Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print.

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James 0:00

So the answer to that question takes me back to my undergrad days. And in fact, I will tell a story that may encourage some people or may just make people say see I knew it. But my first real New Testament essay about, you know, my first real New Testament essay as an undergrad, moving into a sort of university level studies, was on the Gospel of John, and…didn't get a very good grade on it. And I remember the professor saying, “You dog-paddled in a current that needed a strong swimmer. It was about the Johannine community it was the question is about the Johannine community. And I came in from a fairly conservative evangelical sort of background and was assuming that you know, well, scholars are coming with this stuff that I should probably be Pooh poohing it and, you know, and first was unimpressed. But it forced me to crank up the other notch and, you know, get my act together. And so as a major, you know, point it wasn't just because I'm one of the people says, okay, challenge accepted right.

Seth 1:23

Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Seth. Let's do this thing. Yes, I finally did it, sometime before this aired. I don't know when I finally made that little beanie and I'm going to tell you right now it's really warm. Quite a few of you have already picked one up. It is probably by the time this episode releases too late to get one of those for the holidays. But the winter is not over. Fantastic. Go to the store and get you one, I like it, it snuggles my little bald dome anyway, I'm a little excited about it. I'm not gonna lie. But here we go.

So returning guest of the show Dr. James McGrath is back on the podcast and you're going to hear a lot of inside jokes and cross talk a bit. And a lot of that references our first conversation like Episode 10, or 14 or something like that. And so you don't necessarily need to listen to that one first. But I would highly recommend it. But do dive back into that. Listen to it a bit, because some of the laughter at the beginning, you just won't really get if you don't have that context. Not necessarily reading doesn't break the episode, but a little editor's note there. So here's what we talked about. So we talked about the gospel of john, and its importance in the Bible. We talked about ancient aliens. We talked about how to read the Bible a bit. And we also talked about us, a group of people call them in diamonds and I really hope that I'm saying that correctly. It is a love this conversation. I think it's fascinating, and I really hope that you do as well. So here we go.

Seth 3:15

Dr. James McGrath and I say that on purpose because back in the day when I was an idiot, and I still am, I remember posting your episode but the picture on your…the name on the picture that I posted of the episode of you on Facebook actually said Dr. James Butler, because I miss-understood, Butler. I don't know if you remember this or not, but I actually got

James 3:35

Yeah…

Seth 3:37

I was like, You're not the only person I did that. So I kept screwing up because I was copying and pasting on my iPhone. So I no longer make those images on my iPhone. So thank you for your forgiveness that I didn't ask for. And welcome back to the show.

James 3:49

You are hereby forgiven. Not that you needed to be. And I think it's so great that we can do things that obviously allow us to mess stuff up on our iPhones, but the sheer power of those things like was a dream. Yeah, that we had, you know, especially if we were sci fi games just a couple of decades ago. And so we're recording podcasts, disseminating things around the globe, editing images, making memes on these tiny devices that are cooler than anything that was on Star Trek back when I first started watching it.

Seth 4:21

So making memes is my favorite thing to do. I really, really enjoy it, although I stopped making memes. Because I realized I can't take that back off of the internet. And I don't want my kids to be judged upon my poor judgment. Yeah, one of these days when they decide to run for office or something like that, you know, or maybe me.

James 4:38

You don't have to put your name on all your memes.

Seth 4:42

Yeah, but if I go through the effort of making it, I just want credit, you know, just want it. Although I'm certain that whatever words I put on there, they're not mine. That's not why you came on though. So what has been new? You were one of the first handful of, I forget what episode you were, I think 11-12-10 somewhere in there. One of the first few on the show, one of my favorites as well as I listened back through it and transcribed it a few weeks ago, I really enjoyed that conversation. But what have you been up to since the last time that you were here?

James 5:12

Oh, I'm trying to think when that was it exactly what…

Seth 5:15

That was February of 2018.

James 5:20

Okay, so we've basically got about a year and a half worth of stuff happening. Yeah. And so have a number of things. I've been writing number of ongoing book projects, I can't remember which of them I even had on my radar. At that stage…we talked mostly about theology and science fiction. And of course, that something I've continued to write about, have some things forthcoming on Star Wars and Star Trek as the intersect with theology. And we'll be doing some things relate to the Bible and science fiction, black mirror and theology and things like that. I Don't just do sci fi those when it comes to pop culture, have a book contract. For a book I'll be writing together with a colleague on theology and progressive rock.

Seth 6:11

What is progressive rock? Because I feel like that's a big name for anything.

James 6:17

Yeah. So it's not to do with progressive politics or progressive theology or anything like that it's musically progressive and was a big genre, particularly in the 70s and has continued down to the present day. But if you think of bands like Genesis, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Kansas, where there was some pushing the boundaries of what rock music could be engaging with and drawing on classical jazz, other things, transgressing boundaries between genres, things like that. And it's a it's a genre that I've long loved and have a colleague who is interested in loves genre just as much and also Interested in the theological aspects, and is coming from the music side, whereas I'm coming from the religion and theology side. And so we thought we'd do something together on that.

Seth 7:10

When is that out?

James 7:11

We'd have to write it first.

Seth 7:16

I thought that how it worked was that they give you money. And then you have to write.

