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This is the Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.

This is part two of my conversation, a deep dive by study with Justin de Z of Deconstruction Zone.

Justin, like me, was once a true blue Believer.

He is now a former Christian, but he was a pastor as a Master's in Divinity and now spends a lot of time talking about this stuff we're going to talk about today.

The Bible Part one is linked in the description box, so is Justin's link tree, and a video of the whole conversation.

All of that is in the description box.

So here we go with Part two.

Lots of talk about other uncanonized books I'm thinking of the Book of Enoch.

I'm doing it off the top of the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Thomas, etc.

I guess the question is who canonized the books.

They're voted into approval of some kind.

How was that decision made and who made it.

That's a tough one.

So the period of canonization is messy.

What I can tell you is that the Hebrew Bible wasn't canonized until after Jesus's death and the formation of the Early Christian Church.

Some people point towards what they're going to say is like a council of Jamnia.

It's not really a council.

There was a like a Hebrew school or Jewish school at Jamnia, and most people believe that out of that school they finally said, okay, we need to nail down what is our canon.

So, I mean, we don't have a lot of documentation from it.

We don't really know about the whole process, who was involved, or how it came about.

We just know that that seems to be where it happened and when it happened.

Now, the early Christians, interestingly enough, had a very different canon.

In fact, if you read through the early letters from the Church, Fathers and read through the council notes from the Christians they treated the Apa, and a lot of them also enoch as though these are all scripture.

I did a documentation once of the first four hundred years of the Church.

Every single time somebody mentioned one of the Apocrypha, or quoted from the Apocrypha, or it talked about the Apocrypha.

And what I found was every single one of them up until the time of Jerome, believed that the Apocrypha was scripture.

They believed that it was given by God, they believed that it was prophetic, and they believed that it was inspired by the Holy Spirit.

And even Justin Martyr argued that the Jews took the Apocrypha out of the canon because it spoke so clearly about Jesus.

And so the early Church had this canon up until Jerome, where the Apocrypha was a core piece of it.

It wasn't until way way later that people were like, Hey, maybe I don't know this apocrypha business.

And one of the reasons why that happened was Jerome was tasked to organize the Old Life in manuscripts, so everyone knows joem did the Latin Vulgate, but prior to the Vulgate, they had Latin texts.

They were a direct translation of the Greek septuagen for the Old Testament, and they were a translation of the Greek New Testament, but they were kind of a mess.

They needed someone to go in and organize them and collate them and make it like an official copy.

And that's what Jerome did.

But in doing so, he already knew Greek.

But he's like, listen, if I'm going to do this, I really should go back to the Hebrew manuscripts, not the Greek Old Testament.

I should see what's in the Hebrew.

And so what he did was he went down and learned Hebrew with the Jews that were still alive that haven't been forcefully baptized yet.

And he was able to ascertain while he was down there, not just the knowledge of the language, but also he's like, hey, listen, there's this really weird thing.

The Jews don't treat these apocryphal books as being holy, like they don't include them.

So he was the first one that was like, hey, listen, if these aren't sacred scriptures to the Jews, maybe they shouldn't be sacred scripture to us.

And that's where we start to get a little bit of dialogue of like, hey, are these really part of the Old Testament canon?

And then the early ecumenical councils had to deal with that.

I don't want to get too far into the weeds, but I do want to address the Council of Nicia, right, the nice and Creed.

A lot of people say that this was when many of the books of the Bible were chosen.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

As I understand it, it was actually more an argument about canonical law and trying to determine other, I don't know, other important parts of Christianity.

But it wasn't the selection of the books at Nicia.

Do I have that right?

That seems to be the case.

In fact, we've got some councils that do deal with the with the selection of the books.

I'd have to get you a list of the councils.

The Council of Nicea was really more about They talked about the nature of Jesus, divinity and the Trinity and things like that.

And while they certainly did kind of talk about the canon, it wasn't it wasn't made official.

And in fact, if you give me just a second, I'll pull up the councils that you want.

Well, while you're pulling that up, I mean we're talking what third century, So this is after the Bible was or at least some canons were selected.

Like do we know when the first incarnations of the books came together?

We don't have the original manuscripts, but some of the translations.

Do we know when somebody first said, okay, this is it?

So I think the earliest we could point to as like something we would classify as like a unified text are the early manuscripts like the Sinaticus Vaticanis.

These are like really early texts of the Old Testament and the New Testament in Greek.

And if we agree that the books that were in those documents are officially part of the Christian canon, but it would include quite a few books that today we don't think should be in the canon.

Now.

Some of the early councils that dealt with this was the Council of Leadicia.

They wanted to include baruk as canonized, and also the Epistle of Jeremiah.

And then we've got a decree from Pope Damascus in three twenty eight that likewise wanted to canonize the Book of Wisdom, the Book of Sirac, the Book of Judas, the Book of Tobit, and the Maccabees.

And then there's the Council of Hippo in three ninety three that wanted to canonize basically all of the apocrypha, and then the Council of Carthage in three ninety seven specifically because there was multiples, they also wanted to canoni Maccabees and whatnot.

So we have these these early affirmations in the in a lot of the ecamenical councils, like the the Third Council of Carthage in four nineteen as well, they give an official list of canonized books, like they said, okay, these are the official canon and it includes Tobit, Judas, Ezra, the the additional Ezra's as well, and also Maccabees and also some some additional works of Solomon like Wisdom.

So like we do get early councils where they're like, hey, listen, these these are these are official.

But that didn't mean that dialogue over what was official and did they debated it for another one thousand years.

I would have read the Book of Wisdom just to see what it said, like, let's turn to the Book of Wisdom.

It sounds you know, that's just me.

I'm speaking here with Justin Deezey of Deconstruction Zone Shameless Plug.

