The Myth of the 12 Tribes of Israel

Dan McClellan Hey, everybody. I'm Dan McClellan. And

Dan Beecher I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan And this is Data Over Dogma, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan?

Dan Beecher Great. Things are good. Uh, just, just out here having a good time trying to come up with some, uh, some fun stuff for us to talk about.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And I think, I think we've found something interesting. Okay. Uh, it's a What's That? this week.

Dan McClellan Yep.

Dan Beecher Though it might as well be a What Are They? Uh, 'cause it's a plural 'cause we're talking about the 12 tribes of Israel. Nice. Uh, and or maybe it's the 13 tribes.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Or the 14 tribes. It depends on how you look at it. I'm glad that you're here, Dan, because I- ... started to look at stuff and got confused again. Yeah. So we'll dive in with that. W- uh, so let's just do What's That? So 12 tribes of Israel. What's that? Uh, s- let's start with it's, i- first of all, Israel is Jacob. Ostensibly.

Dan McClellan Ostensibly. Yeah, that's, that's the claim. Okay. Um, that, that the patriarch named Jacob, so we have Abraham, Isaac, and then Jacob, Abraham's grandson- Yeah ... uh, had his name changed to Israel- ... after his little, uh, wrestling match- Uh-huh ... with, with somebody, a dude. Oh. Perhaps an angel. Perhaps God. Okay. Somebody. But- Um-

Dan Beecher But it is God, right? Like, we've already- Yeah ... we've already done this. It's God.

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah. It's God. Um, and, uh, God says, "You know what I like to cut of your jib?" "So I'm gonna change your name to Israel." The idea, uh, being that Jacob, uh, struggled, fought, wrestled, rastled even- Mm-hmm ... uh, with, with God, and Israel, the idea is supposed to be that it means he who strives with God or something like that. The reality is that's not what the name Israel means. It probably means something more like El contends or God contends. Okay. But that is neither here nor is it there, uh- ... because yes, i- so the name is changed to Israel, and then Jacob has a bunch of kids, 12 sons, and those 12 sons are the eponymous ancestors of the 12 tribes of Israel. So basically, everything fits into a nice little genealogical line. So everybody can- Okay, great. Yeah.

Dan Beecher Then we've solved it.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Episode over.

Dan McClellan Bye, what is it, what is it I'm supposed to say at the end of the ep- What? I don't even remember what I say now. I think I just say, "Bye, everybody."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Anyway, um, yeah, it w- uh, t'would be terrific if- ... uh, if it were that simple. But, uh, we've got a bunch of problems with that. But- Okay ... but yeah. The, part of the, the point here is that the, the 12 tribes are, are kind of a rhetorical organization principle, a way to curate and negotiate who belongs. Mm. Who is part of our group, and if you can identify the tribe you're a part of, that goes back to one of the 12 son- sons of Israel. That goes back to Israel. That goes back to Isaac. That goes back to Abraham. We're all offspring of Abraham in that sense, or at least anybody who identifies with one of the 12 tribes of Israel, uh, as Latter-day Saints who have a patriarchal blessing are identified, grafted in, so to speak- Right ... uh, to one of the, the 12 tribes of Israel, and it, it's a, it's an i- you know, an identity marker. It's a way to say you're a part of the, the in group. But it is different from place to place in the Bible, and, and one of the things is that is Levi in or is Levi out?

Dan Beecher Right. Which is

Dan McClellan not, not always listed, not always listed. And-

Dan Beecher There's, there, there becomes a problem. So, uh, as I understand it, in Genesis, I think, 35, it lists out Jac- the sons of Jacob- Mm-hmm ... as being, and I'm just gonna list them, and you, j- uh, I think these are right. Uh, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, tribe of Dan. By the way, I am just gonna say this. I contact, I, I got our, our, our guy, Sam, our, our right-hand man, Sam, and I said, "Hey, can you have T-shirts up on our website with Tribe of Dan merch? Can you have Tribe of Dan merch- ... done by the time this episode airs?" Hopefully, it has happened. So if you guys are interested, 'cause, 'cause we're Dans, see? So it's a tribe- Dans, yeah ... of D- Dans sort of thing. Anyway, uh, if, if you're interested, go check out, uh, dataoverdogmapod.com, and there may be m- Tribe of Dan merch that you could get right now.