James 7:19

Well, this one was one where I already had some other things in the pipeline. And so I was like, Okay, this, we will put together a proposal so that we start working on it, we will submit it to a publisher to see if there's interest to so that we have encouragement to write it and then we will give ourselves enough time as we tie down the details to be able to Yeah, work on that. And then I am actually doing things on Biblical Studies, which is my old haunting ground and have not left it behind even though I started dabbling in other things and they've turned into not just side interest but full fledged research and teaching areas. But have projects related to John the Baptist, and Jesus and women that I'm working on. And one thing that is very, very near to release is the Mandaean Book of John, which is…

Seth 8:12

How do you spell that, what is that?

James 8:14

So the Mandaeans are the essentially the last surviving Gnostic group from ancient times who made it down to the present day. And they have sacred texts and dialect of Aramaic. they admire John the Baptist, not so big fans of Jesus. They have sacred texts that mentioned john the baptist and Jesus and other figures. Baptism in living water that is flowing water, right? And the Aramaic idiom is their central ritual. And they're just a fascinating group that used to get a lot of attention from New Testament scholars when they thought that maybe these folks are the background to the Gospel of John and things like that. When it became clear that you can't just plug them in and that way, then there was a downturn of interest.

And yeah, some of their sacred texts had not been translated in English in their entirety, at least not in a translation that was direct from the available manuscripts, in the original languages. And so we had a project to try and rectify that.

Seth 9:25

That sounds fascinating. And I say that because I literally hours ago wrapped a conversation on Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls and how the Qumran. And it dealt a lot with the Gospel of John, and John the Baptist. And so those thoughts are still in my head. Matter of fact, I may have to start asking you questions about that.

James 9:43

That sounds good.

Seth 9:44

Because I do want to talk, I do want to pick your theological brain because your voice specifically on social media, your blog, what I see you writing about, like the way that you talk about theology and Empire and indigenous people and women, and just really, there doesn't seem to be a topic that you won't talk about. Which I like because I'm the same way. And a lot of ancient, archaeological, contextual topics as it bubbles back into the Bible. Yeah. Hareetz, I think is the name of one of the websites that you post often I'm like…I'm in, you get paywalled if you don't turn on incognito mode, well, if you just turn off the cookies, they don't have a clue how many times you've been there. And hopefully, they're not listening and I won't get paywalled a different way.

But I wanted to clarify so when you recently linked back to the transcript of our first conversation, and I wanted to give some context because I feel like you did so there. I had, I guess cut something out. And to be honest, I don't remember of like “Whovian Marcionites”.

Laughter

And so for those that haven't listened to the first episode, I'll link to it somewhere in the show notes probably in the middle or the bottom. They're not long show notes. So there's only so many links, just click on one of those. And go back and listen to that, it is a great conversation, but you we chatted back and forth. You're like we need to give some context of what this means what I'm trying to say? Because we talked a bit before I hit record as podcast or want to do, which is why now I hit record from the moment that you're here. But if I need to, I can back it back in. So can you give context to kind of what was going on there? what you meant by it [and] why it matters?

James 11:20

Yeah, and actually, I'm still getting laughs, it takes a particular context to get any laughs or have people not just look at you puzzled. But in the right context, you get chuckles from this, maybe outright laughter.

So I was just guest speaking in a class at a seminary recently talking about science fiction and theology. And that's the sort of context in which people might get the joke there because you need to know Doctor Who, and you need to know theology and the history of theology and debates about the Canon and Christian Scripture.

Marcion was this famous figure in church history for listeners who may not be familiar with him who got himself sort of chased out of the church that he was involved in Rome and various things. Because he basically took a view that's surprisingly widespread, given that it's been viewed as heresy for so long in the what became orthodoxy

Seth 12:19

You mean currently, it's currently widespread?

James 12:19

It is currently widespread, yeah. Basically to say, “Yeah, well, that's the Old Testament God, but you know, we are the New Testament”. Yeah. And to hear Christians say that is is very interesting. Given that that was his view. And he was declared a heretic, of course, who gets to decide who's a heretic is also one of those interesting things we could talk about. But Marcionism is basically the view that, you know, the Old Testament, you know, the Old Testaments, God is something else not, you know, not a Christian thing.

And you get people who lead in that direction today and you get people who seem to be like, going even further than Marcy, and when did his time as well as all spectrum in between. But when I said Whovian Marcionism you know Whovian Marcionites I basically meant people for whom the whole, the whole what we might call Old Testament of Doctor Who right; so everything before it got revived with Christopher Eccleston, is we don't talk about that we don't care it's not treated like it's a whole different franchise a whole different thing.

And so was making a joke about that which obviously if you're not a Doctor Who fan and don't know the history if you're not a church history geek or something like that, and both simultaneously then this is not even going to make sense much less seem an amusing way of talking about people who forget the classic series.

Seth 13:43

What’s funny is so I when you when you posted that blog post so my pastor had messaged me and he's like, so you're written talked about on the science like what and then I read through it, I'm like, Did I do it wrong? I was like, I listened back through my that's verbatim what we said. And I didn't realize that I didn't really put any context in there. And then so I posted it in so I've got like, A private discussion group, which anybody's welcome to, as long as they answer some questions about, “Don't be a jerk, or I'll kick you out” where people can talk about faith and religion and whatnot. Like it's it's literally about 200 people. It's one of my favorite places on the internet, because it's one of the most authentic places on the internet, the least that I'm aware of, and I posted it there and a lot of people are like, I love Doctor Who. And then they all started laughing as well. They're like, but a lot of people as I'm sure you know, they begin listening to something or begin watching something and and they don't really go backwards. They just start from there and go forwards. Yeah, so they also had no context. And so when they listened to it, they're like, What happened here? I was like, nevermind, it doesn't matter. But good. Yeah, yeah, I knew the context, but that's because I was involved in the conversation. But yeah, let's dial into John. So John is your wheelhouse, right. Like if you go through like your Butler University, little bio page John is your wheelhouse. So why John?

