Usurer Error

Dan McClellan In Ezekiel 18, he rattles off a list of bad folks, and the last thing on the list is, "Takes advance or accrued interest."

Dan Beecher Wow.

Dan McClellan "Shall he then live? He shall not." Hey, everybody. I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan And you're listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat that pesky spread of misinformation about the same. And how are things today, Dan?

Dan Beecher Good.

Dan McClellan Things are- You've just come off the rugby pitch.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan I hope you all won.

Dan Beecher I'm a never-lose rugby player. I've literally never lost a rugby game in my life.

Dan McClellan Nice. There you go.

Dan Beecher I've never played a rugby game.

Dan McClellan No.

Dan Beecher But, yeah. Dan, for those of you listening at home, is referring to the shirt that I'm wearing. Do you want to know why I got this? I'll just- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan briefly.

Dan Beecher Last year, you'll recall, I went to Mardi Gras with a bunch of friends.

Dan McClellan You did.

Dan Beecher Uh-huh. And the whole group of us decided that our theme for that entire week that we were there was "Spinal Tap," the movie "Spinal Tap."

Dan McClellan Yeah. There's going to be a new one coming out.

Dan Beecher I know. They were literally in New Orleans at the same time that we were there, and we didn't see them, which proves to me that fate isn't real. But yes, for my character, I played Ian, the band manager, and this- Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan That was your- ...

Dan Beecher rugby shirt with a leather vest over it. He's inexplicably dressed the entire time.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Anyway.

Dan McClellan Oh, gosh. And it's the colors for the Washington football team, so all I have to say to that- Okay ... is boo.

Dan Beecher Well This isn't a football shirt, so everything's fine.

Dan McClellan I know.

Dan Beecher Yep.

Dan McClellan There you go.

Dan Beecher All right. Well, today we are going to have some fun. We are going to discuss, and we're going to tread, I think, a little bit back onto Dave Ramsey's turf.

Dan McClellan Little bit.

Dan Beecher Because we're getting economic up in here again.

Dan McClellan Little bit.

Dan Beecher But we're going to be talking about... You actually did a video in your social media recently that- Yes ... that set up a question, and the question is, what is this thing that's been prohibited so much in the Bible? So I'm not going to say what it is. We'll get to it very quickly- Yeah ... in the first segment. And then in the second segment, in our chapter and verse, we're going to be talking about the parable of the talents- Mm-hmm ... which I find utterly befuddling, and hopefully- Yeah ... hopefully we'll shed some light on it.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Maybe that light will just further befuddle.

Dan McClellan I don't know.

Dan Beecher There might be a mass befuddling.

Dan McClellan Yeah. I think we might be able to clear a few things up, but mainly it's going to be muddying the waters and then running away.

Dan Beecher Well, that's as we do.

Dan McClellan That's what we do.

Dan Beecher Yeah. It's kind of our thing. But let's get on with our first segment, Taking Issue. And the first issue we're going to take, the issue that we are taking, is with something that is prohibited far more in the Bible than any particular kind of sexual act- Yeah ... or orientation. We've talked about how- Yeah ... there are no orientations that are prohibited in the Bible. It's prohibited in direct ways that you can't say transness is prohibited- Yeah ... or abortion. This is hit so many times. What are we talking about?

Dan McClellan We're talking about usury, which is a word that I don't know that I ever heard it before I joined the LDS Church.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Oh. And then on occasion, you would hear the word usury, which is kind of old-fashioned, but Latter-day Saints are old-fashioned, and they- ... still, for some reason, and yes, I know the reasons, still use the King James Version of the Bible, despite my best efforts.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And there were a lot of them.

Dan Beecher Keep trying.

Dan McClellan But yeah, usury is something I don't think a lot of people are aware was a huge deal, not only in the Bible, but within early Christianity up to- Oh, yeah ... the Reformation, and even since. And overwhelmingly, it was vehemently condemned- Right ... by an awful lot of folks. But I want to start way back in the before times, in the Hebrew Bible, where we have- Okay ... a handful of prohibitions. We see this in Exodus, we see it in Leviticus, we see it in Deuteronomy. And usury has come to refer to the exorbitant charging of interest, like charging too much interest.

