You Want a Boat? I Noah Guy

Dan McClellan He built the ark out of gopher wood.

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan Maybe there was some shittim or wood.

Dan Beecher I'm hoping for shittim.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher That's my wood right there.

Dan McClellan Yeah, shittim real good. If I'm going to have biblical wood, it's going to be shittim.

Dan Beecher Let's move quickly past what I just said.

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

Dan Beecher And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan And you're listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast, 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 go things this time around, Dan? Well, we're having fun here at the Data Over Dogma podcast where- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher you and I have already recorded this.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher But no.

Dan McClellan Recorded and lost.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan Recorded and lost.

Dan Beecher We have suffered the terrors of technical difficulties.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher But you don't have to experience that, dear listeners and viewers at home.

Dan McClellan Yes. All new jokes this time around- Oh ...

Dan Beecher we promise. All you get from us is fresh content. We promise to attempt, at very least, not to skip anything just because- Yes ... we think we've covered it in our addled brains. So anyway, we're diving in. This week we're going to be doing a textual healing, and the healing that we're going to be doing- Because we have got that feeling.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And that's- Well, and when I get that feeling- We need a little- ... I need that textual healing. This one, we're going to be doing some Genesis, a little Genesis 6 action, which is six through eight.

Dan McClellan Six through eight.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And then, in the latter half of the show, we're going to do a terrible parable. It's actually not that terrible. We'll see how we do. We'll see how it goes.

Dan McClellan It's not the worst parable.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Consider the lilies, is what I have to say about that. We'll get to some Luke down the road. But let's start, as you and I already have, Dan- ... with textual healing. And this week, like I said, it's Genesis 6.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher But not the very beginning of Genesis 6.

Dan McClellan No, that begins with a sordid tale. The bene Elohim, the children of God, and those scrappy benot ha'adam, or Daughters of Humanity.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan They do their thing.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And we've covered that before.

Dan Beecher Yeah, we talked about that, and it madeth the Lord miffed.

Dan McClellan Miffed.

Dan Beecher He was not- Yeah ... happy about it, but it's- No ... funny because the first four verses of chapter six feel almost entirely unrelated to the rest- Yes ... of what happens in chapter six.

Dan McClellan Yes, I happen to think this is probably something that was tacked on closer to the end in an effort to give a better rationalization for God deciding to destroy everything that lives upon the earth.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay. So, people were reading it, and they were going, "But why, though?"

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher "There's a flood, but why?" And they're like, "You remember how God's kids- Yeah ... mated with ladies and..."

Dan McClellan And in the middle of this, we have God saying, "You know what? People aren't going to live as long after this."

Dan Beecher Yeah. "I don't want them around as long.

Dan McClellan So, 120 years."

Dan Beecher That's true, because just the one chapter before this is the list of all of the patriarchs, and it's like, so and so lived 800 years, and then so and so- Yes ... lived-- Matter of fact, the last paragraph or the last bit in chapter five, it says, young Noah sowed his oats- Yes ... for 500 years. Wiled away those first 500 years of youth, and then finally decided to- Yeah.

Dan McClellan With the boys, just- Oh, yeah ... out gambling- Partying ... all night long.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Finally decided to settle down at the young age of 500 and have his kids.

Dan McClellan No more party buses out to Wendover.

Dan Beecher That's right.

Dan McClellan For those of you who are familiar with Salt Lake City or the Utah area.

Dan Beecher And if you are a Utahn, and you push real hard, maybe we can do a Data Over Dogma fun bus to Wendover. That would be actually a lot of fun.

Dan McClellan I don't know- I think that would be a lot of fun.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Maybe we should do that.

Dan McClellan I think I would have- Let us know. Every time though- ... every time I'm in a casino, and we go down to California a lot. We always stop in Vegas. That's where we usually spend the night. And they smoke like crazy in the casinos down there.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan I get the worst headache from cigarette smoke.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan So yeah, that kills me. But yeah, I think that would be fun. It's been a long time. It's been a long time since I've hit up the Hold'em table.

Dan Beecher Yeah, there you go.

Dan McClellan So yeah.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan All right. I'll- But anyway, yeah. We're going to do it like Noah did- Yeah.