I narrated doctor Joshua Bowen's book Did the Old Testament endorse slavery?

I remember I was talking about this and somebody's like, oh, yeah, well, what makes him think he knows what he's talking about?

And I'm like, oh, I mean, he's an a seriologist who speaks and teaches Hebrew and an Old Testament scholar, but beyond that, he's totally unqualified.

Do you want to talk about this argument by the apologist that it wasn't slavery, it was merely indentured servitude.

Yeah, so this is actually this is one of my favorite topics.

And we talked about this enough before I dive into that.

I would add one more note on the canonization.

Sure, I've forgot about it till just now.

We've got a direct quote in the Bible of the Apocrypha.

So the Book of Enoch is directly quoted in Jude chapter one, verse fourteen.

He quotes from First Enoch chapter nine and calls them a prophet it says it was about these that Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesied, saying, see, the Lord is coming with ten thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment on all, to convict all the ungodly.

He's saying that this book of Enoch is prophetic from God, which means if your New Testament says it, you should believe what the New Testament says.

Enoch needs to be in your cannon.

Sorry for the rabbit trail though.

No, not at all.

I'm glad you went there, so you know, I guess I can add to my slavery question.

Some people say indentured servitude.

It was voluntary, they were paying off debts, it was a work contract.

And other people say, well, God had to condescend to the societies of the time which incorporated slavery.

So you know, it's either servitude or hey, they had slaves and God was kind of working with the system that they had.

How would you address either of those?

Well, it's kind of a trick of which past passages you want to read.

If you ignore a bunch of passages and only read certain passages, you can get to this idea that they were just in tcherturbance.

It certainly isn't the case.

Though.

Well, if I may, let's start over at Exodus twenty one, twenty and twenty one, right about beating your slave.

You can beat your slave and if he regains consciousness within forty eight hours, Hey, no problem, we'll just start there absolutely.

So what we find in Exos twenty one, verse twenty and twenty one is an interesting like we're we're not going to call it a prohibition, We're just gonna call it a regulation of like, hey, here's what happens if you do this, And it says when a slave owner strikes a male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately, the owner shall be punished.

Oh.

Interesting.

Well, first of all, the thing to note is that this is most likely just a Hebrew slave.

The entire chapter is dealing with Hebrew slaves.

It doesn't say anthing about foreign slaves here, so we're not sure if this applied to foreign slaves or not, but it's not critical.

The next verse is really interesting.

So the reason why in verse twenty the man is going to be avenged, most likely is because he's Hebrew, Like, you wouldn't avenge the killing of a foreigner.

You would avenge the killing of a Hebrew because he's one of your own kin.

And if you beat him so severely that it literally says in the Hebrew, if he dies under your hand, meaning while you're beating them.

If you beat him so severely that they die while you're beating them, then you're in trouble.

You just committed murder.

But if the slave survives a day or two, there's no punishment, for the slave is the owner's property.

And this is really important.

The hebertext uses the verb a mod which literally means to stand or survive.

Some older translations used to say if they if they are revived after a day or two, but that's not really what it says.

What both these passages talking about a slave that dies say says if they survive for a day or two, which means they don't live they die after a day or two, It says there's no punishment because he is the owner's property.

So what that means is there's a presumption of innocence where you can't tie the death of this slave to the beating that it received because it was a couple days later.

And so this is even if you think that the Bible is only doing indentured serviantude.

The idea that you can beat a slave so severely that if it dies in a couple of days, you won't be punished for it as horrific even if you only think it's temporary.

Now, as you pointed out in Exus twenty one, it's not temporary.

In fact, there are two different slaves that we find in Excess twenty one that are one Hebrew and two permanent.

In verse two, we learn about a temporary male Hebrew slave because when you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve you for six years, but in the seventh year he shall go out a free person without debt.

Awesome.

That's an indentured servant says.

If he comes in single, he shall go out single.

If he comes and married, then his wife shall go out with him.

Interesting sounds like more indentured servitude.

Verse four is where you get the fun stuff.

If his master gives him a wife, which is in his ability to do, the woman doesn't have to consent.

She's property.

If his master gives them a wife and she bears them sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her masters and he shall go out alone.

Oh.

Interesting, So an owner can choose to breed the women in his household the slaves like livestock, and if they produce children, that woman and her children remain property of the master.

They don't get to go free.

Even if they get married to this guy and have children, they don't get to go when that guy goes free.

They're still permanent property.

So God one commands permanent property in verse four.

And then he tricks you.

If you're like, if you get this woman, and you're like, listen, I don't want to leave my family, well then you can play to be a permanent slave to this master.

What a horrific solution like that.

He could have done ten other things.

He could have said, well, let him go free.

He could have said, well, I don't know, make them work another seven years.

He didn't do any of that.

He said, nope, if you want to be with your wife and your children, you have to be permanent slaves.

So there's a second instance of saying do permanent slavery.

Verse seven we get another instance.

This says, when a man sells his daughter as a slave, which you could do.

You can just sell your daughter as a slave or your son as a slave does, he shall serve.

She shall not go out as the male slaves do.

So when the woman goes and gets sold into servitude, he serves perpetually.

She doesn't get to go free.

Well why would that be the case, Well, it's clear because in the passage she becomes somebody's concubine.

In the ancient Near East, when you sold somebody as a slave, her her body was yours, her sexual reproduction was yours.

She didn't have autonomy.

But it says if she does not please her master, who designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed.

So he can just buy a slave and then decide to you know, to go into her.

This wasn't what she didn't ask for this, And we find other passages.

There's a passage in Leviticus where if you sleep with another man's slave, you have to pay him restitution if you took her virginity.

Interesting, if you take the virginity of somebody else's slave, whether it's forced or not, you have to pay the fine for a property crime.