Dan McClellan Hopefully, there will be.

Dan Beecher Hopefully, it's-

Dan McClellan It'll be very, it'll be very embarrassing if there's not. But-

Dan Beecher Oh, l- we have suffered so much worse embarrassment than that.

Dan McClellan Yes. Th- this is not the greatest indignity that we've ever had to suffer, so.

Dan Beecher But hopefully, that's all there and ready to go.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Anyway, uh, so there's Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, uh, Issachar, Issachar. I don't know. How do you say that?

Dan McClellan Uh, usually, uh, English speakers say Issachar.

Dan Beecher Issachar.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Uh-

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher So okay. There you go.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Now, you said is Levi part of it, and- Yes ... uh, and that is a big question, and I think that that question somehow involves the other question, which is where are Ephraim and Manasseh? Yes,

Dan McClellan yes.

Dan Beecher So, so talk to me about the two that ain't there and the one that is that might not be.

Dan McClellan Well, yeah. When we look at ... 'Cause there's, there's another part where we have the land divided up among the 12 tribes.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Uh, the land of Israel. And when you look at that division, there's no Levi, but you do ha- and there's no Joseph- Mm ... because you have Ephraim and Manasseh. So those are the two children of Joseph. So you'll notice there's, there's a nice little hydraulic thing here- ... where if you omit Levi, you replace Joseph with Ephraim and Manasseh so that the number stays at 12.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So which, which suggests that the number 12 is what's important here. The names-

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan The names aren't that important. What's important is that we got 12. And we can even go back a little further and talk about a time when it seemed like there were only 10 tribes.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan And the names, some of the names are different.

Dan Beecher Uh-oh.

Dan McClellan Because when we go back to the Song of Deborah, this is, uh, Judges 5. Judges 4 tells the story of Deborah, the fight with Sisera, and then chapter five is the Song of Deborah, which is where Deborah sings about this- ... battle. And we rattle off the tribes of Israel, and Deborah kinda talks about whether or not they helped out. Oh. Okay. And, and curses some of the, the tribes that, that do not help out. But, um, in fact, I bet if you'll give me just one second, I can pull up Judges 5. We'll start in verse 14. Yeah, uh, this is, like, six verses. "From Ephraim they set out into the valley, following you, Benjamin, with your kin. From Machir marched down the commanders, and from Zebulun, those who bear the marshal's staff. The chiefs of Issachar came with Deborah, and Issachar, faithful to Barak. Into the valley they rushed out at his heels. Among the clans of Reuben there were great searchings of heart. 'Why did you tarry among the sheepfolds, to hear the piping for the flocks?' Among the clans of Reuben there were great searchings of heart. Gilead stayed beyond the Jordan. And Dan, why did he abide with the ships? Asher sat still at the coast of the sea, setting down by, settling down by his landings. Zebulun is a people that scorned death. Naphtali, too, on the heights of the field." We've got 10 tribes there- ... and they don't all line up. Um, we are missing Judah and Simeon. They're not there at all. Um-

Dan Beecher Judah seems like an important one.

Dan McClellan You would think.

