sides, Dan, I don't know what it looks like. An X? Come on, man. What are you trying to do?

Dan McClellan Oh, gosh.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So, yeah. They're traveling around, and the tabernacle with the ark in the Holy of Holies, that's representative of God's presence. And by the way, I think, and this is just a little aside, they talk about the pillar of fire at night, and the cloud during the day that followed Israel around. Mm-hmm. What I think this is doing is using the temple imagery, because the idea is that signified God's presence. But let's say you've got a temple that's operating day and night. You've got sacrifices being burnt, and everything like that. During the day, what's going to be hovering over the top of that space? A bunch of smoke.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan A big cloud. What is it going to look like at night when they've got all these fires going? And it's going to light all of that up.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It's going to look like there's some kind of concert or football game going on there, and it's going to be comparable- It's Burning Man.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Is what it is.

Dan McClellan It's going to be comparable to fire. So- Yeah ... I think these stories are supposed to make people think, "Oh, that's like what I see when I look at the temple, and there's a cloud over it during the day, and it looks all fiery at night. So, that must mean that God's presence is there at the temple." Personally, I think that's what that imagery is supposed to be communicating to an audience that is operating much later down the road.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Okay. But anyway, yes, you've got all Israel walking along.

Dan Beecher Let's scurry on to the story of, because in Joshua, we've got the ark operating as a sort of a powerful instrument of war- Mm-hmm ... because they go and they defeat things.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher What happens if the ark runs out of war juice? And we get to First Samuel, when the Philistines- Yeah ... come in to make war.

Dan McClellan So, we've got this situation, and there are a couple of storylines that are converging here, because you've got Eli, who's the high priest. But his sons are kind of worthless, and they're not doing a great job at the temple. But in 1 Samuel 4:1, "Word of Samuel came to all Israel. In those days, the Philistines mustered for war against Israel, and Israel went out to battle against them. They encamped at Ebenezer, and the Philistines encamped at Aphek. And they dropped lines, the battle was joined. Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about 4,000 men on the field of battle. The elders of Israel go, 'Why has the Lord put us to rout today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord here from Shiloh.'" "So that he may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies." So, we've got the story of Jericho. We know this is like a war palladium. This is supposed to be God's presence among the people, and God will fight our battles for us. So, let's go get the Ark and just bring it next time we go to battle.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And then bing, bang, boom.

Dan Beecher It's a pretty effective tool at the beginning.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Because the Philistines, they look at it, and they are terrified.

Dan McClellan Yes. There's a big shout when somebody shows up, "We got the Ark." And they bring it out before the army, and everybody's shouting, "Huzzah." And then the Philistines hear the noise of the shouting. They said, "What does this great shouting in the camp of the Hebrews mean?" When they learned that the Ark of the Lord had come to the camp, the Philistines were afraid, for they said, "Gods have come into the camp."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And so, the Philistines at least understand this thing to be functioning as the divine image, which bears the presence of the deity. And so, they're like, "Oh, crap. God's with them."

Dan Beecher They understand it to be multiple deities.

Dan McClellan Yes, they understand.

Dan Beecher Because multiple times they say, "Gods."

Dan McClellan Yes, in the plural.

Dan Beecher "Woe to us, who can deliver us from the power of these mighty gods?"

Dan McClellan Yes. And then they sing the praises of this god. "These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with every sort of plague in the wilderness." Kind of doing the work of the narrator for him, so he doesn't- Yeah.

Dan Beecher Right ...

Dan McClellan have to boast about his own people.

Dan Beecher Yes. Is there any chance that the author of 1 Samuel actually had the idea that... I get that it's easy to just say that this was from the Philistines' mouths, and so they didn't understand that it was not multiple gods.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher But is there any chance actually that at one point they were thinking that it encapsulated multiple gods?