Because that woman that you purchased, most of her value, a lot of her value is in her virginity, not just in her ability to work, but also in her virginity.

And this was common in the Encienteer East.

If you read a lot of the engineers during slave contracts, we got a bunch from the ancient city of Mari that talk about women being both adopted and purchased so that they can become wives of somebody else.

So you could literally adopt a baby girl with the intention of one day this girl will marry so and so.

Like, we need a wife for so and so, there's not one in the family, so we're going to go adopt this child and raise it so it will be the wife of so and so.

And they did the same thing with slaves.

If there was we had a young man that needed a wife and there was no near kin or no one suitable for them, because you wanted to keep it within the family so that you didn't cause divisions.

Well what do you do.

Will you go buy a slave girl who has no other option, and you make her marry this young man.

Women were just bought and sold like property.

So when you see concubines in the Hebrew Bible, they're not that much different than sex slaves.

Is there a tribal distinction, then I mean the difference between chattel and debt slaves.

Did that usually come down to whether they were Israeliance or whether they were foreigners.

Yeah, that's the biggest distinction.

So what we find in the Hebrew Bible is that there's a whole different set of laws for foreigners and non foreigners.

So, for example, you can't charge interest on a loan to an Israelite.

You can charge interest on a loan to a foreigner.

If you are owed money by an Israelite, you can't at any point just walk up and say today, I need all my money back.

You're like, you can't just go in exact the money because you want it.

But if a foreigner owes you money, you can decide on your own when you want when you go and exact that money, and if they don't have your money, you do the Bob Moss treatment to them.

But we find also in Leviticus twenty five a very clear instance of God saying, listen, your fellow Israelites, don't don't enslave them.

It's literally talking about men, which we'll touch on, but he's like, don't enslave your fellow Israelite brethren.

Enslave these foreigners instead.

And why is that the case?

Ah, Because the Israelites they're my slaves, They're God's slaves.

Right.

So in verse thirty nine does if any who are dependent on you become so impoverished that they sell themselves to you, you shall not make them service slaves.

Gotcha?

Okay?

They shall re The main with you is hired or bound laborers a Hebrew like a shakir in Hebrew is somebody who works for money.

But they still they still are bound to you, even though they're getting paid.

Says they shall remain with you as hired or bound laborers.

Say They'll serve with you until the year of Jubilee.

Then then their children shall go free out from your authority.

They shall go back to their own family and return to their ancestral property.

For they are my slaves who I brought out of Egypt.

And they shall not be sold as slaves are sold.

But you shall not rule over them with harshness, and you shall fear your God.

As for the male and female slaves whom you will have.

Now, some translations say may which is interesting.

The literal Hebrew text doesn't say may have.

It says of the ones that will be to you.

That's the direct literal translation of the slaves that will be to you, meaning the slaves that you will have.

It says you may acquire them from among the aliens residing with you, and from their families who are with you, who have been born in your land.

They may be your property Hebrew ahuza.

Here it refers to actual movable property, like property that you own as a possession.

It is yours.

It's not temporary.

It says you may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property forever.

So it says that they become your property Alam forever.

And so what this means is that there's just a different classification for foreigners.

You don't have to treat foreigners with the same level of kindness that you treat your own brethren, which is why it says in the same verse, verse forty six says, but as for your fellow Israelites, no one shall rule over the other with harshness.

So what we're learning here then is that, listen, you can't be harsh to your fellow brethren.

But it doesn't say anything about the foreigners.

If you want to be harsh towards the foreigners.

You know, be my guest, you can do that.

And God doesn't seem to care that much about the foreigners being slaves, because even in the Messianic promise, So if you go to Treteau Isaiah third Isaiah, we find in chapter sixty this really interesting restoration promise.

For like the New Age does the nation and kingdom that shall not serve you shall perish.

Those nations shall be utterly laid waste.

So God's holy vision is for eventually all the nations to serve the nation of Israel.

This is not a God that cares if people are enslaved.

More with Justin d Z.

Next, I want to continue with women in the Bible.

I don't know how many times I've heard people say that God says you must honor women, and I'm like, have you read the Old and New Testament.

We're going to get into more of than next.

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Slash Seth Andrew's continuing our Bible study now with Justin d Z of deconstruction zone.

Speaking again to women as property in the Old Testament, reminded of numbers.

It's Moses's army, and I'm going after the Midianites and the virgins taken as plunder right.

And then I think Moses got pissed off because not everyone was slaughtered.

I'm doing this from memory.

You want to take me there justin.

Yeah, So God wants to do vengeance against the midi Nites for what happened at Pure So basically, some women induced the Israelite men to fornicate and to worship foreign gods, and God's like, listen, we need to avenge.

What he means by avenge is we gotta go wipe them out.

And this is typically this follows what we find in Deuteronomy.

And Deuteronomy God says, if somebody from another neighboring town induces you to worship their deities, and you prostitute yourself to their deities, well you go and you genocide the entire town.

You wipe them all out.

So we find that happening in number thirty one.

Now what is interesting is it looks like the Israelite warriors were like, I don't know, maybe we don't have to do a complete genocide.

Maybe we can save the women and children, which is what you're allowed to do according to Deuteronomy chapter twenty In Deuteronomy chapter twenty one, so they're like, I don't know, maybe we preserve some of these women or some of the children too.

And Moses says, nope, he is mad.

In verse thirteen, it says Moses eliers or the priests, and all the leaders of the congregation went to meet them outside of the camp.

And Moses became angry at the officers of the army.

Well, why is he angry?

Does the verse sixteen, and these women here on Balem's advice made the Israelites act treacherously against the Lord in the affair of pure so that the plague came among the congregation of the Lord.