Dan Beecher Okay ... during his first 500 years.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Anyhoo.

Dan McClellan But then he settles down. He has Shem, Ham, and Japheth, one after the other real quick, just getting them out of the way.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Just so they all- But we're not here to- We're not here to talk about that, no.

Dan Beecher We're not here to just tell the story of Noah and the ark. Most people know it, although, as you pointed out in one of your recent videos, recent to me, not to the people listening to this because it's a couple weeks- ... it takes us a little bit to get it out to you.

Dan McClellan This episode will never see the light of day.

Dan Beecher This is never going to happen anyway, so you guys are fine. But yeah, you pointed out that there's this misunderstanding That Noah tried to preach to the people and say, "Repent," and all this stuff.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher That ain't in here.

Dan McClellan No, no, not to be found. And the whole idea that the people mocked Noah, and they were like, "Stupid boat."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Also not in here.

Dan Beecher Yeah, I was surprised by that. As I was reading, I was like, "Hey, that's a part of the story that seems important, but it's not there."

Dan McClellan Yeah. I think, the Sibylline Oracles are the first place where it talks about Noah preaching. And then we have in the New Testament, 2 Peter somewhere, I think it calls him a preacher of righteousness. And so traditions just kind of grew up around that. But today we're going to talk about the way the story seems to kind of repeat itself.

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan But in slightly different ways.

Dan Beecher Yeah, it's confusing.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher If you pay too much attention, it's a head-scratcher.

Dan McClellan If you just glide through it- Yeah, because it kind of goes back and forth and yeah.

Dan Beecher You'll feel like you've circled around a bit, but it's fine. But yeah, if you pay a lot of attention or if you do as I did and try to catalog how long, get the timeline down- Oh, no, you can't do that.

Dan McClellan No, no ... you're going to get confused.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Which I learned the hard way.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So- And there's a reason for that ...

Dan Beecher let's get into it.

Dan McClellan Yeah. We're going to start in verse 5, and I want to start by pointing out that, in verses 5 through 8, we're going to be talking about the Lord, and that's the small caps Lord. I have yet figured out how to pronounce it in a way that communicates that this is written in small caps.

Dan Beecher But, it is. So, this is a- You don't know how to say something in small caps?

Dan McClellan No, not yet. I'm figuring it out because- Okay.

Dan Beecher You're- ...

Dan McClellan for those of you who read comic books, like Thor, every time they represent Thor speaking, the typeface is different- Oh ... from everybody else's dialogue.

Dan Beecher Oh, I didn't know that.

Dan McClellan Yeah. In every Thor comic.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And so if he turns up in a Captain America comic and it's Thor, the typeface for his dialogue bubbles will be different from everyone else's.

Dan Beecher You know why? It's because he's an Australian doing an English accent.

Dan McClellan Well, he's an Asgardian.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan He's a god, but you can't do that in the movie.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So, you could do a little auto-tuning and do something fun with that.

Dan Beecher But anyway- Something echoey or something, but that'd be annoying, so.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So anyway- So we have the Lord. Here's what you're going to do.

Dan Beecher You're going to say, "The Lord," and just go up like that. Don't do that. Please don't do that.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher The Lord, and this is- But what you're saying is that when it's the small caps Lord, that's a rendering of the- That's a substitution for the Tetragrammaton, YHWH.

Dan McClellan Right. Yes, and that- Okay.

Dan Beecher So, it's the name of that specific god.

Dan McClellan Yes. So, "The Lord, saw that the wickedness of humans was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humans on the earth." And the word here for sorry in Hebrew, can just as accurately be translated, he regretted- Mm-hmm ... "that he made humans on earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, 'I will blot out from the earth the humans I have created; people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air.'" For some reason, the fish get a pass.

Dan Beecher Because he couldn't figure out how to drown a fish.

Dan McClellan "For I am sorry that I have made them.' But Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord." So, that's 5 through 8. We basically have the introduction of God's displeasure with the state of the earth.

Dan Beecher With every living thing on the earth.

Dan McClellan Every living thing, yeah.

Dan Beecher Every breathing piece of flesh on the earth- Yeah ... the Lord is unhappy with. Yeah, now it's- That just sounds like bad creatoring. You created him.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Just make him better next time, I guess.