James 14:57

So the answer to that question takes me back to my undergrad days. And in fact, I will tell a story that may encourage some people or may just make people say see I knew it. But my first real New Testament essay about, you know, my first real New Testament essay as an undergrad, moving into a sort of university level studies, was on the Gospel of John, and…didn't get a very good grade on it. And I remember the professor saying, “You dog-paddled in a current that needed a strong swimmer. It was about the Johannine community it was the question is about the Johannine community. And I came in from a fairly conservative evangelical sort of background and was assuming that you know, well, scholars are coming with this stuff that I should probably be Poo-pooing it and, you know, and first was unimpressed. But it forced me to crank up the other notch and, you know, get my act together. And so as a major, you know, point it wasn't just because I'm one of the people says, okay, challenge accepted right.

But one of the things I was coming into studies with, starting out in Bible college and then transitioning into a university degree, was the idea that these four gospels, if they're all in the New Testament, they should all basically say the same thing, right? And once you start studying John, no…John really is different, right? The language is different, the terminology, the events that are included, what's not that there's, there's lots of stuff, the structure, the kinds of you know, there's a lot that makes John stand out. And so explaining that became important to me, as an effort to both pursue something I thought was interesting academically, but also to make sense of this because it wasn't what I'd been led to believe in sort of church context.

And as I looked into it more, as my studies progressed as an undergrad, I found myself encountering two main views, both of which I found unsatisfying. One was the sort of syncretism type approach which says that as Christianity becomes less and less Jewish, Jesus becomes more and more God.

So his divinity increases as you get more and more polytheists coming in, who don't have monotheistic sensibilities, and that didn't seem persuasive to me for a number of reasons. One is that when people convert to something, oftentimes they're more adamant than anyone else is, you know, that's one of the things we believe just, yeah, so just you know, sociologically, that doesn't seem to fit, but also works like the Gospel of John are, you know, profoundly, you know, profoundly Jewish works, right.

I mean, this is Jewish Christianity, or maybe just a version of Jewish Messianism at this stage depending on how you think it relates to the development of Christianity. As a phenomenon, it's becoming distinct from Judaism. But its roots in the synagogue among Jewish people who believe Jesus was the Messiah, seem clear in terms of what it focuses on what it says language that uses things like that. And so I was unpersuaded by that approach, you know, that Morris Casey and others have taken, but a lot of conservatives were simply saying, “you just plant the other gospels, you water them for about half a century and out will sprout the Christology you find the Gospel of John”, you're just by this sort of organic process. And that didn't seem to work either. Because, I mean, Luke - Acts might be as late yet slightly earlier slightly later, but it's not, you know, it's roughly the same time period most related to the Gospel of John, and yet it has a very human Jesus doesn't have this incarnational presentation doesn't have, you know, the son of man who came down from heaven and you know, things like that.

And so, something has to explain the difference, but these two, right? Why does John take things in that direction? And so that's what ended up becoming my doctoral dissertation was coming up with a model for how John could be so different and distinct and yet continuous because John is clearly elaborating things that are there earlier, and is drawing new applications from them and is taking them in this new direction. And so there's continuity as well as creativity and finding a way to make sense of the process that led to that distinctive portrait of Jesus was something that I just cared deeply about. I wanted to make sense of this.

Seth 19:37

What is that way then? So if it's not syncretism, and if it's not a compost mulch, and a massive tomato plant of Jesus, for lack of a better metaphor, (laughter) what do you argue that it is?

James 19:48

Yeah, well, I mean, I suppose it depends on the mulch and what's being added and yeah, maybe there's maybe there's a good metaphor there's I could work with, but I think it's…I think it really is a process of what sociologists of knowledge called “legitimation“. And I, I actually use the word apologetic in my book title, my thesis title, because between apologetics and legitimation, there's very little difference. And most listeners/viewers of this podcast are probably more familiar with apologetics. where you are trying to defend your view is not apologetics. And so I'm really, really sorry that I hold these views. But yeah, comes from the Greek root of the word which has to do with defending your views rather than apologizing for them.

But in the process of making a defense of one's views, one also develops the right one finds new proof texts, one makes new connections between ideas. And in the process of defense there's also development. And that seems to me to provide a model for what's going on in the Gospel John, because we see in the background of this text, these arguments about who is Jesus? Some of those are very much rooted in the same kinds of issues that have already arisen in the Gospel of Mark even. How can this person forgive sins, healing, working on the Sabbath? Who is this guy? Who does he think he is? Isn't this blasphemy?

And the conflict about that seems to have continued and some of the answers, you know, well, here's how, you know, perform a healing, and we're good to go and carry on, that is no longer satisfactory, right? There's been some back and forth. And so John needs to find more persuasive answers both to try to persuade others to believe, but even to reinforce the beliefs that he and the group that he's writing for already hold. And so, in that process, I think, you know, we see this developments happening and so, you already have Matthew, for instance, using the language of you know, the, the pre-existence of the man, you know, language that we find in 1st Enoch, you know, in the parables of Enoch and places like that.