Now, therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who is known a man by sleeping with them.

So what we find it doesn't say women the and the ones being killed are children.

They're referred to in Hebrew as hataf, that means the children.

Verse eighteen says, but among the young girls, these are children, girls, child girls.

In fact, I believe in the nuke in the King James, it says, children girls says, but the young girls who have not known a man by sleeping with him, keep alive for yourself.

So he say, okay, we're gonna save these girls, well for the like the warriors and the people of Israel.

And I mean, what do you think that they're gonna they're gonna do with them?

Right, Well, you might.

There's two problems that the apologist is gonna out.

They're going to say, well, Moses said to do this, not God.

Well that's wrong if you keep reading.

They're also going to say, well, they weren't used as war brides.

Well, that's also preposterous because their virginity wouldn't be in question.

If they just wanted slaves, they would have kept the little boys alive and they wouldn't care about their virginity.

And also we're going to touch on Judges twenty one, which will fix this up.

But also God in verse thirty two chimes in right, says, then Moses and aliars are the priest did as the Lord commanded Moses, and then we get the command that Lord gave them, says the plunder remaining from the spoils that the troops had taken totaled six hundred and seventy five thousand sheep, seventy two thousand oxen, sixty one thousand donkeys, and thirty two thousand persons, in all women who have not known a man by sleeping with him.

So now we learn that the plunder that God commanded them to take includes the women who didn't know a man.

And then what happens.

They get divided up.

They're given to the soldiers, and it tells you that some of them, unfortunately, it appears they may actually have gotten sacrificed as well.

There's some debate as to whether or not they actually got sacrificed, but it says they also separated the portion as God commanded for the troops in verse forty two.

So if God is saying, listen, take these little virgin girls and hand them out to the troops, what do you think they're doing with them?

What do you think these young, bloodthirsty warrior men are doing with these little virgin children girls?

Well, we don't have to guess.

Judges twenty one describes exactly what we would expect.

In Judges twenty one, they're dealing with the fact that the Benjaminites don't have any women to marry because the rest of the Israelites made a pledge not to give daughters to them because of what happened to the Levites concubine the bench.

Knightes, there's a whole story starting in chapter nineteen about the Levi andis concubine, but it results in this pledge that might mean that Benjamin's going to get wiped out from the land of Israel because they don't have any girls to intermarry with.

So they devise a plan.

How do we fix this problem?

Says now, the Israelites sworn at Mizpod no one shall give his daughter to marriage to Benjamin.

And the people came to Bethel and sat there until evening before God.

They lived up their voices and wept bitterly.

So now they're pleading before God.

God, give us an answer with this Benjamin situation.

And they said, Oh, Lord, God of Israel, why does it come to pass that today we should be one tribe lacking in Israel.

On the next day, the people got up early and built an altar there and offered burnt offerings and sacrifices as well.

Being Then the Israelites said, who out of all the tribes of Israel did not come up to the assembly of the Lord.

They're like, Okay, who didn't actually go to battle with us?

Is there a tribe that didn't go to battle with us that we can hate?

And he says that one shall be put to death?

So they're like, Ah, if there's a tribe that didn't actually go to war with us, they're not really part of us.

We're gonna put them to death, says But the Israelites had compassion for Benjamin and their cans and said, one tribe is cut off from Israel today, what shall we do for the wives of those who are left?

Since we have sworn by the Lord that we will not give any of them our daughters in marriage.

Then they said, is there anyone from the tribes of Israel who did not come up with the Lord to Mispa.

It turned out that no one from Jabesh Gilead had come up to the camp to the assembly, So like, ah, gotcha, we found a tribe that didn't go to war with us, So what are we going to do about it?

So they're like, We're gonna go and massacre this tribe and take their women.

Says, this is what they shall do.

Every male and every woman who is laying with a male, you shall devote to destruction.

So anyone who's not a virgin, kill them, wipe them out, says And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh four hundred young virgins who had never slept with a man, and brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.

So here we already know that the Israelites are out there looking for young, little virgin girls that they can slaughter their families and take as captive wives.

This is a practice that they did.

It's a practice that everybody else in the ancient nearest was doing.

And that's why number thirty one.

Almost all scholars agree that these women would have been taken as slaves and concubine, and Deuteronomy twenty one allows it.

Deuteronomy twenty one says, if you take a woman captive, and you find among the captives a hotty toddy, and you want to make your your wife, you can take her into your house, clipper and nails, shave her head, letter, mourn for thirty days for her dying or her dead mother and father, and then you can go into her.

So this is just acceptable behavior for the Israelites.

It's also somebody in my community raised it's kind of a graphic question.

But how was it determined whether or not the young girls were virgins?

And my brain doesn't even want to go there.

Right, Interesting you mentioned Deuteronomy twenty one because it says that if the soldier ends up not being happy with the woman he just kidnapped and totally altered her appearance, he can sort of release her like a stray cat.

Oh hey, thanks anyway, have a nice life, right.

Yeah, And this really defeats the bad apologetic of well this was saving the women.

God was concerned about these women and wanted to preserve them.

Well that's not true.

If by preserving them he was like providing for them through this war marriage, well then he wouldn't have said, hey, if they don't please you, you can just send them away.

Right.

If this was really about protecting the women, he could have said, Okay, set up a fund, take a tax, put a safety net together, and take care of these women and children that came from the battle because they've got nothing to depend on.

But he doesn't do that.

He says, hey, if you see a hot one.

By the way, that's the category if you see a hot one.

He didn't say all the women.

It's like, if you see a hot one, Hayker, you can have her, but listen, if she doesn't please you, you can let her go.

Right, So he certainly wasn't concerned with like helping the women out.

If they was concerned about that, then he wouldn't have commanded them to murder all of their children.