Dan McClellan There is certainly a possibility, and there are a few different theories that bear on that question because there's stuff that's going into the Ark. The Ark is containing things, and we all know about the tablets of the law. And here's something interesting. The tablets of the law are basically two little mini standing stones with the law written on them.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And we already have stories with Moses and Joshua where God says, "Set up standing stones, write the law on them, and then worship."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so, those are divine images- Yeah ... and the law is being written on them. And if the Ark is a shrine model, it's a miniature temple. What do you put in the miniature temple? Miniature divine images. What's a miniature standing stone with the law written on it? Couple of little tablets with the law written on it. So, this is like mini divine images going into the model of the temple. And then we also have Aaron's rod that is supposed to have budded. Mm-hmm. And there's a scholar named Ranana Eichler, who published a paper arguing that it's possible this story is intended to obscure the fact that an Asherah pole would have been in the Ark of the Covenant. In other words, another deity's divine image was in- That's what I was wondering ... yes, was in the Ark. Is it the gods that have shown up are the Tetragrammaton and Asherah?

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So, the timeline and everything is very, very muddled because these stories are being written down long after any such historical event could have taken place, but maybe reflect some kind of hazy social memory about what actually happened. But yeah, certainly it's within the realm of plausibility that the Ark would have been the miniature temple for the mini divine images of more than one deity.

Dan Beecher So, it- Certainly, the author of 1 Samuel doesn't rebuke this idea that there are gods contained.

Dan McClellan Well, no. And I think that by the time this is being written, they're probably representing the Philistines as just pagans who don't know what's really going on. That's another way- Sure ... to read what's going on here.

Dan Beecher Absolutely. And that makes sense, too. But it doesn't seem like anyone's fighting this idea.

Dan McClellan Anyway.

Dan Beecher No.

Dan McClellan But here's the interesting thing.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan They bring out the Ark, they cheer, they give each other the slaps on the butt as they're rounding third, and then they lose the battle.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan "And there was a very great slaughter, 30,000 foot soldiers fell of Israel. The Ark of God was captured and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, died."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And so, there's a scholar named Ben Sommer, a wonderful scholar. I spent a week with him in Italy two months ago at a conference on- Would you call that your Ben Sommer?

Dan Beecher The summer of Ben? Anyway, sorry. Go on.

Dan McClellan It was the summer of my discontent because there was a heat wave going on in Italy and- Right ... it was in the high 90s, low 100s.

Dan Beecher It was awful.

Dan McClellan But anyway, he published a very influential book called "The Bodies of God in the World of Ancient Israel," and his theory is that this story is intended to be a rebuking of the idea that the Ark actually contained the divine presence because they lose.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan Right. So, his theory is the author's going, "And then they lose," because it was never God's presence. It never housed God's presence. It was not a divine image.

Dan Beecher Tell that to Joshua, man.

Dan McClellan Now, in my book, I actually disagree with Ben.

Dan Beecher Ah.

Dan McClellan And I argue that this is not about the Ark not actually being a divine image, it is about the unauthorized use of the Ark. Because every other time that the Ark represents God's presence and facilitates military victory, it is because the prophet went and inquired of God- Okay ... and said, "Do we do this thing?" And God says, "I give you my blessing." And yeah, thumbs up.

Dan Beecher God gives it the old thumbs up.

Dan McClellan Thumbs up.

Dan Beecher Yeah. "Okay, you can do it."

Dan McClellan And we have absolutely no hint of that here.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so, in our last episode, we talked about how the deity will abandon the divine image when it needs to- Right ... if the people are doing things wrong and everything.

Dan Beecher So, and what I- Or at very least, that's the way you backpedal- That's you rationalize, yes.

Dan McClellan Yes ...

Dan Beecher when you lose, and you're supposed to have won because your god was supposed to fix it for you.

Dan McClellan Right. That's the retconning that goes on.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so, I argue that this is actually, it understands the Ark of the Covenant as a divine image, but they didn't get Adonai's permission to go up against the Philistines to battle. And so Adonai was like, "You're on your own.