Dan Beecher Uh, we'll get to that, but-

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Levi is also absent.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And then we don't have Manasseh. We have Machir, who is elsewhere the leading clan or a descendant of Manasseh.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And so some scholars suggest that maybe initially Machir was, was this tribe, but then later on they were like, "We like Manasseh better," and they replaced it. And then you have Gilead, which is a regional designation east of the Jordan, and a lot of scholars think maybe that's supposed to be the tribe of Gad, 'cause Gad is over east of the Jordan. So i- we got 10 tribes. Some scholars think that if this is, like, a social memory from, from hoary antiquity before we have the settled, firm 12 tribes of Israel, maybe this is what ancient Israel looked like. And there's a, there's a theory that, that Israel developed not from the descendants of one man, but from a confederation of unrelated tribes.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan In other words, the tribes that occupied the central and the northern hill country, maybe when there was outside pressure, such as when the Philistines show up and are, um, you know, swinging their weight around, maybe they had kind of a seasonal amphictyony or a confederation, and they confederated under the name Israel, El contends, because the high god El would fight on their behalf against their enemies. And then, you know, when the threat was gone, they all went their separate ways. Maybe that's what happened. There, there's, uh, there are theories about that being the case. And, and if Judges 5 preserves an ancient memory of that, then maybe there were only 10 tribes, and maybe two of them had entirely different names. Maybe Levi is a late addition, uh, because when we look at the land, Levi didn't get any land.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So maybe Ephraim and Manasseh were more original than Levi, and when Levi was finally added, they were like, "Ah, that makes 13. We gotta reduce this." "Let's, let's go with this guy Joseph. I, I got a cool story about, uh, about the Sheaves and, um, selling him into slavery or something." So we're, we're not sure exactly how all this shakes out, because Levi doesn't really become ... You know, we have this tradition that, oh, they, they have these sanctuary cities, and they, they get cities kind of scattered around, and they don't have any land, so they're the priests, and everybody brings stuff, and that's how they get their, their, uh, their produce and their food and stuff like that, because they don't have their own land to, to grow and to raise it. Uh, that could be a secondary rationalization. That could just be them going, "We gotta find a place for Levi. No, no, no place for Levi. Well, let's just say he, he was the priestly class." Uh-huh. And it's not until the post-exilic period, and particularly the books of Chronicles, that Levi really becomes, uh, the big deal, um, priestly speaking. So-

Dan Beecher Well, since you're talking about sort of the chronology of all of this- Mm-hmm ... I, I am con- Like, I get that- This is likely to be an ideology to explain something, whatever it is they felt needed to be explained. Like you say, these diverse tribes that are all, like, you know, that all feel connected in some way.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And so, so likely, uh, they, they found a, a re- a way of explaining that, that, that then connects them in a way that they feel we're now familially connected, not just-

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm

Dan Beecher ... connected by proximity or whatever.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher Um, but what, like, when was the... Because we get, um, we get Israel/Jacob out of, uh, Genesis.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher When did, when was that written versus when do we think this tribe, uh, the, the, this tribal sort of connection formed? Like, do we have a sense of any of that?