Let's do some bullets real fast.

I mean, let's just skip through some other examples of why the Old and or New Testament fall apart under scrutiny.

I think one of the most overlooked issues between the Old Testament and the New Testament is like this idea of the afterlife, heaven, hell, and how do we go from one to the other.

Right, So, in the Hebrew Bible, we don't really have a hell.

We've got shei old.

It's like the realm of the dead, where everybody goes, there's no distinction.

And there's this idea like there's going to be a resurrection at some point.

Possibly we find this in the Book of Isaiah, find it in Daniel chapter twelve.

This idea that like the righteous the truly righteous will be vindicated eventually and will rise.

We even find it in the Book of Job.

So there is this idea that some people will come out of sheiol and possibly if Daniel's true, some others will come out of Siole, but they'll be punished.

But there's not this idea that like, hey, listen, like if you follow this law and you're you're not like you fail, like you're not perfect, well, now God has to light you on firefall of eternity.

That's just not the case.

In fact, the ancient conception was that while righteousness was living according to the law, the goal is that your righteousness needs to exceed your unrighteousness.

It's like putting your righteousness on a scale and weighing it against your unrighteousness.

As long as your unrighteousness didn't outweigh your righteousness, like you were going to have a positive afterlife.

And so we find this in you know, ancient neuristern texts, We find it in Egyptian literature.

It's a common thing, and so that's kind of the Old Testament conception.

In fact, even in the in the Ecclesiastes Solomon, if you think Solomon wrote it, is like, listen, the dead know nothing.

Whoever is writing Ecclesiastes doesn't know.

He doesn't believe in an afterlife, that's for sure.

That's why everything is vanity.

So that's like a huge problem because the New Testament is built on this idea that there's a hell.

If you're not perfect, you're going there.

God's got a torture for all eternity.

But it doesn't matter if you're righteous, doesn't matter if you're a good person.

If you don't want to go to hell, you have to believe in this sky carcass and the nonsense that he preached.

You'll never find anything like that in the Hebrew Bible.

It is a great point, right, It's only was it Christopher Hitchins who said it wasn't until gentle Jesus, meek and mild that we saw this threat of eternal torture.

The apologists like to go back and forth on whether or not it's a literal hell, but I always good back to Matthew twenty five, Right, depart, you who are cursed into a lake of everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.

How do apologist try to get around that?

It's a tough one.

So you've pointed out one of the contradictions in the New Testament.

So Paul and Jesus are both guilty of this where they're like, they say, listen, unless you believe in me, right, you're going to hell.

But then Paul's on this whole trick of like, well, it's by belief alone, it's by faith alone, right, But then he goes on and he's like, also in one Corinthian sixty nine, if you commit all these sins, you're going to hell.

Also in Revelation twenty one Versus seven and eight, if you commit these sins, you're going to hell.

And Jesus himself talked about various sins.

If you commit these sins like the unforgivable sin, you know you're going to hell.

And some of the most famous passages, like in Matthew five, he says like, hey, listen, if your eye causes you to lust, pluck it out.

If your arm causes you to sin, cut it off, because it's better to to go into the kingdom missing one, he remembers, and to have your whole body thrown into hell.

So if that's the case, like if if committing sins means that you're you could go to hell.

Then, like this whole like salvation by faith alone, just it doesn't check out.

If it's by faith alone, it doesn't matter what sin you commit.

You can commit any sin other than the unforgivable sin and can still go to heaven.

But though that contradicts directly Jesus is his own words, like you said in Matthew twenty five, is a depart from me.

You workers of iniquity?

Well, I mean, if you're a worker of iniquity, who isn't everybody's a worker of iniquity?

Right?

So it's an interesting it's an interesting new Destmer problem.

How could be by faith alone?

But also if you're a worker of iniquity, which we all are.

Romans three twenty three says everyone has fallen short of glory of God, Well, then nobody goes to happen apparently.

Well, it's another doctrinal debate, right James.

Chapter two says faith without works is dead.

So wait a minute.

I might say by faith, but if I don't have works, then my faith is nullified.

And then what about the people who have a deathbed conversion and didn't have time to do good works?

Is that faith nullified.

Right the apologist squabble over that one as well.

Yeah, and it goes back to this whole nonsense of like faith verse works.

You know, James famously said that faith of that works is dead.

I think James is writing and responding to Pauline doctrine.

And I don't think Paul really knew what Jesus taught most of the time, maybe some of it, which is why he had this faith by works or of faith, not by works.

But Jesus would have contradicted it if Jesus lived after Paul.

Jesus would have thought Paul was an idiot.

Jesus himself, in Matthew five, literally says the exact opposite of Paul.

Paul says in Pheesians, chapter two, verse fourteen fifteen that Jesus abolished the law in all of its commandments.

But that certainly couldn't be the case because it's a direct contradiction of Matthew five seventeen through nineteen, where Jesus.

I don't think Jesus made the following the law like the only thing you have to do to obtain salvation.

He obviously thinks that you have to believe in him he says, no man comes to the Father except through me.

But Jesus did not abolish the law word for word, bar for bar.

He contradicts Ephesian chapter two and says, I've come not to abolish, but to fulfill.

Well, fulfill doesn't mean abolish, doesn't mean it goes away.

If you think fulfilled says that the law goes away, then that just means abolish.

And he said I didn't come to abolish, That means fulfilled must mean like, actually bring it to completion, but not make it go away.

Now, most scholars will tell you that when Jesus says fulfill, what he really means is, I'm bringing the law to a more complete form.

Like I'm giving you like the law is basic, right, I'm giving you the dressed up version.

I'm giving you the hard stuff.

Right, I'm taking the law of Moses that I'm I'm making it full.

That's why if you look at how he changed it in the same chapter, he doesn't say not to follow the law.