Dan Beecher Yeah. We're talking about lending and then charging interest on a loan.

Dan McClellan Right. In the Hebrew Bible, it seems to refer to charging any interest at all. And to early Christianity.

Dan Beecher Just any... Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Any interest at all. It wasn't like, "Well, once you're up to 8.33%, you're okay, but anything above that, we cut your hands off."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan No, that's a later developed idea. In the Hebrew Bible, it's any interest at all. But you have in Exodus 22, this is the covenant code. I and other scholars think this is probably the earliest legislative layer that we have in the Hebrew Bible. Chapter 22 verse 25, "If you lend money to my people, to the poor among you, you shall not deal with them as a creditor. You shall not exact interest from them." And then we have very similar things going on in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

Dan Beecher "You shall not" Yeah, and that's very clear. That's not, "You shall not exact a lot of interest."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher That's just any interest.

Dan McClellan Any interest at all. And in Leviticus, "Do not take interest in advance or otherwise make a profit from them, but fear your God; let them live with you." This is talking about the poor.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan "You shall not lend them your money at interest taken in advance or provide them food at a profit." So that's Leviticus 25:36-37. Deuteronomy 23:19, "You shall not charge interest on loans to another Israelite, interest on money, interest on provisions, interest on anything that is lent."

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Now, there is an allowance charging interest on loans to non-Israelites.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher That's pretty clear. You pick up on that pretty quickly, is that it repeatedly says, "To our people, to my people," or whatever.

Dan McClellan Right. And the idea here is protecting the well-being and the equity, the social stability of the Israelite people. This is about protecting the Israelite people. And then we have in Ezekiel 18, a handful of passages. We have what's known as a vice list. This is more popular in Greco-Roman literature where it's like, "Everybody sucks who does A, B, C, D, E, F, G, all the way to double Z." This is what Paul is doing, or pseudo Paul is doing in a lot of places. But in Ezekiel 18, he rattles off a list of bad folks, and the last thing on the list is, "Takes advance or accrued interest."

Dan Beecher Wow.

Dan McClellan "Shall he then live? He shall not."

Dan Beecher Oh, wow.

Dan McClellan So- Yeah, death penalty ...

Dan Beecher death penalty.

Dan McClellan Yeah, according to Ezekiel. "He has done all these abominable things; he shall surely be put to death. His blood shall be upon himself." And then after that, it talks about, "The righteous person withholds his hand from iniquity, takes no advance or accrued interest, observes my ordinances and follows my statutes. He shall not die for his father's iniquity; he shall surely live."

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan And you have in Ezekiel 22, these are the things that are mentioned one after the other. "Takes bribes to shed blood."

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan "You take both advance interest and accrued interest and make gain of your neighbors by extortion, and you have forgotten me," says Adonai God.

Dan Beecher Wow.

Dan McClellan So they're pretty emphatic about this.

Dan Beecher Yeah. It doesn't seem like they're pussyfooting around this thing.

Dan McClellan They are- No, they're not being shy.

Dan Beecher No They're coming in strong. They're coming in hot.

Dan McClellan Not bashful. Yeah, guns hot. And then you have a couple places in the Psalms where you have reference to people who are good because they do not lend money at interest and do not take a bribe against the innocent. Those who do these things shall never be moved. And then, "One who augments wealth by exorbitant interest gathers it for another who is kind to the poor," which is kind of contrasting the good against the bad.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan But so Hebrew Bible, firmly against interest. You have 12 occurrences of the word neshech, which is the term for interest. Every single one of them condemnatory toward the practice as long as it's in-house.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan We don't do this to our own people because what does it do? It makes the poor poorer. Makes the wealthy wealthier, makes the poor poorer, and we're not going to do that to our own people. And this gets picked up in... The New Testament really only talks about interest a couple of times. Once is in the parable that we're going to be talking about- Right.

Dan Beecher Yes ...

Dan McClellan here shortly. We'll get to that.

Dan Beecher Yes. Yeah, we'll get to that.

Dan McClellan And then there's another reference in, I believe it is Luke 6. Luke 6:34-36. "If you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them expecting nothing in return." Now, the idea here might be a rhetorical exaggeration. This might be hyperbole. Lend money and don't expect to be repaid. But I think the idea that people are lending money and expecting not only to be repaid, but to make a profit off of that, I think those people are, as the great poet once said, "Right out."