But in Matthew, we don't have you know, Jesus, you know, as The Son of Man who comes down from heaven, that kind of language. And so is this pre-existence in the mind of God? How literal is this? What kind of present? You know, none of that is fleshed out. Yeah, if you don't mind the Johannine pun there. Whereas John does go that direction, because we get a sense of the objections that are being raised, right? We know God spoke to Moses, this man, we don't know where he came from…comes from, right. And John's like, “Well, let me tell you“, and he draws on that and takes some of the that language more literally, and says, Well, how could that be? What would that mean? And therefore Jesus becomes one who can reveal things that no one else not even Moses could? And so I think it's that back and forth that's driving this development that explains how you still have it's still the Son of Man. It's still linked to the things we find in the other Gospels and Paul, but John is doing these distinctive things with it.

Seth 22:52

You said something earlier that when you went into undergrad, or maybe with grad, one of the one of the grads that you came from a conservative background. Do you feel like that's an inherent? I want to be very careful not to pigeonhole people. Because a lot of people are perfectly comfortable where they're at. And I don't want to make their boat hit turbulence for lack…just for reasons. There's no reason to do that. It doesn't serve any purpose. But do you feel like that viewpoint of the Bible gives someone an inherent disadvantage when they begin actually studying the Bible as opposed to reading the Bible?

James 23:25

Hmm. And that's an interesting distinction here making there. Study as opposed to reading…

Seth 23:31

Yep, I only wrote down one question for today. Yeah, this is the one I want to make sure I worded it correctly.

James 23:34

And so I'm glad…I'm glad that the conversations led so it actually to that.

Seth 23:43

We will call that the Holy Spirit that’s what we will do…

James 23:47

Yeah, when I've found myself teaching at Butler University, which is not religiously affiliated, and yet lots of students who've taken courses on the Bible are not only coming from a religious background, but the Bible is important to them for their faith yet there are also students for whom this is a subject of curiosity. They haven't read the Bible at all before they know other people do and they want to learn about it. Figuring out how to meet both of those audiences needs is a challenge. But one question that students often have is, you know, particularly the ones who haven't read it before is, is this a disadvantage? And what I say is that there are advantages and disadvantages for all those students and what they're bringing, right? The amount of interest, the dedication to reading, can provide so much…right? There's an enthusiasm, there's a quest for you know, engaging with the text and looking at the details and paying attention. On the other hand, there are certain things that you're not supposed to see in the text and so you don't or you find ways of if they do jump out at you, and you can't keep yourself from noticing them. You find ways of crafting a narrative around the text that will harmonize those details so that you can say

Seth 25:01

What do you mean not supposed to see?

James 25:01

So for instance, the idea that there could be two different authors, human authors, with two different voices that are saying two different things. Right? Is one of the examples, right? The pieces, the detail is supposed to fit together, right? And when they seem not to it can be very troubling if you're coming from a certain set of assumptions. If you're not coming from those assumptions, then it can be. Yeah, well, that's just the way it is. And wow, that's really interesting. It's interesting that this person does this, this person does that. And so I think that…I think that there are things that [a] particular church context of any sort, as well as having no background of any sort that leads you to approach the text with a sensitivity to, and a receptivity to, what its authors think is important. All of those things provide some potential for making insightful observations as well as some things that may not jump out at us regularly.

Seth 26:25

You referenced earlier and I just finished, again, reading this book on the Dead Sea Scrolls, which talked a lot about the Essenes and they reference Enoch a lot; they reference Ezekiel and certain passages in Isaiah a lot as the reason for being out there. And you know, there's a lot there. And for those that want to listen to that episode, I don't know which one it was. It's, you'll know, if you listen to but there's a lot there.

And so the gentleman that wrote that book effectively says it John the Baptist was probably educated by those in Qumran, which is why there's so much baptism and this and the other stuff and he draws a lot of correlations. And then talking about in consistencies talks about like, you know, the two different liturgical calendar is between like a lunar cycle and a solar cycle, which is why John gives context to, you know, all the timeframe that you need between Passover and crucifixion, and all that stuff. I'm curious. And this may be something that you haven't researched, I don't know, some of your thoughts on that, because you alluded to John the Baptist a minute ago, and I'm gonna say I memorized it with a, I don't know what it's called. I heard Zendaya, which I know is a musician. And you said Mandaea, I think, I think is what you said. So that's how I memorized it. I don't know how to spell it, but that's memorize it.

James 27:31

So that's actually pretty good.

Seth 27:33

I don’t know what that thing's called. You where you correlate to things that sounds similar. homonyms that what is called homophone, something like that doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Yeah.

James 27:41

Yeah. So I'd be curious whether the other the the other interview at all I'm looking forward to listening to it, but what whether there is a exploration of possible connections with Ezekiel, since you mentioned the Ezekiel. But yeah, the way I got to the the Mandaeans and most people in English say, Mandaeans just because looks like that's one way to pronounce it. I've been trying to make a concerted effort just because this is actually a living religious community.

Seth 28:09

Really? Today!