He makes it harder.

He adds to the law, which is a violation of Deuteronomy four Versus one and two.

But that's neither here nor there.

That's why Jesus goes on to say, for truly, I tell you, until heaven and earth passed away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass away from the law until all is accomplished.

And some Christians will quit reading there, But they need to read the next verse.

Therefore, whoever that's anybody whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven.

But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingom of Heaven.

So, according to Jesus, if you want to be great in the Kingdom of Heaven, you got to follow the law.

That's why, when the ritual ruler comes to him and says, what must I do to inherit eternal life, he says, follow the commandments.

When he heals the leper, he says, go present yourself at the temple according to the law of Moses.

Jesus in the Gospels say a single word about the law going away, and he ends Matthew twenty eight by telling the disciples, go and teach people all that I have commanded you.

Well, he commanded you to follow the law which means Jesus's telling you to go teach people to follow the law.

It's also interesting to watch the New Covenant believers who have essentially written off the entire Old Testament ten commandments.

They want the ten Commandments hung through about our culture and the du well, hang on.

If the New Covenant trumped the Old and the Old is now obsolete because it was a different time blah blah blah, then how much of the Old Testament have you just written off?

And how would God feel about that?

Right?

Yeah, that's the double edged sword that the Christian has to deal with.

If you want to say that the law was done away with, then that means all of the law.

If you're going to use Jesus's words to get rid of the law, then you can't subdivide it and say, well except for these ones, these ones that I like, even though the tenth Commandment they hate because it includes slavery.

Like, there's nothing in the Bible that secctions off the law into different categories.

In the Hebrew Bible.

The best you'll get is there's a mention in the Hebrew Bible of the decalogue as like the ten these ten commandments are a little bit unique.

But the New Testament doesn't do that.

The New Testament never says that you should follow the ten commandments, only you'll never find it there.

In fact, even the two most important commands from Matthew twenty two, Jesus says to love the Lord you got with all your mineheart and soul.

That's Deuteronomy six'.

Five then he, says love your neighbor as yourself As leviticus nineteen.

Eighteen neither one of them part of the Ten.

Commandments so to be, clear the two most important commandments are not part of the, ten which means you can't then go and, say, Well jesus wants you to follow only the ten.

Commandments, well that can't be.

True the two most important ones don't even come from the.

Ten and if you look at the rich young, ruler the last thing he tells the rich young ruler is to follow a commandment that's not part of the ten.

Commandments so just following the ten.

Amendments it's not a rubric That jesus lays.

Out this is something That christians have to invent because they're, like oh, gosh if we get rid of all the, LAWS i guess we don't have any moral.

Structure you've been so generous with your.

TIME i want to get back, to like maybe one or two more of your greatest.

HITS i do want to address.

Something there is a fallacious argument THAT i hear some atheists, make and some believers get into.

THIS i know some more progressive pastors say That jesus never condemned.

Homosexuals of course we get into, well if you're right off The Old, covenant then That's leviticus and its condemnation of gay, people.

Etc but The New testament never does.

That that's not.

Accurate you get Into.

ROMANS i think it's In, Carinthians.

Firs.

Timothy there's a lot there are.

Scriptures Not jesus didn't say the, words but there are scriptures against abominations quote unquote unnatural, acts men lying with, men women lying with.

Women so The New testament does condemn.

HOMOSEXUALITY i think it's important to draw that distinction and, say you, know you can't say it's ONLY O t And jesus was all light and.

Love that's, fair isn't?

It justin it's totally as.

Fair let's imagine for a second that you're A christian and you believe That leviticus does condemn, homosexuality and that the destruction Of, soadakamorra Despite ezekiel saying that it was about, hospitality that you, know homosexuality was part of the, problem WHICH i actually agree with.

THAT i think part of the description of The sodomites and also those From gibbea during The levites concubine.

Story the reason why they describe them specifically as wanting to sexualize the men is because they believe that that was an indicator of.

Evil, so but imagine for a second that that's just now part of The Old testament.

Law, well if you Believe jesus's, words, Well jesus says to follow The Old testament, law as we just, discussed which means you can't just throw the law away and, say well that's, old we don't care about that, anymore because he's said to follow.

It.

Now the other problem you have Is.

Paul paul literally says In First corinthians chapter six that the male better is going to not inherit the, kingdom meaning a man who shares a bed with another.

Man that seems to be, problematic and we get a similar situation In romans chapter, one where he talks about homosexuality engaging in unnatural, lusts and he, says even the.

Women, now it was common for men sometimes In Roman Greco roman culture to engage in sexual acts with other, men but women, less so it was seen as like a special form of, debauchery like because it was more.

Rare and So paul that's like his.

Capstone he's, like even the women exchange natural relations with men for other.

Women So paul's, like, nah, man this is not.

Good SO i know there's a big effort in the church and with liberal scholars to make homosexually homosexual stuff go.

Away they, say, well it's not exactly the way it is.

Today they're not really talking about consensual loving, relationships or they're just talking about the.

Act there's so many things you can do to make it go.

Away to, me this is a.

COPE i get.

IT i read the scholar.

LITERATURE i know there's an argument to be made.

HERE i know there, Is but from an atheist, Standpoint i'm reading this book from WHAT i know about the ancient.

Culture i'm, saying, listen they thought homosexuality was a.

Sin that's why it's demonized in The.

Bible rather than trying to make it go.

Away just throw The bible, out get rid of.

It you don't need it's not helping.

You rather than trying to say words don't mean.

Words just get rid of the.

Book you don't need.

It you Mentioned.

SODOM i go back To genesis.

Nineteen, Right lot one of the heroes of The Old, testament and he's got the two male angels in his house as his, guests and the man Of sodom rise up because they want to have homosexual relations with the male.