Dan Beecher Sorry.

Dan McClellan I'm abandoning my Ark for the time being."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And then, the Philistines take it back, and they do what you do with a captured divine image. They put it in their temple- Yeah ... next to their own divine image of their deity, and the text represents their deity as Dagon, but that wasn't a Philistine deity. Well, there you go ... then we have the battle of the divine images, where the next day, they show up at the temple. They come in and go, "Let's get you some breakfast, Dagon. Oh, you're on the ground."

Dan Beecher Which just means that their rock tipped over, right?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Basically.

Dan McClellan And then they set Dagon back up. They dust him off. They rub the dust off of the gold- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher as the letter of Jer- Polish him up a little bit.

Dan McClellan Yeah. As the letter of Jeremiah mocked. And then the day after that, they come in, and oh no, his hands and his head are cut off.

Dan Beecher Ooh.

Dan McClellan And so it is basically the battle of the divine images, and obviously Adonai wins- Right ... even in another deity's territory.

Dan Beecher Yeah. And in another deity's temple, no less.

Dan McClellan Yes. So not just, they, "Come into our house? They're going to come into our house and beat us?"

Dan Beecher Yes. Adonai's going to do that.

Dan McClellan And so, I think this is the story, is where Adonai's like, "Ooh, wait till they get a load of me." They've abandoned the divine image, and now it's in the temple, and Adonai is like, zoop, right back in there, and then defeats Dagon. And then, as we discussed previously, afflicts the Philistines with awful hemorrhoids.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan And certainly, UTIs were a part of it. I have no doubt that there was a lot of cranberry juice being passed back and forth after- ... all the things in the undercarriage were out of sorts.

Dan Beecher But- Sorely afflicted- Yes ... as you might say. Sorely afflicted, yeah.

Dan McClellan As the great poet once said.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And so I think this is a story about the Ark being abandoned by God, God reentering the Ark in order to show forth signs and wonders- Yeah ... and tickle the Philistine's perineum- ... as it is correctly pronounced. Or what was the- Perineum.

Dan Beecher It's- ...

Dan McClellan taint.

Dan Beecher Or ur- Taint.

Dan McClellan There we go.

Dan Beecher Taint. And then- That's two episodes in a row I get to say taint. I'm happy.

Dan McClellan Yes. And then the Philistines put it in a cart attached to some cows and go, "Hyah."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And the cows march off to Israel and walk right up to Beth Shemesh, and the people go, "What's that?" And they look in the Ark, and that's when we get the face-melter- Yeah ... according to the story. So, yeah, dangerous box, this box.

Dan Beecher Yeah. It's not just any old box.

Dan McClellan No. But then we have, you've got to skip over the rest of 1 Samuel and get to 2 Samuel 6, and what happens is Beth Shemesh is like, "Get this out of here. We don't want this around here." And it goes to another city, and there's a guy there who is like, "I'll watch your Ark for you." And I imagine that now I'm... Dang it, I've forgotten the actor's name. In "The Italian Job," who was Handsome Dan?

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Or Handsome Ra- Was it Handsome Dan or Handsome Rob?

Dan Beecher We're Handsome Dan- Right ... so it must've been Rob.

Dan McClellan Well, yeah. But Seth Green is like, "I'm Handsome Dan."

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan Gosh, I forget his name. That's who I imagine saying that, "I'll watch your Ark for you." And then David comes and brings it to Jerusalem. So, the Ark is not in Jerusalem until 2 Samuel 6, when David is like, "Where's the... Why don't we... Let's bring the Ark to Jerusalem."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And so goes and takes the Ark from the house of this fella who's watching after it.

Dan Beecher And- Who's played by Jason Statham.

Dan McClellan Jason S- Why can't... I'm awful with names. This is why I didn't make it on Jeopardy.

Dan Beecher I had to Google it.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher I knew exactly who you were talking about- ... and I also couldn't think of his name.