James 28:11

And, Mandaean, yeah, today. So you can go on YouTube and see what their baptism is like. Right. And that's something in and of itself that makes this a fascinating group, right? We read about baptism and ceiling and other kinds of rituals at Nag Hamadi. For instance, we read about some of the rituals that Qumran right in the, in the Dead Sea Scrolls. And we wish we could see what they do right.

Now, sometimes, there's a difference between you know what was true in ancient times and the way people practice things now, you can't just look at a modern day practice and assume that it's always been like that, obviously. But having a living tradition that's connected with sacred texts, gives you something to work with, that we really feel painfully the lack of if we don't have it. And so the fact that you can read these texts from this Gnostic tradition and see what they do, as living tradition, not just by traveling to Iraq or Iran and looking at them as it used to have to, but going on YouTube and looking at a video, right, there's plenty of them on there. It provides fascinating insight and it raises I think, some interesting questions about John the Baptists practices, because most of our approach to him is shaped by what Christians did with baptism, and what Christians did with John the Baptist as well.

And so bring the Mandaeans into the picture, even though their sources are from somewhat later, just to add something, to triangulate on the historical John, that's my that's my next big John the Baptist project, which I've started working on, but it's going to be a longer term project.

Seth 29:52

Can you break further into that, like so? How, so what do they do differently with baptism? For those that want to YouTube it how do I spell Mandaeans, and I'm asking that for myself. And like, yeah, and he did reference Ezekiel. Yeah, the guy actually referenced that the Essenes would have wanted, they would have been looking for two different priests.

James 30:15

Two different messiahs.

Seth 30:16

Yeah, I'm sorry, I said it wrong. And so John is one, Jesus is the other-is fascinating. And the whole book is actually I've read it a couple times, and I'm still not quite sure that I'm there. But there's so much. And he goes into even Pauline stuff, or they talks about, you know, this is in Ephesians it's almost verbatim in this one Damascus document or whatever. This is in Corinthians. This is in Galatians these all correlate back to John. And they're all right here. So what does that mean? I don't know. But we should talk about it. So it really is fascinating. So the Mandaeans who are they, what are they doing different? are they related at all to the you know, the the Pharisees the Sadducees? Anyone else? Are they entirely separate, like a fourth sect, like, what is that?

James 30:55

Yeah. So there's a lot there to talk about let me start by pick[ing] up where I connected with them. Right…So they are a group that if you work on the Gospel of John as a research area, you'll hear about them. And the reason I alluded to briefly earlier is because middle, early to middle 20th century, a lot of New Testament scholarship thought, these are the background to the Gospel of John in particular, right. They are Gnostic, maybe these are the descendants of the followers of John the Baptist, and Gospel of John seems to be arguing against followers of John the Baptist. And so maybe this is the reverse image that will help us make sense of the Gospel of John better, and why it's different and other things like that.

Their texts are late enough that that's problematic. It's like trying to get at the historical Jesus with the Nag Hammadi texts, right? You know, at least a few centuries later, and our oldest manuscripts are, you know, much much later than that, and some of these texts have been at least edited and redacted and interpolated; post Islam and things like that.

On the other hand, we have texts that are comparably late, you know, think about the the Babylonian Talmud, for instance, where same time period perhaps but we've encountered things in there that are also referred to in the New Testament, other sources that it's like, clearly there are some traditions that have made their way, orally or in written form, or somehow to find their way into these texts. And so I think that if they're used critically, they can be used by New Testament scholars in important ways. But what happened was there was a pendulum swing away from paying any attention to them at all, because some people, most notably, CH Dodd, wrote a book about the Gospel of John and the background to it, which he said, ”Well, maybe they just adopted John the Baptist to fly under the radar of the Islamic authorities to say they were people in the book”, things like that. And that just doesn't fit the evidence. And so I think we need to let the pendulum come back to a middle ground. But as for who they are, right, they are a Gnostic group, much like we find in the Coptic Gnostic sources. So they are distinct in that they mentioned Jesus and yet don't view him favorably…right.

We have texts that are Gnostic that don't mention Jesus from elsewhere. And we have texts that are Gnostic that we call Gnostic, that's the term is debated, but I'm going to keep using it because it's familiar and because it's, I think it's still fits at least in this case. But then there are some which are Gnostic Christian sources, but this is one that's Gnostic, baptizing group that likes John the Baptist doesn't like Jesus thinks Jesus was a would be disciple of John's baptized by him, but was bad news and went off the rails and things like that.

And so you can see why people would think maybe these were the followers of John who didn't become Christians, right. I mean, there's a certain plausibility to it. And I think they may well have at least a connection to that, right. Which is not the same thing as saying that you can just read these texts as though these were, you know, written before the Gospel of John and or the background to it.

So what do they do differently? Baptism for them is a repeated ritual. So it's not something you do once as a conversion. It is something that you do regularly seeking forgiveness, seeking to connect with the light world and to prepare for your journey into the afterlife, into the the realm above. To find your way past powers and, you know, malevolent forces that might be there. Find your way through purgatories that people's souls find themselves in when they have not atone for their sins when they are have not lived righteously. And trying to prepare to find your way to your ultimate destination doesn't work.