Dan McClellan I don't know. And the animals and the creeping things, it doesn't seem like they did anything wrong. What did they do?

Dan Beecher Yeah. What's the problem with them?

Dan McClellan What did I ever do to you? And then we get to verse 9. Now, suddenly, some things are going to change. "These are the descendants of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God," and this is Elohim, "and Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth." We already mentioned that.

Dan Beecher Noah already had those three sons.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So chapter 5, verse 32, "Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth." Chapter 6, verse 10, by the way, don't forget Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and then we're going to get back to Shem, Ham, and Japheth in chapter 9.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan But here we're moving on. "Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence." We been known. You told us this already.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "And God said to Noah, 'I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. Now I am going to destroy them along with the earth.'" So, a slightly different telling of what happened in the previous few verses.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And God's just like, "So, here's what I'm going to need from you. I need you to build an ark out of-" Okay.

Dan Beecher We're going to go with the boat ...

Dan McClellan cypress. We're going to go with boat.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Let's do the boat plan. We're going to go with plan boat. Cypress wood, which you pointed out previously- Yeah, in the last one we had a whole thing ... the meaning of Hebrew uncertain Yeah, I had a whole thing about gopher wood.

Dan Beecher Gopher wood, yeah. Because yeah, that's how the KJV renders it.

Dan McClellan And we- Yes ...

Dan Beecher went off on a tangent about a guy who- Yes, we can- ...

Dan McClellan thinks that Noah's Ark- The guy who thinks that Noah's Ark, or well, that the Garden of Eden was way down yonder at the Chattahoochee. Because he says, "You know, there's only one place in all the world where gopher wood grows, and it's in Florida," and like Florida, Georgia, around there, so.

Dan Beecher Which is not wrong.

Dan McClellan He's just wrong that like- Well, it's just the, yeah, the tree was named after the biblical story.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan It's not that the biblical story prophesied that there would be a tree one time that would...

Dan Beecher Anyway. Which, by the way, put a pin in the idea of naming a thing after the biblical story, and then people getting that confused with the real thing because- Oh yeah, we're going to come right on back to that ... later when we get to a certain mountain, we're going to- Yeah ... we're going to have some words.

Dan McClellan And for those of you who are not from Utah, Dan just said the word "mountain." I hear an awful lot that using a glottal stop in place of a T there drives some people- Well, okay, now- ... up the wall, so ...

Dan Beecher don't get me started on this because the thing, the Utah, like saying "mountain" is fine. Saying "mountain," which is how a lot of Utahns say it, is what should drive people crazy.

Dan McClellan But- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher you know, that's, it's- I don't- It's just dialects, it's fine.

Dan McClellan I don't hear that.

Dan Beecher There's no right and wrong way to say words.

Dan McClellan Exactly right. We are staunch descriptivists at the Data Over Dogma podcast.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan Correct. But speaking of gopher wood, my job title, one of my first jobs was, my dad was a general contractor, and I was his gopher.

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan And are you familiar with that job?

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yes. The gopher goes for stuff.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Go for this, go, go- So I need you to go for this, go for that. Yeah, so I was his gopher. So that was my first job. But anyway, God tells Noah, "You're going to build this ark. About yea big, about yea long. There's some timber over there." To be clear- "Nails are in the back."

Dan Beecher ... just so that you know, I did look it up, and it's about the size of a small container ship.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm. But like over 100 feet, even on the smallest estimate of a cubit- Uh-huh ...

Dan Beecher well over 100 feet longer than any wooden boat that has ever been able to actually be seaworthy has ever been.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So. And- I don't know how powerful gopher wood is because it doesn't exist anymore, but apparently it was pretty impressive wood.

Dan McClellan Yeah. But then we're coming back to the story in verse 17, and I love how the NRSVUE starts this part off. God just says, "Here's how you're going to make the ark," and then it says, "For my part, I am going to bring a flood of waters on the earth to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life." So he's like, "While you're doing that- Yeah ... I'm going to kill everybody."

Dan Beecher Your job, boat. My job, mass murder.