Dan McClellan So. When I used to shave my hair pretty low, I used to get a lot of Jason Statham- ... from folks. And on TikTok, it's all Woody Harrelson.

Dan Beecher So. Oh, yeah.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher But- Yeah.

Dan McClellan So this is the story of how the Ark comes into Jerusalem during the time period of David, even though it was lost long before and has run a rocky path to get back to Jerusalem. And it's called the Ark of God, and this is where Uzzah-- It's on the way to Jerusalem, and the cart that it is on is rocked, and Uzzah is like, "Whoa!" And reaches out to steady it, and he gets zapped, and then- It's so mean.

Dan Beecher He's just trying to help.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And the worst part of it was that then results in the phrase steadying the ark, which bad faith people use to try to tell people you're not allowed to correct ecclesiastical leadership.

Dan Beecher Oh, right.

Dan McClellan Because that's steadying the ark, and you might get zapped.

Dan Beecher You'll get zapped.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher All right.

Dan McClellan So don't do that.

Dan Beecher Well, I think that does it for the first Indiana Jones movie. That's a fascinating thing. So far, we have no evidence that any Nazis actually came anywhere near this thing.

Dan McClellan Wasn't buried in Egypt, not in the right place or the wrong place they were digging.

Dan Beecher Certainly- That we know about.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Certainly not in a warehouse in DC. And who knows, maybe that's what the folks taking over DC are on the hunt for.

Dan Beecher Right. Yes, exactly.

Dan McClellan This is all a cover to go find the Ark. So somebody can take over the world.

Dan Beecher But speaking of being on the hunt, there is no greater, more hunted thing than our next segment, The Grail.

Dan McClellan The Grail.

Dan Beecher So, okay. If you are looking for the biblical references to the Holy Grail, Dan, what book in the Bible should we turn to to find the reference to the Holy Grail?

Dan McClellan You should not waste your time because- What?

Dan Beecher ...

Dan McClellan it's not there.

Dan Beecher What?

Dan McClellan You are better off looking in The Da Vinci Code- ... because there is no reference to the Grail. The Grail grows out of traditions associated with the Last Supper, where Jesus- Right ... has the Passover meal with his followers.

Dan Beecher Can I say that I was genuinely shocked when I started researching this and discovered that it is not- It is not in the Bible?

Dan McClellan ...

Dan Beecher a biblical thing. I was like, "Come on, there's got to be something about a cup or something."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah, no. But alas, so where did this crop up? Where are we getting this from?

Dan McClellan So I think the roots of it, you don't have discussion of a grail, but in the Gospel of Nicodemus, which is a fourth-century text.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan And was Nicodemus the owl from Sword in the Stone?

Dan Beecher I don't know.

Dan McClellan I don't remember. Dang it. My daughters would be- Let's say yes. My daughters would be so disappointed in me. But this is a fourth-century text, this apocryphal gospel, and it talks about vessels that are associated with Christ's passion, so the last week of Christ's life. So this is probably the seeds that sprout in the 12th and 13th centuries in Europe with these French texts- Okay ... that are openly fictional novels.

Dan Beecher They're just stories.

Dan McClellan They're just stories. But they talk- Or rather, aren't they-- They're like heroic poems.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And one of them is about Joseph of Arimathea, and another one is about Percival, the Count of Graal, and they talk about this mysterious radiant vessel that is some kind of relic that becomes associated with the cup of the Last Supper, and it has mystical and magical powers in these stories. And then it becomes part of Arthurian legend.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Yeah. It's funny because I mentioned to you as we were prepping for the show that I did-- Look, I'm not familiar with the legends of King Arthur. I didn't read any of those things.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher But I kind of thought that maybe the Monty Python guys just kind of- Maybe ... came up with that on their own and thought it would be an interesting thing to do. But no, very much, that is what the legend of King Arthur centers around, sort of.