And so I think there are a number of things that are relevant to the to the work of John the Baptist there. So for instance, if John was baptizing for the forgiveness of sins, what does that mean? Right and for Christians for whom the death of Jesus is for the forgiveness of sins, then what does that mean for John's baptism? And so how does it relate is one of the questions that Christians wrestled with. But if it's a baptism for the forgiveness of sins, in the sense that it's essentially an alternative to sacrifice, then it makes sense for it to be something that's repeated. And so I think that that aspect of the men die in practice, that's ma n d, a, e, a n. Just so you can find it; do look them up on YouTube, I mesn it is fascinating. You'll probably also find some, you know, some lectures and guest talks and other things that I and others have have given if you start googling them on there, too.

But I think that that aspect of their ritual might actually be closer to what John did. At least it's worth asking the question, and unless we bring groups like that into the picture, we might not even think to ask the question because the alternatives are purity immersions, which is not the same thing as forgiveness of sins and being baptized into Christ for the forgiveness of sins in the Christian sense.

Seth 36:12

You said Coptic, Is that the sense of there's still a like an Ethiopian Coptic church. Are they related at all to that? Or no.

James 36:18

So Coptic is actually the version of the Egyptian language that was spoken around us our New Testament times and into later times, so you'll still hear about the Copts in Egypt, right Egyptian Christians. Ethiopic is the language that the texts like first Enoch, are preserved in in their entirety, because the work became part of their cannon in Ethiopia. And so you have a couple of related traditions there, all which are very interesting. But the Coptic Gnostic sources I'm referring to there, the texts are sometimes called the Gnostic Gospels, which were found at a place called Nag Hamadi, in Egypt, and most of them are thought to have been translated from other languages rather than composed in Coptic, Greek and in some cases, Syriac.

But that's those are the texts I'm referring to. And we see some interesting points of intersection overlap with the Mandaean sources.

Seth 37:19

With those other gospels, like Enoch and whatnot, so they seem to get quoted quite often in Scripture. And or at least the there's like small sections of other people quoting them in the New Testament. And so this is a question that I've wanted to ask you because I see you talk about a lot of different things. And at one point in time over the last years, you've said something like this. So what do we do with those texts that exist outside of the 66 inside Protestantism? What value can they hold? Should they be preached on Sunday and if so, with any disclaimers, like in a Baptist church or in the pick a pick a denomination, the denomination is irrelevant, because they seem to hold weight and authority and inspiration for a long time until they didn't. Which really makes me wonder what happens if there's a new archaeological Find Next week, and it changes scripture, I'm like, Okay, so what's the Bible that my kids have is shouldn't even still be bound in one specific binding? I think it should, because it's easier, but I hope my question makes sense.

James 38:22

Yeah. It's actually a question that I have long used as a classroom thought experiment when getting students to talk about the canon. So if a letter, authentic letter of Paul's is found, tomorrow, not will it but should it become part of the Bible, right, should it be added, and why or why not? And that discussion often gets at some of the key facets that went into making the cannon in the first place, the cannons that we have, because when you talk about 1st Enoch, or Book of Jubilees, that are in the Ethiopic canon, those are pre-Christian works, right. Texts that are from outside of the New Testament and before that, and some of which were clearly known to early Christians, we get allusions to 1st Enoch in the Gospels. But more importantly, we get an actual quote from there in the letter of Jude, which may explain why nobody ever reads the letter, or the postcard of Jude right, this tiny little thing, right.

But clearly, it was a text that the New Testament authors were reading, some of them were reading, but it's not included in most Bibles today, but is included in some and so for that very reason. Like why do some Christians have texts that others don't are important to ask?

Neither of those is gospel. Right. So the things that were found in Nag Hamadi I think we can safely say are later than the New Testament and influenced by it, there are works from outside the New Testament that might be so early that they could be independent, or at least incorporate independent traditions. The Gospel of Thomas is often mentioned as one where that's considered a possibility. The Gospel of Peter, I think is another interesting one, just because of the ending, we're missing the ending as we are in the case of Mark, I would guess; that's my view, in case you're wondering. But, you know, we're missing the beginning and the end of the Gospel of Peter, but what we have before it breaks off before the manuscript from both pages crumbled, or whatever happened to them.

We get things pointing in a direction that might actually help us figure out some things are puzzling about the New Testament, right? I mean, how would that story continue after the women said nothing to anyone because they were afraid or things like that. And so I think that there are important things that one can learn by reading those texts.

Seth 41:14

Hold on one second. I have a four year old. Yes, ma'am. If you're gonna be here, come say hello at least.

James 41:22

Hi!

Seth 41:24

I don't know if you can see or not coming. If you're gonna, if you're gonna see the top of the head, you're gonna interrupt you have to say, hey, here, here you go. Now you can hear him.

James 41:30

Hey, have you ever been on a podcast before? No! This is your first time. I hope that your dad includes this because this is probably the best part of this podcast episode.

Seth 41:41

Oh, that's awful. That's…that's hateful (laughter).

Seth 41:46

All right. You can't stand on the couch. That's not possible. You're gonna get hurt. Sorry.

James 41:53

Well, no, they were her bits are the best bits. Then there's your bits and it is my bits, right?

Seth 41:58

Yeah, absolutely. She's probably as a child, she's probably the most, most Christ like of all of us. So why not…She's walking up the stairs. “Yes, I was on daddy's show”; she’s bragging to the other kids.

James 42:15

And she should she should you don't invite just anyone on here, right?

Seth 42:19

Yeah. Yeah. Well she invited herself on.