Angels and what Does lot.

Do he's, like, ah, crap, no, no, no we don't want.

That let me protect my guests, HERE i have two virgin.

Daughters let me throw them out the door to, you and then you can do whatever you want with.

Him and Yet lot still remained a biblical hero of the.

Story right.

Yeah in, fact if you Read jude And Tewod, Peter lot is lauded as like a righteous.

Man if you go To Second, peter chapter, TWO i believe it talks About.

Lot.

Yeah down in verse six seven and, eight it, says if he Rescued, lot a righteous man really distressed by the debauchery of.

Lawlessness, wait what a righteous.

MAN i mean you.

Can you can offer your virgin daughters as playtoys to these barbarians and you're a righteous.

Man that's.

Crazy the funniest thing about that, story, too which people, forget is remember how the story.

Resolves the angels strike the men outside of the house, blind which Means lot could have just asked the angels to do something for him like HE i THINK i personally think That lot knew that they weren't just, men even though it refers to him as.

MEN i think A lot probably knew they were, special knew they were, angels and so like A lot could have been, like, Hey, god is there anything we could do about?

This but that's not what he.

Did he, Did i'm going to offer my.

Daughters the other problem is the.

Angels they knew that they were, angels they knew that they had special.

Power they could have stepped in Before lot offered his, daughters and, like we got, it A lot just Killed just sit over, here.

Right so the whole story is.

Bananas you've Got god watching the whole thing go, down so beyond the power of the, Angels god could have, said, hey none of this, right none of these Shenanigans i'm going to stop the whole, thing and our last, SEGMENT i Asked justin if there's anything else he wants to talk about some of the stuff that's in his wheelhouse and on his mind in regard to The bible that's.

Coming i'm just.

Second lots of free thought events on the conference calendar already for twenty twenty, six and more are coming in all the.

Time so, far it's Me Forrest valkei And Gutzig Gibbon march seventh And, tulsa The Western Canadian Reason conference In calgary first weekend In.

May coming Up august twenty first through the twenty, third It's Baja khan In, Sarnia, ontario and Then Rocket City reason In, Huntsville, alabama third weekend In.

October details on all of this with links and everything at The thinkingatheist dot com slash.

Events Our bible study continues now with my special Guest justin de Z.

Any final example thoughts before we put a punctuation mark on, It BEFORE i let you, Go, Justin.

I've got a lot of hours of debate footage and videos of me talking about How jesus fulfilled exactly zero messianic.

Prophecies So i'm not going to go over that.

Today there's dozens of videos of me on the internet doing.

That BUT i do want to go over one of my favorite topics in The bible THAT i don't think it's enough, love, namely like the cosmology of The bible is absolute.

Bananas they have no idea what the real cosmos is, like and they depict a cosmos that is, small.

Localized there's a flat Disc earth with a dome over top of, it And god lives on the dome and that's part of the.

Sky some of the newer translations just say.

It it just says, dome like The nabre THE, NASRV nrsv, Says god, said let there be a dome in the midst of the, water and let it separate water from.

Waters So god made a dome and it separated the waters that were under the dome and the waters that were above the.

Dome And god called the dome.

Sky how Sham iam In hebrew and The hebrews, understood according to The, bible That god lived at the top of the, dome like he walked on top of the.

Dome and we've got passages Describing god walking on the, dome and they described it as being.

Hard In, job he says it's hard like a cast metal.

Mirror That's job thirty, Seven verse eighteen says it's hard as a molten.

Mirror, Okay so we got this hard dome And god lives up there according To psalm one fifty verse one and says also In job verse twenty two, fourteen thick clouds in wrap.

Him So god's in the clouds so that he does not see and he walks on the dome Of.

Heaven what you can walk on The dome Of?

Heaven, well, yeah because it's a, hard lean, dome which is why when A zehiel goes up to visit the, dome he, says like it's it looks like.

Sapphire and we get something as well In access twenty four when the elders go up on the mountain and they Visit, god they see like something like sapphire under his.

Feet so we just we have all these references to this idea that there's a dome over the, earth and it says that the stars are up in.

There If genesis one Says god set them in the dome of the sky and gave light upon The, earth referring to like the celestial.

Bodies so according to The, bible the celestial bodies are like up at the bottom of the, Dome it, says the birds fly across the face of the.

Dome god lives on top of the dome and walks on the top of the.

Dome and the only problem they have to solve is, like, well how does how Does god live on top of the dome the dome if there's water up?

There, well the rabbis tell you in The, tulmud there's a, gap there's an air gap created By god's, spirit and the water is above the air, gap And god lives in that air gap between the water and between the, dome and that was their.

Cosmology doesn't the dome also play into the genesis flood?

Myth, right because there was water somehow above the dome in, space and then apparently the water On earth and the water from above the firmament combined to flood The.

EARTH i Think i'm remembering that.

Correctly, so, yeah the windows Of, heaven you, know open up this idea that the dome had like windows or doors in it that could let like atmospheric stuff, down like rain or snow that was definitely up in.

There and if you're in the ancient world and you look, up you're, like, well why is the sky?

Blue, well because there's water up, there that's why the sky is.

Blue and there's a.

Dome if you just stand on a high hill and turn, around it's obviously a dome.

Shape and that's what they.

Believe and we get in some later, literature like in The book Of, enoch we get like a really good description of what we find in the.

Dome in, Fact i've GOT i have a whiteboard with.

ME i don't know IF i have my whiteboard up.

Here but so Basically enoch is, like, listen the.

Sun the sun travels around the, earth, right how is that?

Gonna how's that?

Happening?

Right so he's, like, listen we've got this dome and the dome at the at the base of, it where it meets the, earth well there's.