Dan McClellan Yes. "But I will establish my covenant with you, every living thing off..." Okay, and then verse 19, "And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. Of the birds, according to their kinds, and of the animals, according to their kinds, of every creeping thing on the ground, according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you to keep them alive." No distinction between clean and unclean. It's birds, creeping things, animals.

Dan Beecher Two.

Dan McClellan Two. Of every single one.

Dan Beecher Yes. Two of everything. Which by the way- Also ... it does say male and female, but if you consult literally any children's Bible book, there will be two male lions.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher There's always- Two male lions.

Dan McClellan You got to have the mane. It's not a lion if you don't see the mane.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Because then it's just, you don't know, is that a mountain lion? Is it a cougar?

Dan Beecher Yeah, you don't know what that is.

Dan McClellan Are those the same thing?

Dan Beecher You know.

Dan McClellan "Also take with you of every kind of food that is eaten and store it up, and it shall serve as food for you and for them. Noah did this. He did all that God commanded him." So if we go all the way back to the beginning of God commanding Noah, he built the ark out of gopher wood.

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan Maybe there was some shittim or wood.

Dan Beecher I'm hoping for shittim.

Dan McClellan That's- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher my wood right there.

Dan McClellan Yeah, shittim real good. If I'm going to have biblical wood, it's going to be shittim.

Dan Beecher Let's move quickly past what I just said.

Dan McClellan So Noah did all of this.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Built the ark, got all the animals. All the animals are brought into the ark, all the food brought into the ark.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It is did. And then we get to...

Dan Beecher It is did.

Dan McClellan I got the ark did. And then chapter 7 starts. Oh, but notice, this was all God. This was all Elohim. Chapter 7 starts, "Then the Lord said to Noah, 'Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you alone are righteous before me in this generation.'" So it's like Noah takes years to build an ark, and then God's like, "I like the cut of your jib, so I'm going to allow you to live, even though I explained this all to you years ago."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan "Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and its mate, and a pair of animals that are not clean, the male and its mate, and seven pairs of the birds of the air also, male and female, to keep their kind alive on the face of all the earth. For in seven days I will send rain on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.' And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him." And so now we basically get the same instructions over again.

Dan Beecher Except- Because- ... except we've changed the number of critters.

Dan McClellan Yes. So now it's 14 of all the clean animals, and notice he says- "Seven pairs of the birds of the air also."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Now, he didn't say this particular type of bird. He doesn't say seven pairs of clean birds, because they don't distinguish here clean from unclean birds. And so when you look at the previous part where it says, "Two of every kind of the birds according to their kind," and here it's, "Seven pairs of the birds of the air also," it's a straight-up contradiction.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan It's two different versions of the exact same story.

Dan Beecher Also, that's way too many birds.

Dan McClellan Lots of birds, yes.

Dan Beecher Now we have way too many birds.

Dan McClellan Going to have a lot of predatory birds in close quarters. It's going to get uncomfortable. There's going to be poop everywhere. It's going to be noisy.

Dan Beecher It's going to be so noisy, that's right.

Dan McClellan Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh, yeah.

Dan Beecher Just imagine being on that boat. Ken Ham, there's no chance. There's no way, Ken Ham.

Dan McClellan No.

Dan Beecher Calm down. Come on, man.

Dan McClellan Can't even build a watertight ark encounter. Didn't it flood or something like that? There was water damage or something like that.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan What did you call it? A testament to its own impossibility?

Dan Beecher Yeah. It's insane. The size of the thing is wildly impressive, but you get in there and you're like, "Oh, there's no way that any-" Yeah, no way, yeah.

Dan McClellan "...

Dan Beecher could've possibly built this thing."

Dan McClellan Yeah. They didn't have cranes. They didn't have chainsaws.

Dan Beecher Yeah. They very clearly had to use modern technology to get that thing built.

Dan McClellan Yeah. This is no Thor Heyerdahl Kon-Tiki, like- "See? It could be done."

Dan Beecher Yeah. No, if you put that thing on the water, it would twist and crack into a million pieces instantly.

Dan McClellan Yes. Now I want to move forward to chapter 7 verse 12.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan We get, "The rain fell on the earth 40 days and 40 nights." So that's it. And God says, "I will send rain on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights." So, we've got a timeline.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Now let's screw that timeline all up by going to the end of chapter 7 to verse 24, and it says, "And the waters swelled on the earth for 150 days," which is not 40 days and 40 nights. It's not 40 days and then starting the first day of 40 nights.