Dan Beecher Yeah. But I don't see any reason to assume that it is hyperbole. To me, it feels like it comports with a lot of what Jesus had to say about giving to the poor, not being rich. You know what I mean?

Dan McClellan Like, to me, that- Yeah, when it comes to the poor, it's very clearly, "Sell all that you have, give it to the poor."

Dan Beecher Right. So it seems like it would make sense to me to say, if you're going to lend, just don't expect to get it back. If you get it back, great.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher But don't expect anything in return.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher That seems reasonable to me to hear from Jesus. I know that a lot of people would not like that. I know a lot of people who are asked for loans would not like that, but- Yeah ... that makes sense just as an idea to me.

Dan McClellan Yeah, and we live in a world where the financial system that holds our world up is built on interest.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan I think there's an estimated somewhere around $1 trillion is made on interest. Between $500 billion and $1 trillion is made on interest in- the United States. So, that's just a part of our world these days. Anciently, not so much.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan There's an interesting... The Council of Nicaea, we talk about this a lot, about how the main controversy they were talking about was the Arian controversy. There was also this little matter of how we determine the date of Easter so that people can figure it out for themselves. They can stop hassling us. And then there were a bunch of canon laws, which I think some people confuse for talking about the biblical canon, but that has nothing to do with the Council of Nicaea. Dan Brown. Nothing to do with the Council of Nicaea. But one of the... And I think we've mentioned the very first one, I think it's the very first one at the Council of Nicaea, was basically prohibiting anyone who had castrated himself from being part of the clergy.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan Because that was popular back then.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan But another one is prohibiting the clergy from charging interest on loans. And we have this statement, "For as much as many enrolled among the clergy following covetousness and lust of gain have forgotten the divine scripture," which says, "He has not given his money upon usury," that's Ezekiel 18, "and in lending money ask the hundredth of the sum. The holy and great synod thinks it just that if after this decree anyone be found to receive usury, whether he accomplish it by secret transaction or otherwise, as by demanding the whole and one-half or by using any other contrivance whatever of for filthy lucre's sake, he shall be deposed from the clergy and his name stricken from the list."

Dan Beecher Wow.

Dan McClellan So basically, and they start at even 1%, you're out, you're gone.

Dan Beecher Defrocked. So they didn't impose this on Christianity as a whole. This was imposed on- Not yet. Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan Not yet.

Dan Beecher So that was just about the clergy.

Dan McClellan That was just about the clergy, yeah.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan But then we get to the Second Lateran Council, which is many centuries later. It's extended to pretty much everyone.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan And then the Third Lateran decree, I think this is from... Okay, this is from 1179. "We therefore declare that notorious usurers should not be admitted to communion of the altar or receive Christian burial if they die in this sin."

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan "Whoever receives them or gives them Christian burial should be compelled to give back what he has received and let him remain suspended from the performance of his office until he has made satisfaction according to the judgment of his own bishop." And they begin by saying, "Nearly everywhere the crime of usury has become so firmly rooted that many, omitting other business, practice usury as if it were permitted and in no way observe how it is forbidden in both the Old and New Testament."

Dan Beecher Wow.

Dan McClellan And then in 1311, the Council of Vienne straight-up condemns it as heresy.

Dan Beecher It is- Okay. Now, at this point, are we still talking about lending with any interest, or have we gotten to interest as onerous interest?

Dan McClellan Any interest.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And it's not until, I think, in the 16th century that we get a definition of usury. The Fifth Lateran Council says, "For that is the real meaning of usury when from its use a thing which produces nothing is applied to the acquiring of gain and profit without any work, any expense, or any risk." So any attempt to try to make money without any work, any expense, or any risk, in other words, lending money so that you get it back and then some, it's defined as usury.

Dan Beecher Wow.

Dan McClellan But we get, "If indeed someone has fallen into the error of presuming to affirm," and I've never seen this word before in my life, "pertinaciously- "... that the practice of usury is not sinful, we decree that he is to be punished as a heretic."

Dan Beecher Wow.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And they condemn the secular laws that allow usury.