Dan McClellan Yes. It is central to-- I think Galahad was one of the purer knights.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan This was the one who had to turn away all of the nuns.

Dan Beecher Yes. So Galahad, the pure.

Dan McClellan Yes, had to be saved from temptation.

Dan Beecher "Let me have some of the peril."

Dan McClellan I think around 1225, you have a text, The Quest of the Holy Grail- Mm ... which is associated with this. And then it becomes associated with chivalry, with questing, with all of this kind of stuff, with all of the legendary kind of medieval European motifs that- Right ... that get recycled all the time these days into things like Shrek and Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail and all that kind of stuff.

Dan Beecher Yeah. So- But the idea is that there's this vessel, and it was- It had a pestle. It had the brew that is true.

Dan McClellan Maybe it had a brew in it. Yeah, who knows? Who's to say?

Dan Beecher But it was the one that Christ drank out of at the Last Supper- Yes ... and then maybe also- Joseph of Arimathea caught his blood in it.

Dan McClellan Yes, that is the other part of the tradition, that he was like, "Oh, don't want that to go to waste."

Dan Beecher And- Ooh, let's keep that.

Dan McClellan But from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, we have a bit of a retreat to the tradition. You don't really have a lot of people caring about the Grail. After all, this is when people are getting all into rationalism and- Oh ... all the- Silly, silly rationalists. Yeah, at least they weren't nihilists, though. They did have a nice marmot is what I heard. But, and then in the 19th century when you have the Romantic era, and you have renewed antiquarian interests in medievalism, and you have these stories that bring the Grail back into focus, and then which leads to our modern interpretations and masterpieces like- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher Monty Python's. Or Dan Brown as you mentioned earlier. Dan Brown which, yes, is a thousand poxes on- He's just trying to entertain the people, Dan.

Dan McClellan He's just trying to entertain, yeah. And I cannot blame Dan Brown because he told people, "This is totally fiction." And there was a book called "Holy Blood, Holy Grail"- Right ... which was published back in 1982, which is full of these ridiculous conspiracy theories, and I think most people who read that are like, "Yeah, this isn't real." And that's what Dan Brown did, but then was like, "I'm going to write a kickass book on this."

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan "And I'm going to make up a job called symbologist." But, and even he was like, "It was based on this book, and those are ridiculous conspiracy theories. That's all fiction, and my book's all fiction."

Dan Beecher Well, and that conspiracy theory was, if I remember correctly, was just based on how the word sangreal in French, meaning Holy Grail, sounds a lot like sang réal, which is the bloodline, which- Yeah, yeah ... sang meaning blood and- Right ... réal, I mean, anyway. So, I mean, if two words sound the same as two other words- Obviously there's a connection, yeah ... obviously, it wasn't a cup, it was a bloodline.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And Jesus has relatives living in France.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher Doy.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher We all know... Look, all it makes is sense, people.

Dan McClellan Yep, married Mary Magdalene, had a daughter named Sarah. They ran away to France. They started up the, what was it? The Merovingian dynasty or something like that.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And all of that stuff. And yeah, even today, you've got TikTokers who are breathlessly telling you about the secrets that they kept from us, and they're just blithely sharing ridiculous conspiracy theories published in books written by non-specialists.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And when somebody says, "This word looks an awful lot like this word, if you just squint at it a little bit, and you ignore all this stuff over here, and then you just imagine these connections here, that's evidence that this entire conspiracy theory is true."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It's the number of idiotic conspiracy theories that are born of that kind of amateur just parallel-omania- Right ...

Dan Beecher cannot be counted. The thing that surprises me, having learned that not only is there no biblical precedent for this cup, but that it didn't even arise as a story until the Middle Ages.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher It surprises me that there are so many cathedrals that claim to have it.

Dan McClellan Oh, gosh, yeah.

Dan Beecher Well- Like literally, there's one in Seville, and there's one in somewhere in Italy, Genoa, I think.

Dan McClellan Uh-huh.