Dan Beecher No.

Dan McClellan Because that just adds up to 80.

Dan Beecher Yeah, that doesn't even get you to the 150. You're not there yet at all.

Dan McClellan And what if you're saying, "But Dan, it says the waters swelled, so the rain could've stopped, but the waters could've kept on swelling. The rain stopped when the waters were still a semi, but we need full encouragement." That was probably pushing it.

Dan Beecher But maybe that was just the- Look, if we go any further, I'm going to have to put a language advisory on our thing.

Dan McClellan A warning.

Dan Beecher So maybe- Let's back it off of that.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So I know what you're thinking. Dan, the fountains of the deep are still just pumping that fluid into the waters. But that doesn't work with what we read in chapter 8 verse 2. "The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed. The rain from the heavens was restrained." So this is the fountains of the deep and the rains, so we got from the bottom up and from the top down stops. At the same time. Same time. "Waters gradually receded from the earth." So once the rain stopped, the waters start to recede. "At the end of 150 days, the waters had abated." So it's another contradiction. We got two different timelines. We got 40 days and 40 nights of rain, and it stops. Then we got 150 days of rain, and then it stops, and the waters abated. And then when you look at the dates also, "And in the seventh month on the 17th day of the month," is how we have it at the beginning of chapter 8. But then later on, it's the first month on the first day of the month, and scholars have compared the dates and been like, "These don't all make a lot of sense."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Why these particular dates are a little too scattershot. So yeah, we don't have agreements on what's going on with how long it was raining.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And then once the waters do abate, the 10th month and the 10th month on the first day of the month, oh, the ark came to rest where, Dan?

Dan Beecher On the Mountains of Ararat.

Dan McClellan Mm.

Dan Beecher Which in our last recording, you were clear to point out that this isn't a mountain- No ... but it is multiple ones.

Dan McClellan Yes. The Hebrew is quite clearly masculine plural construct, hare Ararat, which would just be the Mountains of Ararat. So it's not identifying a specific mountain. It's identifying mountains within a region or a mountain range or something like that. And the mountain that is named Ararat that we have now, if you look it up, that name only goes back a few hundred years. We have absolutely no clue where the Mountains of Ararat were located according to the author of this text.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So take that.

Dan Beecher If anyone ever tells you that Noah's Ark actually has been discovered at the top of a mountain in Turkey that is called Ararat, you can laugh in their face, because that's just silly and stupid, and no it hasn't, shut up.

Dan McClellan laugh at them from the privacy of your own home over the internet. But if you're in person, laughing in their face might be a little cruel.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan But- Okay.

Dan Beecher That's true. But also maybe gently nudge them to look things up a little bit more.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Do a little bit better, more competent googling as Dan says.

Dan McClellan Yes. Google competently, or as the great poet once said, "Look harder." So, then we get to verse six. We've got another interesting part of this tale. "At the end of 40 days, Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made and sent out the raven- and it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth." So evidently, the raven doesn't come back. It's just to-ing and fro-ing.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan To and fro. Can I sing that song? Probably not. Disney is quite litigious.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Let's not go there.

Dan McClellan That is my understanding. Yes, and they're in a bad way right now, so...

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan They're grumpy.

Dan Beecher Let's leave them alone.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher They're grumpy.

Dan McClellan Yes. "Then he sent out the dove from him to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground, but the dove found no place to set its foot or its other foot, and it returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took it and brought it into the ark with him. He waited another seven days, and again, he sent out the dove from the ark, and the dove came back to him in the evening, and there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf."

Dan Beecher So Noah knew- Which apparently an olive tree can survive 40 and/or 150 days underwater, which I don't think that's happening. I don't think that any of the foliage would do well with this.

Dan McClellan And probably did not sprout and grow and have leaves in seven days.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. Then he waited another seven days and sent out the dove, and it did not return to him anymore." Just a raggedy man, Kevin Costner, drinking his own urine, looking for some dirt. Keep a little dirt in a jar for the dirt man.