Dan Beecher Okay, so at this point, we're getting to the time period in which I first learned about usury- Mm-hmm ... which is because I studied Shakespeare.

Dan McClellan Ah.

Dan Beecher And so I had to figure out... I was in a production of "Merchant of Venice"- "Merchant of Venice," yeah ... which centers around a Jewish lender- Mm-hmm ... who they despised and they reviled because he was Jewish, but they had to go to him because they needed- Only man in town, yeah ... they needed money. And that's when I learned about the fact that in that period, Christians were not allowed to lend- Right ... for profit. And because it was considered low, and the fact of the matter is that Jewish people in those centuries in Europe had been relegated. They weren't allowed to participate in sort of proper, good- Right ...

Dan McClellan upstanding- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher jobs. So this was sort of what was left to them.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And they were the only ones who were allowed to do it.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And because Christians were unilaterally prohibited from it, but for Jewish folks, the Old Testament only says you're not allowed to do it for your fellow Israelites.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan They're permitted to loan at interest to non-Israelites. So they become the only game in town- Right ... for Christians who need to borrow money. And yeah, they were relegated to... And this is physically, economically, socially, in every way, they were relegated to the dregs.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And you can go on a tour if you ever have the privilege of having extra time on your hands in Oxford. You can go on a tour of the Jewish quarter Of Oxford. Well, they'll take you around, and they'll show you that Jewish folks lived downhill from the tannery and from the- Oh ... the processing and all that. And so they just had filth running through the ghetto that they were relegated to.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Oh, shoot. I always forget the name of these places- ... where they have lots of plants and flowers and trees.

Dan Beecher It's called a garden.

Dan McClellan Yeah, but a big one that you can visit, that you pay- Okay ... to go into. Oh my gosh.

Dan Beecher My wife is- A botanical garden of some sort?

Dan McClellan Botanical garden. Good grief.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan I've been there multiple times. The botanical garden in Oxford, one of the reasons that this part of Oxford is so fertile in terms of growing things is because it is constructed over the medieval Jewish graveyard.

Dan Beecher Oh, wow.

Dan McClellan And they have a sign out front that explains this. But they are the tax collectors, they are the rent collectors, they are the money lenders, and obviously, since they're charging interest, the Christians grow to hate them. They put them- Yeah ... in that position, and then they said, "We hate you for this."

Dan Beecher Right. And it does seem to be like that never gets expunged. To this day, antisemitism largely centers around the money that Jews have, and the power that they're hoarding because of all of the money, and the blah, blah, blah.

Dan McClellan Yeah. There's no- They get written into "Harry Potter" as the money-lending whatever- The trolls or the gnomes- Trolls.

Dan Beecher Yeah ... or whatever they are.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah. And I think a lot of the people that are participating in that sort of hatred of these people don't even realize that the root of all of that goes back to when their own people put the Jewish people into that position.

Dan McClellan Absolutely.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher That's- It's a little yuck.

Dan McClellan Yeah. It's incredibly yuck. And if you want to really just be horrified, which most people don't- Oh, and I do. Always Don't go look at the interactions between Christians and Jewish communities in the medieval period in Spain and Portugal and stuff like that. It was awful, awful stuff.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And that's kind of the seedbed for the development of concepts of racism and race as a question of skin color. A lot of it comes down to Jewish and Muslim folks, they have different skin color from us. We're good, they're bad. And that's kind of how the notion that race is something about skin color develops, and yeah. But that's not what this segment is about. We're talking about usury.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Christians are trying to hold themselves up, hold themselves to this standard while having a little relief valve. They have relegated Jewish folks to this relief valve, and then they hate them for it.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And so these days, an awful lot of antisemitism is rooted in these very old stereotypes that were forced upon Jewish communities.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And you have all of the blood libel stuff, I forget exactly what they call it, the notion that Jewish folks would shave the coins down and collect- Oh, yeah ... the shavings and- Yeah ... all these are lies that developed so that Christians could vilify and demonize Jewish folks. But the Christians would come around, centuries later, they would- Wait a minute.

Dan Beecher Not come around to being kind to Jewish people.

Dan McClellan No. They would- Come around to- Charging interest ...

Dan Beecher participating in the- Yes ... in the interest charging.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Now, it first gets a lot more strict.