Dan McClellan We... K- That's a, that's complex.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan We, we think that some of these tribes are, are, some of them are identified very early and are significant. The, the 12 tribes as we know them now is probably something that firmed up probably in the Exilic or post-Exilic period. Um, there are a couple of books that I wanna recommend that go into, to great detail. One is The Idea of Israel in Second Temple Judaism by Jason Staples, and the subtitle is A New Theory of People, Exile, and Israelite Identity. And then the other is The Myth of the Twelve Tribes of Israel: New Identities Across Time and Space by Andrew Tobolowsky. So, um, tho- those are two really good books that are gonna discuss in, in great detail how we think this all came about. But when we, when we look at pre-Exilic Israel, there's not a united 12 tribes of Israel. Israel is the name for the Northern Kingdom.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Judah is the name for the Southern Kingdom, which is primarily Judah and Benjamin, and then the other 10 tribes are the name for the, the Northern Kingdom, at least as they are remembered in the literature that was curated by Judah.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And there's, uh, what seems like happened, if, if you go by the narrative that we find in the text, is that there was a united kingdom, it fractured immediately, and then the two groups were, uh, always fighting, and then the Northern Kingdom was exiled 722 BCE, and then the Southern Kingdom kind of took over their identity as the nation of Israel. The reality is, is a lot different from that. Most likely, there was never a united kingdom. Or if there was a united kingdom, it, it was not all of these 12 tribes. It might've been a small little group that occupied, uh, you know, part of the Central Hill Country or something like that. But I tend to think that there was no United Kingdom of Israel, and the notion of a united kingdom is something that was imagined centuries later-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... that, that Judahite, um, and, and later probably Deuteronomistic and other authors are creating this background for themselves as a way to try to gin up a shared identity and as a way to assert authority. Um, and because the people who, uh, the last 10 tribes of Israel, these were the ones who, who, uh, were taken away to, uh, Assyria, scattered among, uh, across the Assyrian Empire and just ceased to exist. Uh, and we have no, no record of them after that.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And whether they existed at all is, whether they existed as a specific set of 10 tribes under Israel is pretty doubtful. But that's a, that's a handy memory if you are a Judahite and you are a, a Judahite scribe who's writing all of this down, uh, because you, you think that, that both groups worship the same deity and so have to be, uh, part of the same group. But, um, then you get the, uh, the Babylonian exile, 587 BCE, and now it's the Judahites and the Benjamites, uh, who are taken away to Babylon, and they manage to preserve their identity. But there are a bunch of others who are left behind in the land who are Israelites.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And according to the, the narrative in, in 2 Kings, these are the, they kind of apostatized. And this is where, uh, I mentioned in, uh, in our after-party that, uh, lions were sent in. That's, that's part of the legend, that there were lions sent in, and then the Assyrians sent priests to go minister to the tribes that, uh, were left behind, and these are supposed to be the ancestors of the Samaritans. And this is a way to make sense of how the Samaritans could be related to us, but we don't like 'em.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan 'Cause they were... Any- anybody who's anybody got exiled, and everybody who left behind, they're, they no longer count, even if they were direct descendants from, you know, ostensibly one of the, one of the tribes of the original 12 tribes of Israel. Which, which indicates that the, that membership is more ideological at this point. It's not so much about genealogy as it is about ideology. Do you follow our way of doing things, or are you one of the dirty Samaritans-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... who got left behind and were corrupted by Assyrian priests, uh, or Babylonian priests rather? Uh, and, and, you know, you've got members of the diaspora. There, there are Jewish folks, if we wanna call 'em Jewish, who occupy Elephantine, uh, in, on the Nile. They built a temple there. They were around 400 BCE. They were in contact with Jerusalem and, and the leaders in Jerusalem and were authorized to rebuild their temple. Um, so it, it just gets messy- Yeah ... the further back you go in time. It's really the Second Temple period when you are putting together kind of Israel's scriptural heritage and their background and their stories that you, you have an attempt to firm up this identity as descendants from one man, Israel/Jacob, and through one of his 12 sons or 11 sons and two grandsons.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Uh, or maybe these other 10 people, two of whom are- ... are using, um, you know, pseudonyms. Um, gotta use a nom de plume as the, as the great poet once said. Um, so, so it really is a, a myth in the sense of a, a, a story that you tell to, uh, as an ideology and as a way to assert beginnings and belonging and identities and boundaries and, and things like that. So there, it, there likely, in the pre-exilic period, there likely weren't 12 tribes of Israel, and if there were, they certainly don't match up perfectly with what we now identify as the 12 tribes of Israel.

Dan Beecher Yeah, it was interesting. I, I think this conversation, uh, s- came up because a couple weeks ago we talked about the number 12. We, w- somehow we were talking about the 12 si- tribes, I think, or something, and, and the number- Mm-hmm ... 12 came up, and you mentioned how, you know, that, I think you called it a hydraulic pump that if, if one goes out, somebody else has, somehow you gotta-

Dan McClellan Yeah, steps in ...

Dan Beecher you gotta balance it out and make it 12.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Beecher And, uh, I, I, it's funny because I associated... I know that in, like for instance, in Revelation, it talks about the, the 12, uh, is it do- doors or 12, uh, s- 12 gates into- Mm-hmm ... New Jerusalem or whatever.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And I assumed that that was a reference to the 12 tribes of Israel, but maybe the number 12 kind of predates this 12 tribes idea as a, an, because it seems so important for them to keep the, the number 12 around. Uh, so do, do you think that that number 12, they just decided on the significance of that number before, uh, before they were working with these tribes and, and so they just had- Well- ... to match the 12? ...

Dan McClellan if, if Judges 5 is any indication, no. We already had some sense of tribal affiliation. Maybe not direct descent from a single individual, but at least some kind of affiliation, because Deborah is mustering the tribes. Some of them show up, some of them don't.