Dan Beecher Can I just say that I love the movie "Waterworld"? This is a Gen X thing, you guys, slash early millennial thing, but- Yes ... the movie "Waterworld" is a disaster from start to finish.

Dan McClellan A disaster, yeah, from before the start.

Dan Beecher Oh my God.

Dan McClellan Oh. Like making the movie was a disaster.

Dan Beecher Everything about it is just so-- It's delightfully bad, and I may have to devote a good portion of our after party, of our bonus content for our patrons, to you and I just talking about "Waterworld." But we can't get into that now.

Dan McClellan There are some unforgettable moments in that movie even though it was a train wreck.

Dan Beecher Okay, so- So to hear why you should watch the movie "Waterworld" and how to watch it well, tune in for the after party.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Join up at the $10 a month level and you can get to it.

Dan McClellan Yes, and if you were not aware, because we usually talk about it at the very end of the episode, we have a Patreon.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And there's bonus content- Yeah ... and great reasons to sign up at whatever level makes sense to you.

Dan Beecher Get over there.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Check it out.

Dan Beecher It'll be fun.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Patreon.com/dataoverdogma.

Dan McClellan Okay.

Dan Beecher Boom. Let's go on with the thing.

Dan McClellan Okay. Verse 13. So the first thing that happens in what we just read, though, is Noah basically opens up the window and is like, "Ah."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "Look, it's water for far as the eye can see."

Dan Beecher Which is funny, yeah, he stays in the boat. The boat comes to ground, it comes to rest on the mountain, and he stays in the boat for weeks, sending birds out- Yeah ... to find olive leaves and stuff.

Dan McClellan "In the 601st year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth, and Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked and saw that the face of the ground was drying." So now we're basically starting over, Noah discovering what's going on. "In the second month, on the 27th day of the month, the earth was dry. Then God said to Noah, 'Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons' wives with you.'" So we basically got different beginnings, different middles, and different ends, and these are what are called couplets, where you have a narrative element that gets repeated in close succession.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And there's been a lot of research on how literature grows, literature that gets passed down, anthologies of literature, how they grow, how they accrete new things, how they get cobbled together. Starting way back in the ancient world, a lot of the Sumerian texts, we have things like the "Epic of Gilgamesh" and other literature that gets new pieces added to it and stuff like that. We have the Qumran literature, what they call the sectarian literature, which is the specific group there saying, "Here's what our group's going to do." And that grows, and it accretes new details and stuff. The Diatessaron, which is not a glowing cube that gives you divine powers or anything like that.

Dan Beecher I was thinking it was the book from the "Evil Dead" series.

Dan McClellan Yes. The Necronomicon is what I believe that one- Oh, okay.

Dan Beecher No, those are the same. That one was called- I'm pretty sure those are the same.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And oh gosh, Klaatu barada nikto. Nikto, was that the word? I've pronounced it wrong, so things are going to go bad for me. But the Diatessaron is a harmony of the four gospels done by Tatian around 170, 180 CE. But anyway, scholars have looked at these collections of literature that have grown over centuries and taken note of features of Texts that have been cobbled together from different pre-existing sources. And one of the things that happens a lot is you get couplets, and that is where you have a literary element, a narrative element that seems to be repeated, but in a slightly different way. It's not that it's like, "It was a dark and stormy night, and I was driving my car in the rain," comma, "It was a dark and stormy night, and I was driving my car in the rain." It's not exactly the same.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan But you set the stage, and then you set the stage again. You introduce somebody, then you introduce somebody again.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Somebody is given a charge, then somebody is given a charge again. So, this is what you have in Genesis 6 through 8, and this is what leads a lot of scholars to conclude that this flood story, as we have it now, is the product of two different tales of the deluge, the flood, that have been woven together in a not totally clumsy but also not totally erudite way.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So that we do run into these narrative inconsistencies, these chronological inconsistencies, and these repetitions.

Dan Beecher And direct contradictions sometimes. And direct contradictions, yeah.