Dan Beecher You have St.

Dan McClellan Anselm of Canterbury, he said that usury was theft. So, the taxation is theft, folks.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan It's like we've heard it before. But it was interest is theft- Right ... back then.

Dan Beecher St.

Dan McClellan Thomas Aquinas condemned it as well. We have Luther and others condemning it. But you mentioned "The Merchant of Venice." This is the thing that kind of begins to turn the tables a little bit. The Renaissance, a lot of that had to do with the fact that there was an awful lot of money and an awful lot of trade going through Italy that was facilitating the translation of a lot of stuff from Arabic back into Latin and Greek, and it was pumping a lot of life into the Italian economy. And so money lending kind of had to be there if they were going to ride that wave all the way.

Dan Beecher And so- Mm ...

Dan McClellan there are cracks in the dam of this Christian attempt to keep usury at bay. And once you get up into the 18th and the 19th centuries, there's very little resistance to as you get the development of the capitalistic society that we have today. It doesn't work really without charging interest. But then you have I don't know if you hear the idiotic conspiracy theories that I hear every day about the Rothschilds.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan A lot of that is rooted in loans to the Catholic Church from the Rothschilds.

Dan Beecher Oh, interesting. And yes- I didn't know that that had happened.

Dan McClellan Yes. And so yeah, there was interest that was being charged as well, which was... And then you've got the Medici bank lent money to the Vatican in the 15th century, but they overcharged on a lot of stuff as a kind of a- replacement for charging interest. There are a lot of ways to get around this.

Dan Beecher The Medicis weren't Jewish, were they?

Dan McClellan I don't think so, but this was another way that the Vatican found themselves in hot water.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Because interest was not supposed to work, but they weren't supposed to charge it. But there are a lot of ways that you could get around it. You could charge fees, you could overcharge on other stuff. You could say, "Well, I'm only loaning you this money if you engage in this other exchange with me where- Right ... you're going to get raked across the coals." So they had a lot of ways to get around it. And then, yeah, by the 20th century, that dam has burst and disintegrated basically.

Dan Beecher Given up on it entirely.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah. If you tell Dave Ramsey it's not okay to charge interest, I think he'll disagree with you.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And this is a part of the renegotiation of the text. You can not like it all you want, but this is very clear in the Bible, and early Christians for an awful long time tried to hold fast to this, and then we just decided that we know better, and we don't care, and we really want this, and so it's gone. And- Yeah.

Dan Beecher As I was sort of researching this and looking into it, I saw so many different arguments for why it's okay now, and they all seem pretty disingenuous, but a lot of it was the old trope of that's just in the Old Testament and Jesus fulfilled the covenant and now none of the Old Testament rules apply anymore, which has never made any sense to me because they still love the Ten Commandments and whatever.

Dan McClellan I don't know.

Dan Beecher Yeah. It's such a weird case to make, especially considering, like you said, it's also in the New Testament. Jesus himself in that Luke 6 passage or, you know what I mean?

Dan McClellan Yeah. Basically says just give your money away, man.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Don't expect anything in return. And it's encouraging you to lend just without any expectation of even getting it back.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah. It's fascinating to me. Like you say, the entire way our economy is currently built revolves around this.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher But I guess what I was going to say is that it says we can also look at our world and notice that it is vastly different than the world of the Old Testament and New Testament.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah. We're not subsistence farmers the way most- Right ... of them were.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And this is one of the reasons that I point out negotiating with the text, if you want the text to be authoritative, you have absolutely no choice to negotiate with it, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Circumstances change. That's one of the reasons you have to negotiate with it. The abolition of slavery to the degree that it was abolished was an awesome thing, and now we have to figure out how to make the Bible work in a world that does not have slavery. But I think just being transparent about the fact that we're negotiating with it, and so if you want to defend interest, make a secular case for it and say we don't really have much of a choice if we want to survive in the world. But that might have some bearing on how emphatically you want to defend other increasingly unpopular and harmful ideologies that you insist the Bible demands you endorse and you defend. So yeah, just be consistent whatever you're going to do about it.