Dan Beecher But she-

Dan McClellan Some of them are, are lallygagging.

Dan Beecher But that's the one that you said there were 10.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher Okay. So the- I see what you're...

Dan McClellan So that's-

Dan Beecher Yeah. So that's- That's

Dan McClellan before ... that's indicat-

Dan Beecher I get it. I get it.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Yeah. And so I-

Dan Beecher Indicating that 12 is not as important as just tribes. Yeah.

Dan McClellan At some point, the number 12 became solidified. Mm-hmm. And, and that had to be... And, and so you probably have some of these tribes, a handful of them. At some point, the number 12 becomes important, and then you get to the point where it's like we're either including Levi and excluding Joseph's offspring, or we're excluding Levi, we're including Joseph's offspring to the exclusion of Joseph as well, and, and that becomes then the, uh, you know, the 12 disciples.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And, um, and then they, you have to, one, you know, one of them went off and, and either hung himself or, or tripped and fell and exploded. Uh, or, you know, if, um, if, uh, it's not... Oh, gosh, no, I, I can't. If Papias has anything to say about it, he just swelled up as, as wide as a road and, and popped. Um, ugh. And yeah, so you had to replace him, and, and then you have- Right ... Matthias as the, as the one who-

Dan Beecher Yeah, that's right. That's- ...

Dan McClellan who gets elected by the roll of the, of the knuckle bones or whatever.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So, um- That's a- ... that's not witchcraft.

Dan Beecher It, it is funny to have a one out, one in, uh- Yeah ... policy when it comes to disciples. So-

Dan McClellan But you can see how they could be like, "Okay, so we don't have Levi. Do we add one?"

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "Well, how are we gonna do that? No, we gotta, we gotta go down to, uh, uh, grandchildren, and that means we then replace the child with the two grandchil-" And, and you can see people, uh, you can, you can imagine some of the people are like, "Uh- What? ... I don't know if anybody's really gonna buy that."

Dan Beecher "Why are we doing this again?"

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher "Uh."

Dan McClellan Yeah. But, um, but yeah, I'm, I'm sure there's... That, that kinda seems like the logical order of events, uh, based on, on our ability to try to kind of, um, reconstruct a, an order to, um- Yeah ... when these, when these texts were written, which texts are earlier, uh, uh, a rough kind of relational, um, chronology. But, you know, which could change. We could find, we could find a, a, a potsherd or a scroll- Yeah ... or an inscription or something that, that could change a lot of this. But based on the available data, it certainly seems like the 12 tribes is a, is an artificial construct intended to, to facilitate the curation of a sense of identity and the boundaries of that identity, because it shifts as, "Oh, we don't wanna include the Samaritans," so if they do wanna be a part of us, even though they already have the genealogical, um- You know, uh, man, I'm just, I just can't think of, of words. Bona fides or whatever.

Dan Beecher Sure.

Dan McClellan Uh, credentials. Even though they have the genealogical credentials, they don't get to count as the house of Israel unless they accept a bunch of stuff that we say they're supposed to accept. It, it's a way to, to curate, uh, and to structure those boundaries and identities, and thus, power.

Dan Beecher One thing that I just realized, uh, check me on this, Ja- um, Jacob, his... These sons are not all from the same wives.

Dan McClellan They are not.

Dan Beecher That's interesting.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher 'Cause Jacob had two wives, Leah and, uh, Rachel?

Dan McClellan Rachel.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Yep.

Dan Beecher And then also, there's, like, a whole servants and concubines thing, right?

Dan McClellan Yes, because Leah and Rachel each gave their, um, hmm, maid servant, their, their female enslaved person-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... their concubine, Bilhah and Zilpah, to Jacob, just because, you know, that's what you did. I

Dan Beecher guess.