Dan McClellan And you see this in Genesis 1 and 2. The creation account that we get in the first part directly contradicts the creation account in the second part. But whereas in Genesis 1 and 2, they just put them one after the other.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Here, they've actually stitched them together. This is kind of a Frankenstein's monster of the flood story.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan You've got a big old scar going across the forehead and some bolts in the neck and- Argh, flood. And the two different stories, one is P, and this is the priestly source. And so a lot of people will refer to the other version as J, the Yahwist, which is part of the JEDP source critical theory, which is prominent in the documentary hypothesis. I am among those scholars who think maybe we shouldn't be talking about J and E as full documentary sources. Maybe we should just be talking about D, P, and non-P, whether that is pre-P or post-P.

Dan Beecher And- I am too immature for you to be talking about pre-P and post-P- Yeah.

Dan McClellan ...

Dan Beecher because my brain just goes to the wrong places for that.

Dan McClellan Yeah. I can't leave the house pre-P. It's got to be post-P that- Yeah, exactly ... I'm going to get out of the house.

Dan Beecher Yeah. I try to watch a movie- And then you've got D ... pre-P, that's going to be a disaster.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And then you've got the D.

Dan Beecher Don't.

Dan McClellan Which- Don't.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Stop it right now.

Dan McClellan And D is not a part of this. There's no D in- Yeah ... this part of the story of Noah.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan But we have these two different sources that are woven together, and we get the same thing in the chapters right before. You've got Genesis 1, 2, and 3. That's the creation stuff. Then you got Genesis 4 and Genesis 5, and those are both genealogies, and those are the same genealogy just told differently.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan They have different numbers of people, and they go in slightly different orders, but you've got a Lamech and you got a Lamech. You got an Enoch and you got an Enoch. You got a Cain and you got a Canaan, which is just a diminutive that has been added to the name, and so it's Cain and Cainsito or- Little Cain.

Dan Beecher Little Cain, yeah. That's my rap name.

Dan McClellan Yes. It's spelled L-I-L, although in most English translations, it's transliterated K-E-N-A-N, so it's Kenan- Right ... who is hilarious. So, we've got a bunch of stories that are told in two different ways, and they're just jammed in here into what is known as the primeval history- Right ... Genesis 1 through 11. Then we get to Genesis 9, and we get the sordid tale of whatever happens with Noah and his three sons, which results in the cursing of somebody who's not even born yet.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So, yeah. A lot of somebodies who's not even born yet.

Dan Beecher Yes. An entire line of somebodies.

Dan McClellan Yes. Ham's son, Canaan. So what we've got basically here is the flood is a combination of two different sources.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan P and non-P, and that is why the flood story is hard to make sense of. That is why the story is not consistent. We run into these narrative inconsistencies.

Dan Beecher That's not why. The reason why it's hard to make sense of is because even if you harmonized both of the different sources, it doesn't make sense. It's a story- ... that is physically impossible and doesn't make any sense.

Dan McClellan Yes. And- If you're going to be literal about it.

Dan Beecher Yes. If you want to just be metaphorical or if you want to see it in some sort of non-literal way, great. Knock yourself out.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So anyway.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher I think we did a good job with that.

Dan McClellan Oh, yeah.

Dan Beecher Stellar.

Dan McClellan That was exemplary work.

Dan Beecher Yeah. We're professionals, and we're not at all really, really tired and just trying to get through this. All right, so let's move on to our next segment, which is Terrible Parables.

Dan McClellan Parable Terrible.

Dan Beecher All right.

Dan McClellan That's terrible. This one might not be too terrible.

Dan Beecher No. This one is terrible if you are in the The sort of prosperity gospel- If you're a worshiper of mammon, yes.

Dan McClellan Maybe it's not so good for you.

Dan Beecher If you're in the sects of Christianity that are sort of more and more powerful in these United States- ... that are all about making as much money as you can possibly make and heralding the wealthy as God's chosen elect- Yes ... this parable's not for you.

Dan McClellan No. This is one of the ones that Charlie Kirk never quoted.

Dan Beecher No.

Dan McClellan This is the one that... I just made a video responding to Milo Yiannopoulos. You remember that dude?

Dan Beecher Oh my gosh. He- I don't know...

Dan McClellan What's that?

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher He- The gay guy that's now un-gay or something?