Dan Beecher But that might be asking a lot of some people.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And to this day, and Muslims also, my understanding, I had a bunch of comments on that video from members of the Islamic community saying that they're prohibited from charging interest, and there are banks in the Muslim world where you can get interest-free loans. And evidently, there are groups, I don't know how formally they are organized as banks or if they're affiliated with banks. There are groups that will also make loans to members of the Jewish community that are interest-free, and I'm sure there are different kinds of standards and requirements and criteria and things like that that must be met. But there are a lot of groups that still take this seriously, at least for the in group.

Dan Beecher But- Yeah. I was raised in the wrong group. My mortgage is telling me I'm in the wrong group altogether.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And one of the interesting things I've seen in folks who defend the validity of interest from a Christian standpoint is saying that it helps mitigate risk, and I've wondered about that because if somebody's not going to pay back the loan, you're not getting the interest either for the most part. We front load a lot of interest, but if you don't even get back the money that you loaned, eh. But also we saw that some of these early Christians were like, "Oh, you want to try to mitigate risk so that you can make money? Yeah, that's not good. That's bad."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And so that argument wouldn't have flown for the medieval Christians. They would've been like, "Yes, that's part of the problem."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan "You're trying to make money, but you're not assuming the risks that are involved with trying to make money. You're just putting the risk entirely on the other person and saying, 'Nah, I'm not going to take any risks trying to make this money.'"

Dan Beecher Yeah. Well, I think that is a good place for us to transition into our next segment because- Okay ... I feel like- The next segment gets into some of these issues, and illustrates them in ways that I, gosh, I hope I walk away understanding something here. So let's go into our chapter and verse. And the chapter and verse that we're talking about is Matthew 25.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And we're deep in parable town- Yes ... in Matthew 25. I went and looked. The first part of 25 is the parable of the 10 bridesmaids- Mm-hmm ... which is interesting. And then it transitions directly into what we are looking at, which is the parable of the talents.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And we should first start by, I looked up what a talent was.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And it was a unit of weight originally.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And then became a unit of heavy money. A heavy unit.

Dan McClellan Well, back then, money was basically a weight.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan You had usually silver or something like that, and it was that much silver.

Dan Beecher And a talent is not a small amount.

Dan McClellan It is- It's a gigantic amount ...

Dan Beecher enormous.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So a single talent was, I think in one thing I saw, it was the equivalent of, what was it? It was like years of a standard person's salary.

Dan McClellan I think one of them was given five talents.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan That would require, I think it was working for 84 years every single day- Right ... at a standard day labor wage without spending anything just to get that amount of money. So- Yeah ... it's an enormous amount of money. And there's a parallel in Luke, but it's like the 10 minas or the 10 pounds, which is another unit of weight.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And it's a much smaller one. So when Luke tells the story, it's kind of like, "Let's get real. This is how much he gave them."

Dan Beecher And- Right ... but Matthew is like- Because it does seem a little weird that, it's a parable. We're not supposed to understand this as actually having happened.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher But yeah, it does seem a little weird that the master's like, "Here, take $2 million and go see what you can do with it."

Dan McClellan Yeah. Like, "I'm going out of town.

Dan Beecher Here's $5 million.

Dan McClellan Have a good time."

Dan Beecher Yeah. "Take care of it for me."

Dan McClellan And then when he comes back, the sums that are the profits are also astronomical.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan In that time period, you can't really make that much money, even with that much money, unless you are doing some pretty devious and probably questionable, buying and selling of property and things like that.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan You're exploiting people to make that much money. Let's quickly just sort of tell the story, just so that we- Okay ...

Dan Beecher everybody's up on it.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So we have a man. Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And all it says is a man, right? Although I think- There's a man. I think that the KJV has an interesting thing. It says, "For the kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country." Which one of the things that I read was like, yeah, they just chucked in that kingdom of heaven thing to try and make their own kind of sense of this.

Dan McClellan Yeah. But- It's in italics, so it's not there in the Greek.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Because I think if you read this and it doesn't say, well, what are we supposed to be comparing? How are we supposed to be understanding this? One might interpret this as a negative thing, and so maybe the King James translators were like, "We need to kind of massage them in the direction of understanding this as how heaven is supposed to be. All right, let's add kingdom of heaven into that."

Dan Beecher I'm going to question that because I- Okay ... still interpret this as a negative thing. So we'll get to that.

