Sometimes on this show, big ten-dollar words show up like apotropaic or etiology or deuterocanonical, where, unless you're pretty well-versed in this stuff, you may not know what we're talking about (ok fine- you may not know what Dan M is talking about). This week we're tackling two ten-dollar concepts in one show, so buckle in and bust out twenty bucks!

First, we're diving into Gnosticism. We've glanced off this topic several times, but never stopped to talk about what it is. Who were the Gnostics? Where did they come from? What did they believe? Did they know that that's what we would end up calling them? What's with the spelling?

Next we're taking a look at a very important manuscript. Codex Sinaiticus--a Latin name for a Greek book about Hebrew people--is a very important manuscript. But why? Where did it come from? What is it? What makes it so vital?

----

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Better get a lawyer, because Data Over Dogma is getting all kinds of legalistic! There are many who claim that all modern law has a direct lineage back to biblical law. This week, we're going to show several reasons why that probably isn't the case, not the least of which being that biblical law... it's really bad.

We'll start by talking about the covenant code. This is the set of laws laid out in Exodus that were meant to govern how the ancient Hebrew people interacted with each other (it's all the commandments that come after the big 10). It's a fascinating series of rules that get increasingly granular to the point of preposterous specificity.

After that, we dive into modern law. We're looking book bans that are cropping up around the United States (BOOOOO!), and how many of them may have accidentally caught up the banning lawmakers' favorite book in the process. Should we be protecting the children... from the Bible itself?

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Genesis has no shortage of confusing, misleading, and bizarre stories, but this week we're tackling two separate stories that share a particularly ugly history. First, we tell a story in third person. Or rather, a story about the third person. It's Adam and Eve's firstborn, Cain, who killed his brother and was cursed by God. But God also gave him a mark of protection- something on his person that everyone could see, and would ensure nobody would hurt him. But what was that mark, and could the idea of it somehow be used to prop up racism? Of course it can.

Then we'll discuss the curse of Noah's son Ham. Ham did a bad thing (did he, though? We talked about this in a previous episode), and was also cursed. Well, his kid was cursed. None of it makes much sense, really, but the upshot is that somehow, people found a way to deploy this story for racist purposes again.

As a palate-cleanser from all this cursing, we're getting apocryphal. It's a cute little book that was once included as part of Daniel, but has been ejected by Protestants: Susanna.

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When you hear the phrase "Christian Nationalism," what do you think of? A harmful set of ideologies that threaten democracy? A buzzword phrase used by bad people to demonize good Christians?

April Ajoy has had a journey of conscience from being a full-throated Christian Nationalist to someone fighting against the damage she now sees in that set of dogmas. The real trick of it was that at the time, she didn't know that phrase, or why it would have applied to her. She just thought she was being a faithful Christian.

On this week's show, she'll talk about her new book Star Spangled Jesus. It tells the story of growing up the daughter of a prominent pastor, and touring the world to evangelize the gospel with her family. She went from absolute certainty in her Christian faith and it's unbreakable connection to Republican party politics, to a massive moral crisis and painful deconstruction.

Find Star Spangled Jesus wherever you buy your books, and look for her online content on TikTok and Instagram @aprilajoy

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Did NASA confirm the date of the birth of Christ? Are most translations of the Bible wrong about the order of the creation? Will Dan M ever be able to say the word smorgasbord?

This week on the Data Over Dogma show, we're honoring the Bible by shredding some bad apologetics! As we say every week on the show, one of our goals is to combat misinformation. Sometimes that means that we combat bad attempts to refute the Bible, and sometimes that means we go up against bad attempts to make the Bible seem more irrefutable. This week, it's the latter.

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Does the Bible really say that parents should beat their children? Yes. Yes it does. AH! But couldn't that verse in Proverbs mean something else? Something a little less abuse-y? Something about a shepherd guiding their sheep? On this week's episode, we'll look at what the author of Proverbs REALLY meant when they said that a parent who spares the rod hates their child.

Then, what is Satan's job? Is it to enact the eternal torment of sinners? Or is it possible that Satan's lake of fire has a far less sinister purpose? We'll explore what Paul wrote about this, and you won't be surprised to learn that it's nowhere near as obvious and clear-cut as we'd all like it to be.