Dan McClellan Or- Oh, I don't know what's going on. But somebody- Yeah ... some people were posting a video of his on Twitter, and I was like, "This guy's back?" But the video's from, like, 2023, I think.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan But it was getting a lot of attention. And we're founded as a Christian nation, America doesn't work without God.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan All this kind of crap. But this is a story that is not going to be quoted by him- No ... certainly not by Trump. If you are a right-wing authoritarian- ... if you're into the whole social dominance orientation scene- Yeah ... if Christofascism sparks that tuning fork in your loins, this is not for you.

Dan Beecher But- So, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, please open your scriptures to Luke chapter 12- Yes ... which is where we are here.

Dan McClellan Yes. And we're going to start in verse 13. And we're going to read a bit. We're going to read down, I think, verse 34. But it starts off with somebody coming up and asking him a question. It says, "Someone in the crowd said to him, 'Teacher...'" And now I'm thinking of George Michaels, but "'Tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.' But he said to him, 'Friend'" Friendo. "'Who sent me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?'"

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And the question is really about, in this time period, the oldest son got the lion's share, if not the entire inheritance, because if you divide it up, then one man's property, within a few generations, it's now divided up into 20 different pieces, and everybody's going their separate ways. So the idea is we want to keep it together.

Dan Beecher Right. And so one person inherits- And if you happen to be born second, tough titty, I guess.

Dan McClellan Just one of them?

Dan Beecher Well, that's it.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher That's it.

Dan McClellan Okay. I'm used to hearing plural, but fair enough.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Yeah. But a younger person could call on the paterfamilias, the oldest, to give them their share of an inheritance, and they just leave.

Dan Beecher Yeah. And the- Just break me off one piece of that Kit Kat bar, and I will go off and make my own way.

Dan McClellan Yeah. The story of the prodigal son, I think, is appealing to a very similar idea.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Only there, the son is asking for his piece before the father kicks the bucket.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan But anyway. But Jesus is like, "Not my job."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan But he says to him, "Take care. Be on your guard against all kind of greed, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." Then he told them a parable. "The land of a rich man produced abundantly, and he thought to himself, 'What should I do? For I have no place to store my crops.' Then he said, 'I will do this. I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, be merry." But God said to him, 'You fool. This very night your life is being demanded of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God." And I think the point here is that the guy who comes to him is like, "I need my money."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And it doesn't seem to be because he is poor. His brother, he's on that property. He's probably fine.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan But it seems to be greed that is motivating this request. He runs off to get Jesus to tell his brother, "Pay me my money." And Jesus tells this parable about greed, and the idea here is basically that whether it's greed or whether you're concerned about your security, material possessions can be taken from you in the blink of an eye. You can die, and then- Right.

Dan Beecher You could die and then what good- ...

Dan McClellan what good?

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan What good is all of that?

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan You've done all of that, and he's saying, "No. Be rich towards God, not in material possessions." And then he goes into a little rant. "Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens. They neither sow nor reap. They have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more valuable are you than the birds? And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life?"

Dan Beecher If then you are not able to do- Which is funny because I first read this in the KJV because I was- Oh, yeah ... on a weird thing. And it does not say, "Who can add a single hour to your span of life?" It says something about adding a cubit to your height, which I think that's crazy. Those are very different. The point is the same. You can't add- Yeah ... to things that are unaddable to, of your life. But that's nuts that there's such a wild difference between those two- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan versions. Well, it looks like the NRSV has a note there saying, "Or add a cubit to your stature."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Which sounds kind of arbitrary. Why are you changing that? Is there a textual reason for this? "A cubit to his height. A cubit can measure length or time."

Dan Beecher What?

Dan McClellan "Although day has been suggested. The term is ambiguous in the same way as pehis. Most scholars take the term hylikia to describe age or length of life here, although a few refer to it to bodily stature."

Dan Beecher Okay, well, there you go.

Dan McClellan So hylikia.

Dan Beecher Yeah, so hylikia.

Dan McClellan So it's to his hylikion, who can add one cubit or hour. And so it really comes down to, does it mean add an hour to his life or a cubit to his height?

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So interesting.

Dan Beecher I love that.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher One cubit of time. You can't add a cubit of time to your thing.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Which means that the ark was 100 and something hours long.

Dan McClellan Hours high, tall.