Dan McClellan Yeah. We'll get to that.

Dan Beecher But we've got a man, and he's obviously a very wealthy man. We can take that from the context clues later on. He's going on a journey, and he summons his slaves- Mm-hmm ... and entrusts his property to them. To one, he gave five talents, to another two, to another one talent, and it says each according to his ability. I don't know, does that mean ability to lift it? I don't know what abilities we're talking about here.

Dan McClellan I think the idea here is that he knows the economic prowess of his enslaved folks.

Dan Beecher The savviness.

Dan McClellan Yeah. He's got his A team, he's got his JV squad, and he knows what he can give them and expect a return on.

Dan Beecher Yeah. So then he goes away, and the two top guys, the guy who received five and the guy who received two, go off and immediately do whatever they do and make money. They both double their money.

Dan McClellan 100% return, yeah.

Dan Beecher Which is crazy.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And I kind of want to find out what they did. And then the last guy just goes and buries his talent in the ground and waits for his master to come. Doesn't want to take a risk, doesn't want to get in trouble, seemingly, and so he just does that.

Dan McClellan And interestingly enough, we have some rabbinic literature that's about how the only way for money to be safe is if you bury it. And they even talk about how deep you have to bury it to- Oh ... certain things.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Just make sure you remember where you put it.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah, write it down somewhere.

Dan McClellan Anyway, so master comes back- And it says after a long time.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Sure. Which suggests we got to give them time to make this money. It's still ridiculous.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan The amount of 100% return on five talents is- Yeah ... is stupid. But- After a long time, meaning 45 years- Yeah ... or something, he comes back, he summons the slaves. He says, "What'd you do?"

Dan Beecher Number one guy says, "Look at this, I doubled. Here's your 10 talents back."

Dan McClellan Double your pleasure.

Dan Beecher Number two guy says, "Here's your four talents back. I doubled up, too." He's pleased with both of them. "Good and trustworthy slave. You've been trustworthy," and he says, "I'm going to put you in charge of some stuff.

Dan McClellan Congratulations on your new- A few things being billions of dollars.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan An awful lot of money.

Dan Beecher You're going to be... I think in Luke, don't they get to be in charge of cities?

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher So, we're talking about like, "Yaha, you get to be a big shot now."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And then comes the guy who buried his, and he- Yeah ... he comes in and he says, "Here you go. Here's your talent back." But he doesn't just say that. He says, "Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter. So I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours." And that did not go over well.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And this is fair, though.

Dan Beecher Oh, yeah.

Dan McClellan He's like, "I'm leaving town. I want you guys to make me money while I'm gone."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And that's reaping where you did not sow, gathering where you did not scatter.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Trying to make money without working for it.

Dan Beecher And also, clearly this guy knew that if he comes back empty-handed, he's- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan screwed.

Dan Beecher So he's not willing to take that risk. He says, "I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground." And then the master replies, "You wicked and lazy slave. You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was mine with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to the one with the 10 talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher Now that has always baffled me. Because here's the thing. The explanation that I always got of this parable is that talents, even though it's a different word, I was always told that talents, what a fun little cognate or whatever.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Are spiritual gifts and things like that.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So, we're supposed to somehow the master in this story is God or Jesus, and he's given us these, whatever he's given us, whatever gifts he's given us.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And that we are to magnify them and sort of blah, blah, blah. And so when you read on and you hear about the... That all made sense to me until I read the part about the last slave criticizing the master, and the master doesn't rebuke him and say, "I'm not that."

Dan McClellan Right. He doesn't say, "That's not true about me." He just says, "Oh, you knew that about me and so you didn't do anything? Well, you're out."

Dan Beecher Which says to me that I don't know how we can interpret that as being God in that case.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher It feels very strange. So talk me through it, help me understand what am I missing, or are we just going to live in confusion?