For early access to an ad-free version of every episode of Data Over Dogma, exclusive content, and the opportunity to support our work, please consider becoming a monthly patron at:

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When you think cults, chances are you're imagining a documentary series you streamed recently where a shockingly non-dynamic person has somehow managed to convince a group of reasonably intelligent followers that they are the smartest person in the world, and now controls their lives in terrifying ways. So when we talk about "cult centralization," you could be forgiven for not immediately understanding what we're talking about. But stick with us: this one gets really interesting!

On this week's show, we're talking ancient cultic practices. We've all heard about places like ancient Greece or Rome, where many gods were worshipped, each having a different set of skills and a different purview. So a weaver might pray to a different god than a farmer, because they needed different divine interventions, but everybody got along. You might think that this was very different from the way religion was practiced in biblical Judah, right? There's no way the people you read about in the Bible lived lives like the Greeks and Romans... right?

Well hold on to your standing stones, because this week we're talking cults, and the Judean king who put a stop to them. Was this the work of a righteous man, doing the right thing for his god, or a megalomaniac who wanted all the power and wealth for himself? Did he bring his people together in harmony, or did he divide his country and weaken them, leading to their defeat by the Babylonians?

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Haul out the holly, 'cause it's Christmas time! And what could be more appropriate for Christmas than to recount the nativity story? Or is it stories?

That's right, this week we're looking at the Bible's two competing narratives of the birth of Jesus and asking "hey- what gives?" Because when you read the account in Matthew and the account in Luke, you can't help but notice that they have almost nothing to do with each other. Like... they're two totally different and unrelated tales. How is that possible?

Well, if you're hoping for Dr. Dan to smooth out all the wrinkles and show you the simple solution to make it all make sense, you probably don't know the show very well. The answers are complicated and messy, and far more interesting than your sunday school teacher ever let on.

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Ooooh! It's de-bunking time! But with a twist: this time we're debunking the debunkers! That’s right, we’re coming after an idea that certain nonbelievers love to throw at Christians to put them in their place. Well, you can stay safely out of place, Christians, because it's the nonbelievers' turn to eat some humble pie.

This week's show, we're looking at the theory that Jesus was just one figure in history among many others that share exactly the same story. This idea purports to show that the central figure of Christianity was just the latest in a long line of saviors, and he stole all of their best features to prop himself up. Well, we will see about that, Bill Maher!

Then, we're going to have some fun looking into the only historian anywhere near the time of Jesus who actually mentions him, one Yosef ben Mattityahu, better known by his Roman gangster name: Flavius Josephus. We'll discuss his mentions of Jesus, decide if they're spurious or not, and get to the bottom of what it all means about the man of Galilee. Was there actually a historical Jesus?

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The battle has begun!

For a long time, scholars have said that Jesus nullified all the former Jewish laws about which foods were okay to eat and which were impure, and therefore not fit for consumption. The main passage that they used to justify this idea comes from Mark 7. Well this week our guest is going to blow your mind. Hint: your stomach might be more powerful than you knew!

Logan Williams has just written a paper [you can find it here] that could totally change how scholars view this passage. What does his argument hinge on? Syntax and grammar! Rejoice, ye language nerds, for we're taking a deep-dive into the murky depths of participles, cases, and other complex aspects of ancient Greek. For non-nerds, just enjoy Dan B trying to keep afloat on this complicated but actually fascinating sea of linguistic parsing.

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DEMONS! We're at an interesting crossroads in history. As science is able to explain more and more about how the universe works, and more specifically how we humans work, we find ourselves using supernatural explanations less and less. When, for example, we understand the erratic behavior of a friend as being part of their mental health journey, we're far less likely to turn to hurtful and dangerous religious tropes for our understanding.

But that doesn't stop some people from continuing to turn to the idea of demons to explain the bad things in their lives. So where did this idea come from? What are demons, and what does the Bible have to say about them?

Hold on to your apotropaic amulets, 'cause we're goin' demon hunting!

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