Dan McClellan I mean, they're, they're, they're your-

Dan Beecher It's what they did

Dan McClellan ... property. Yeah. They're, they're your property. You're going to, um, hand them over, and, and it sounds like, um, one of them, r- Rachel, was just not conceiving, and so was like, "Try this piece of property here-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... um, of mine." And so, uh, and then Leah did the same with, with Zilpah. So yeah, I think we get, uh, we get six sons through Leah. That would be Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulon. Gad and Asher come through Zilpah.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Joseph and Benjamin come through Rachel, and then Dan and Naphtali come through Bilhah. So-

Dan Beecher It's interesting to me that they all seem to be... Even though, like... It, it, it feels like when I've read, you know, stories of begetting, it seems like, you know, certain sons get prioritized and certain sons get deprioritized based on-

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm

Dan Beecher ... you know, birth order, and, and, and also maybe to do with, uh, you know, whether you came from a wife or a maid servant sort of slave type of situation. But it seems like these are all honored, at, at least when we talk about the tribes of Israel, they're all honored roughly the same. They're all given the same amount of, of weight. Is that true, or was there ever a time when it was like, "Ah, your, your tribe was a Bilhah tribe, so..."

Dan McClellan Um, I think if you look in Genesis 49, that's where Jacob gives his blessings.

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan Um, and, and there is some... You do see some stratification there, uh, in, in who gets a, a good blessing and, and who doesn't. But you also have stories like Joseph was Jacob's favored son, and, uh, you know, he get... Joseph and Benjamin were the sons of Rachel. Those were the two sons of Rachel. And we have in the Joseph story, Benjamin is the youngest, and Joseph gets sold into slavery. Jacob thinks he's dead, and then when the, the other sons go and try to buy food, and Joseph's like, "Thieves." And, um, he says, "You come back with your youngest son or, you know, bad stuff's gonna happen to you." And then Jacob's like, "No, no, I can't let you take Benjamin." So, um, you do have a sense that y- I imagine that the other 10 sons of Jacob are like, "Well, you love Joseph and Benjamin more than you love us." Um, but at the same time, Judah is... g- got a place of prominence in the later telling of everything, and, and Judah's... That's the territory that Jerusalem is in.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And, you know, Judah is the, the lion of Judah, and that's, you know, where the Messiah is gonna come through. And, and you have some... And, you know, Reuben is, like, in the story, Reuben's the one who's like, "Wait a minute, what if we didn't kill Joseph?" At, at least one part of the story, and then Judah shows up and is like, "Wait a minute, what if we didn't kill, uh, Joseph?" But y- you got folks like Dan and Naphtali, Bilhah's sons, who, you know, they don't really have much of a role to play. The tribe of Dan, um, pops up, but... and not in the most favorable way. Um, so-

Dan Beecher I mean, it's pretty favorable in our merch section. What?

Dan McClellan There we go. And then Levi gets to be the, the priesthood line, kinda. Um, so- So yeah, I think some stand out and some are just, "We're still here." Um-

Dan Beecher Also appearing.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and featuring.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Um.

Dan Beecher All right. Well, there you have it. Uh, that's the absolutely clear and not at all confusing story of the 12 tribes of Israel. Uh, which, yeah, uh, like so much of the Bible, we walk away feeling less edified than we walked into it. Um, that's about all we have, uh, a, uh, all I have patience for- ... in terms of, uh, confusing stories of tribes. Uh, if you, dear friends, have, uh, have felt at all edified by this, or if you kn- ... Listen, do you know somebody who might find this interesting? Why don't you share it with them? Why don't you send it to them? Send them our way. We always love a new audience. You can also become a part of keeping us on the air. The air. Is it air? It's not air anymore. Uh, keeping us, keeping the show going by going over to patreon.com/dataoverdogma and, uh, signing up to be one of our patrons, where you can get access to an early and ad-free version of every episode, as well as access to the, uh, after party, which is bonus content every week that nobody else gets. So we really appreciate it if you guys show up over there. Uh, thanks so much to Roger Gowdy for editing. Thanks to Sam for, uh, being our, our, our Man Friday. Is that a thing? Our, our right-hand dude.

Dan McClellan It is now.

Dan Beecher And, uh, we will talk to you all again next time.

Dan McClellan Bye, everybody.