Dan McClellan Well, so the biggest issue is the fact that a parable, and this comes from a word that means to throw beside or to lay beside. It's a comparison.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Is the thinking that there is significance to the structure of the parable. We're supposed to be comparing one thing to another, but when we put God in the role of the master, we're now thinking, "Okay, this must be an endorsement some way of what the master is doing because that's what we're supposed to be understanding God to do."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And that's a pretty natural way to approach these things, and it is kind of how traditionally we have approached things, but I'd want to bring up Luke 19- Okay ... which says something peculiar. Tells a parable. He says, "A nobleman went to a distant region to receive royal power for himself and then return."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And a lot of scholars have pointed, so this is not just somebody's got a business trip. This is somebody who is making a special trip to go be endowed with political power, which is why he can come back and say, "I give you five cities. I give you two cities."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And a lot of people point out that this sounds an awful lot like Herod Archelaus, who went off to Rome to be given power to be the leader of this tetrarchy after his father, Herod the Great, died.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Herod Archelaus was a bad dude. He ends up being deposed for just rank incompetence in 6 CE, and it's after this that we have the need to have a census of the area, which is probably what Luke or whoever wrote the nativity account in the beginning of Luke was confusing with a period during Herod's life. But so in Luke 19, it seems to be suggesting that God is slotted in for this villain.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan And so it does raise questions about how we should be understanding what the actual structure of the parable is functioning.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Should we be taking this as an endorsement of usury, of the reaction? I think there are problems with that, particularly on the other side of abolitionism as well, because all of these parables are about enslaved people.

Dan Beecher Right. And none of them are about how bad it is to enslave anybody.

Dan McClellan Right. It's all about, yeah, the slave did this, the slave did that, the master went, "Good slave."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan If you want to understand the structure of the parable to have some moral freight that it's carrying, then what do you do about the fact that it's all about enslaved folks, and the fact that the New Testament consistently represents the ideal relationship you have with God as the relationship of slave to master? So there are a lot of problems with that as well. But additionally, it seems like what's going on in these passages are, one, they don't go back to Jesus. Almost certainly don't go back to Jesus. These are probably traditions that developed later on.

Dan Beecher Okay. And perhaps even- Though they are put in Jesus' mouth in the text.

Dan McClellan Right. They're put in Jesus' mouth, and it's possible that we have some layers that post-date the original composition of these gospels as well. Particularly when it says the master left and after a long time. This could be kind of this delay of the parousia. Why hasn't Jesus come back yet? Because at the end of Matthew, Jesus tells the people, "There are people standing here now who will see me coming in the clouds of power and great glory," the second coming, which didn't happen.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And so maybe this is something that was- That you know of. Let's not get all preterist- ... right now. But this could've been a parable that was put in Jesus' mouth even after the original Gospel of Matthew was written as a way of kind of talking about how we need to be doing our thing until Jesus comes back, because Jesus is going to demand an accounting of us. And so the story could be doing that. Now, you found another reading that- Yeah.

Dan Beecher Well, it was sent into us by a listener whose name I forget.

Dan McClellan A rather prescient listener.

Dan Beecher Yeah. So they sent in a really interesting view of this. It's sort of a liberation theology view, but it basically makes the third slave the hero of the story.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And it claims that the ancient Israelites or the sort of neo-Christians, the early Christians, would've understood it in a way that what was happening was that the last slave was the one speaking truth to power.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And that that was the right thing to do, and that he was speaking out against the idea of usury and saying, "You are a usurer," and somehow that's a bad thing. And then he gets condemned, which that kind of sucks.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher He gets thrown out. But one of the interesting things was this author, and this is from an author named, there's a name associated with it. Andy Wade, I guess, is the one who posted this particular thing. Anyway, one of the interesting parts of his theory is that by burying the talent in the ground, there was also this sort of metaphorical idea that money can't grow in the ground.

Dan McClellan Uh-huh.

Dan Beecher And that subsistence living is the correct way of living. So what you put in the ground is something... And obviously he uses metaphors that are agrarian metaphors. You reap what you do not sow. You gather where you do not scatter.

Dan McClellan Right.

Dan Beecher So I think it makes sense to look at the fact that he buried this money in the ground and nothing grew from it.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And that the idea was that money itself has no inherent growing value. You have to exploit other people in order for money to grow by itself, and he should've been planting things in the ground that would grow. I don't know, I just found that really interesting, and it made more sense of this parable to me than saying that the master is God. The master then becomes sort of the villain of the parable. Even though the outcome for this hero slave is a very bad outcome.