James 42:22

I may…I may try that and see if it works on some future occasion just like suddenly, like, try to pop it in and see what happens.

Seth 42:29

Yeah, do it.

James 42:30

But yeah, I think so, if a text is discovered, right, let's say a letter of Paul's, you know, when I get students to talk about that, here's the things that usually come up. One is, you know, what is it right? So, if Paul went off the rails and he lost his faith in his final years, and that's what that letters about, probably shouldn't become part of Christian Scripture, even if it's authentic letter of Paul’s.

If it's, dear Timothy, you know, when you come to see me, please bring a gallon of milk, two dozen eggs and a bag of flour, I'm making pancakes when you get here. That probably should not be part of Scripture. Although it will be less controversial probably than the than the previous one.

Even if it's something that helps us make sense of what's already there, most people are not going to add it simply because it wasn't part of the Bible historically. And for them, that's going to be what matters, right? And so I think the very act of discussing this, what people hopefully realize is that, you know, sorry for those for whom sola script is the slogan, but the Church defined what's in the Bible through consensus building. It wasn't just the Da Vinci Code scenario where Constantine comes in and says, “You got to make gospels, pick your favorites, make sure they make Jesus look really good“ or something like that, right? It's not that but it's the church, debating, arguing, disagreeing about the fringes while converging on some things that the people who are having the conversation actually have all been reading, or most of them have been reading for a really long time. And most of that process happens naturally. And then they debate some things at the edges. But they have to fashion out an agreement. And in some instances, it took a really long time for some to get on board with some of the texts that were at the margins of the canon, such as I mean, the book of Revelation in eastern churches, you know, is one example.

Seth 44:29

Yeah.

James 44:31

And so just thinking about that, I think, forces, you know, Protestants to actually think about something that Martin Luther, as reformer clearly thought long and hard about, he realized that he has to address the question of what is canonical? What are the status of these works? That you can't just take that for granted because he's still living at a time when printed Bibles, you know, between two covers, yeah, this is this is a new thing. And it's not a given in the way that it is for most people. Now, what is the Bible what's available in your Christian bookstore or what's on your app?

Seth 45:04

Let me um, let me shut the door. They're still being really loud. I'll be right back. Let me shut let me…shut the door.

James 45:09

And so I'm going to keep talking. I wonder whether Seth will even notice this.

Seth 45:16

What did you say?

James 45:17

I said, I'm gonna keep talking. I wonder whether Seth will even notice this. So I wasn't sure how much time it had. So I would have probably ad libbed something.

Seth 45:26

So there's a friend of mine that runs a separate podcast. And he, he had to step away. I think UPS started banging on the door or something…and whoever the guest was, he's like, so here's what's actually happening right now. Let me tell you a little bit about Eric and his life. And his he's, he just kept going. He cut it out. But then he put it on Facebook. He's like, so here's the mystery that happens when you step away from the microphone. Thanks for your flexibility. They're not at all.

Yeah, it was in reading that book on the Dead Sea Scrolls. The guy has said he's like, you know, there's like five or six or whatever. There's like more copies of The Book of Enoch in full, then a lot of other texts that we have that were found there, he's like, so obviously, it was important, or you wouldn't have that many copies, it's unlikely that those copies accidentally had more preservation. It's just they had more copies of them. So they had some things.

I want to wrap up with this. And so you piqued my interest at the very beginning. And I don't want to let you go without another science fiction question. Because there are a few that share my affinity for science fiction, you had said something about Ezekiel and interpretation of that an ancient aliens, which I know is a show on History Channel, and I don't have cable. So I've watched it very rarely. What were you talking about? And for context of those, if you're not a patron supporter, you won't really hear that because it was before we started, but the rest of you 50 or so people, you'll hear that; hat were you talking about? Like, that doesn't even make sense to me.

James 46:47

Right? So one of the things you talk about if you do things not just about the Bible, and about science fiction, but as I've come to about the Bible and science fiction; is you discover that this whole Ancient Aliens thing actually get started to a large extent by somebody who is interpreting the Bible in a very distinctive sort of way. that individual is Erich Von daniken. And he wrote a famous book, Chariots of the Gods, as well as a number of sequels. You can probably find copies of this in your local Goodwill store, I mean, printed so many you know, that it's, you know, you can get hold of a copy. You can probably also find it, you know, in in your local library and other places. I'm not recommending it as reading I should probably clarify…

Seth 47:39

(Laughter) You can find it but don't read it.

James 47:42

By all means, read it, read it critically. I would say don't embrace its message because I think it's it's approach to the Bible is problematic. But he says that he read the Bible, it never made sense to him, until suddenly he started taking it seriously as descriptions of what these people actually saw but substituted aliens for God, right.

So Ezekiel sees this strange object with moving parts in the sky and sees figures that don't look human, but are humanoid, and what is this right? And his whole approach to Ancient Aliens really emerges out of that. And you actually get this coming up in places in pop culture. Maybe not with his name mentioned but if you've ever seen, and I fully understand why you might not have, but if you've ever seen the movie Knowing with Nicolas Cage, it features features aliens, it features or end of the world scenario, but there is a prominent display of some artwork. That is an attempt to depict what Ezekiel is saw in Ezekiel chapter one.

And I mean, I should add from the perspective of Biblical scholars and ancient Judaism, this is a mystical texts, this is important texts in Jewish mysticism. They warned against reading it on your own. And I think Erich Von Daniken shows that that caution was needed.