Windows so he's he's, like, listen the sun goes like, This it goes across the bottom of the dome out the window below the, earth back in another window in the cross the face of the dome.

Again and so that's How enoch is trying to figure out how does The sun go around The earth if The earth is encased in a dome like obviously there's windows in, it and so ancient cosmology is just.

Wild all, right final, Question i'm going to send everybody to your page because we could go on or, not and let me ask a final question that would take three weeks to properly, answer Because i'm kind of an asshole.

Justin but one of the things that we talk about is how much Of yahweh as a, god how many of the stories of The Old testament are borrowed from earlier, cultures perhaps earlier, religions other gods and.

Mythologies AND i know many don't call it plagiarism because there were sort of genre, gods there were genre flood, stories.

Etc so many religions were expected to have certain types of tales in their.

Scriptures but do you get in at all too how much of this stuff is not?

Original SO i used TO i personally don't find that it's helpful in the deconstruction, work Although i've written a lot of articles on my website over the years about, this and the first eleven chapters are typically referred to as a primeval history and what you'll find in the first eleven chapters Of genesis is almost every story in, there almost everyone has A babylonian Or sumerian.

Counterpart even The, tower there's A sumerian story about people coming together to build a mound and they all spoke the same, language and then the gods looked.

Down it was, like, nope not going to have, that and they they impeded the work of building the, mound and then they scattered the people in their.

Language like everything, there everything's copied from babylon, mythology even the creation Of adam And.

Eve in babylon, mythology they took the clay of the earth and molded into a, human and Then god put his breath into it and also blood into.

It so there's two divine things inside of every.

Human one is.

Blood that's Why leviticus says that the life is in the, blood and two is the, spirit the wind Of.

God that's why when we, die you, know the spirit leaves.

Us we're no longer not breathing.

Anymore so it's like we're basically just like dirt, bags and we're being animated by, life and that life comes from The.

Gods that means part of the gods are living in, us and that's what animates our, dirt, bags the blood and the wind Of.

God and you'll find that in The babylonian, literature and so like just, everything like this idea that entities came down and made it with humans and created.

Giants it's in The babylonian.

Literature this idea of like a sacred tree in the garden and snakes robbing the humanity of.

Immortality that's the epic Of gilgamesh and the epic Of.

Gogomesh he goes like basically the edge of known existence to Find utnapishtam to figure out how he can become, immortal and in doing so he discovers as a plant at the bottom of the sea Of.

Death he dives down into, it gets the plant and is on the shore of the of the water when a snake comes and snags the plant of immortality away from, him and then he never gets to be.

Immortal gilgamesh, too and then like the flood, story, right the gods become irritated with humankind and decide to flood the whole damn planet to.

Do, yeah we've got four different editions of the flood narrative at least prior to the biblical, version and so were they, Copying, yeah obviously they're obviously.

Copying the other thing, too is like the idea of the.

Boat that's super.

Common every flood narrative has like somebody with a boat that is like being preserved via the.

Boat why The god sent the flood, changes that's one thing that.

Changes and the creation of humankind and the relationship To god is a little bit.

Different like the gods in The babylonian narratives are like annoyed by the humans because they're making too much noise down, Here, like, hey we created these humans to do our work for, us but they're actually making a whole bunch of, noise and so maybe we should just wipe them.

Out that's a little bit different in the.

Story one thing that's not different, though is that humans were created to do the work Of.

God so like even In genesis it says That adam was placed in the, garden like typical translation will say something like to work the garden or to tend to the, garden but actually used as the same root word for, slave so it is an evid so Like adam is a slave in the, garden which matches the biblical narrative where humans are created to kind of Do god's.

Work we can talk all, night we can talk to sundown and probably to.

Sunrise this is my.

Jam where do people find you and your?

WORK i want to make sure they have a chance to see some of your long form productions.

There, yeah thanks for.

Asking So i've got a TikTok channel in two YouTube, channels And i'll explain WHY i have two YouTube.

Channels i've got one that is dedicated to just.

Debates it's CALLED Dz, debates where it's literally just old, school you, know horizontal, format just me doing.

Debates i've also got another, channel my main, channel which is Called Deconstruction, zone and it's got my, debates most of them in vertical, format and also got all kinds of other.

Stuff i've got educational content.

There i've got interviews over.

There i'm doing some interviews right now with people who are like Ex mormon and getting into The mormon.

Lore AND i even got some shorts THAT i post.

There SOMETIMES i have a short THAT i put on Like instagram or on TikTok THAT i really like That i'll throw up on that channel as, well so it's kind of my catch all.

Channel then on TikTok it's deconstruction Dot, zone which is kind of WHERE i got my.

START i have started A facebook and An instagram for people who don't do YouTube and.

TikTok you can find me at basically the same handles at Deconstruction, zone AND i do have a link.

Tree if you go to my YouTube page or my TikTok, Page i'll have a link.

Tree it's all my.

Links you can find me in whatever social media you're interested.

In i'll throw the link tree in the description box for ease.

Debates it's.

Funny this is just an ASSIGN i had an email from somebody In Kent hoven's camp otherwise known as inmates zero six four or five threeho one, seven and they Said kenthoven is interested in having you Debate god on his.

Channel AND i looked at the email AND i clicked, reply AND i, said thank you so much for the.

INVITATION i would rather put a campfire out with my face yours In Christ Seth, andrews AND i clicked send AND i have not heard.

Back so, anyway the apologist who wanted to Debate, god you.

Know sometimes it's, fun sometimes it's.

Not i'm sure you've seen.

Both justin thank you so much for a compelling.

Conversation we got to do this, again So i'll have my people call your people or vice.

Versa, okay, well thanks for having.

ME i really appreciate it and looking forward to more.

Conversations let's do.

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