But what Ezekiel is seeing is essentially, you know, is one of my students put it once God on wheels. This is the heavenly equivalent of the Ark of the Covenant, right? The Divine Throne. But it's a chariot, right? But it's a heavenly chariot that can move in any direction. It's wheels within wheels, it can move in any direction can be anywhere, it can be with the Ezekiel and the exiles in Babylonia. It's not limited to the temple in Jerusalem. And it's a response to the question of what you know, what happens to our one God in relation to exile, apparent defeat by other powers who represent other gods, these kinds of things.

It's a powerful and meaningful text when you get that symbolism Ark of the Covenant symbolism other things, of course, then you see Indiana Jones, you're like, well, that could be aliens to, right? So you know, it's whatever.

Seth 49:53

Its all aliens…

James 46:57

But, but if you read that text, and you don't have that context, then sure, I mean, unidentified flying object seems like a you know, not a bad description. I mean, it is a strange thing and Ezekiel is puzzling over it. But I think the imagery is clearer if you have more, more Biblical background.

Seth 50:13

That's good. I'll I probably won't read that book because I have so many other books to read, but I will find that movie because Nicolas Cage movies are 50/50 you're either really entertained. That doesn't mean the movies good. But you are really entertained or you're like, that's two hours that I will never get back. closer to death. Yeah. And so, yeah, yeah. So plug the places James so you do your own podcast you write prolifically on your blog. And you got the new book coming out or sounds like multiple books. So where would you direct people to? For years things like where all the places

James 50:53

Okay, so, if you google Religion Prof. You'll find most of my online presence. My blog used to be Exploring our Matrix. And then I realized that my students were not getting my matrix references anymore. And so it was about time. You mean, the matrix? Yeah. Okay. So, but it was a pun, right? exploring our matrix, you know, our context, but also our matrix, the movie and stuff like that. Yeah, I've been blogging for so long, I probably could have been like, the Bible guy blog or something, you know, like, I could have snatched up like some prime real estate in the blogosphere, but didn't do it. But it's probably just as well. And one reason for that is that I was actually exploring side interests. What were at that time side interests, sci fi and things like that. So I was religion prof on Twitter for a long time. And so when I renamed my blog, it became religion profit as well. And now my podcast is also religion Prof. And so that's good way to find me on online on Facebook, on Twitter, Instagram, even anyplace else. There's a book, a two volume critical edition translation commentary on the Mandaean book of John, which is coming out from the Degreuder, very soon. And so look that up. And I don't expect anyone to order it at, you know, for their own personal copy, you know, unless they actually work in this field as academics, and are among those very wealthy academics.

But get your library to get a copy. So recommend it to your library Public Library, University Library, because I think this is an important text for libraries to have to make accessible to others. There will be an open access component to this because one thing that didn't come up in our conversation is that the Mandaean’s are as living community historically located in the border regions, where Iraq and Iran meet, not always a hospitable context for them for a variety of reasons. And so they're now under represented dwindling numbers in their historic homeland. Spread to lots of other countries where you might actually meet some of them, see some of them see, you know, find out if people should google them and see if they are located in their local area. and support this community because a lot of them are refugees from their historic homeland.

But a lot of them are struggling to know how to pass on their heritage to another generation of people who don't speak their language, don't, you know, may not find the religion is familiar things like that. And so we've both, we've been concerned, both to engage in his cultural preservation in service of those communities that kindly allowed us to work with their texts, but also to reach people who might say, the man dies. Didn't they do that in the 20th century? Isn't that you know, is that worth another look and so we're going to have an open access component that hopefully will get people lured in so look for that coming very soon. Yeah. And then connect with me on social media if there's anything that I mentioned that you want to talk more about.

Seth 53:49

Absolutely, yeah. Well, I I still will do that. Yeah, I look about three times a week and like what did James post today. Because it's it's it's all over the place. It's archaeological. Or it's this I mean, today's on, you know, Columbus Day, which I'm not going to talk about because this won't air on Columbus Day. And Columbus Day continually just makes me more and more angry as I get older and my learn more and more context and like, really, really missed the boat. But anyway, that's beside the point. Thank you again so much for coming on. Appreciate you so much.

James 54:19

Thanks so much for having me on. And if you actually do give up some time from your life, you know, your short lifespan to watch that Nicolas Cage movie. Next time we talk, let me know what you think of it.

Seth 54:31

If it's on Netflix, I'll watch it today. I mean, I'm all for it. So why not?

James 54:36

Good luck!

Seth and James 54:56

Laughter

Seth Outro 55:02

I keep circling back to that metaphor, because I find it a really good way to talk about faith. Often, we learn new things, and we're not ready for it. And we're dog paddling in a river or a stream or a lake or an ocean that really requires a strong swimmer. And I really like that metaphor, because we've all been in over our heads shoot almost every single time that I do an episode, or open or new book, or really try to learn some new ideas. I'm always in over my head. And it's both scary, but I think it's awesome both necessary. A special thanks to Laura Thompson for the use of her music in this episode, folks, remember to go to the Spotify playlist for Can I Say This At Church? Click the button to play. I mean, the artists make a little bit of money every time you do that, and definitely check out her stuff. She has some great stuff happening there. But there's so many other artists from every single episode that's come out, so I can't wait See you next week. Be blessed.