Episode 101: The Slave Bible

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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SPEAKER_2 (0:30)

Over the past several days, three females have been found dead.

SPEAKER_1 (0:36)

Looks like someone's going after these girls.

Dan Beecher (0:39)

Then they have to know to watch their backs.

SPEAKER_4 (0:41)

Streaming March 13th.

Dan McClellan (0:43)

You really want what happened to this one that happened to you?

SPEAKER_6 (0:45)

Exactly why I need to keep going on this.

SPEAKER_4 (0:47)

Starring Emmy Award winner Amanda Seyfried.

SPEAKER_7 (0:50)

I'm worried about what you're going to find.

SPEAKER_2 (0:52)

So am I.

SPEAKER_4 (0:54)

Long Bright River, a limited series. Streaming March 13th, only on Peacock.

Dan McClellan (1:01)

Next time you want to put on a fancy sweater or a fancy suit to go yell about how much poor people suck to a congregation of other Christians, sit a few plays out, have a Coke and a smile, and you know how to finish that quote. Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher (1:22)

And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan (1:23)

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

Dan Beecher (1:36)

It's, things are great. Things are great. Just it's, there have been snow flurries all day where I'm at. And none of it's sticking to the ground, which is good. So far, I'm guessing overnight, there's going to be some accumulation.

Dan McClellan (1:53)

But yeah, I'm not looking forward to that. I know my, I've got to take my 16-year-old to high school. Pretty like 730 is when we leave. And this morning, it wasn't bad. But I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a little more annoying.

Dan Beecher (2:06)

Yeah, I think your your your area gets a little more hard hit than mine.

Dan McClellan (2:11)

So yeah, yeah.

Dan Beecher (2:12)

Well, there there you go.

Dan McClellan (2:14)

Kind of snuggled up in the in the foothills. Yeah, where we tend to catch the stuff coming over the mountain. Oh, it's a problem.

Dan Beecher (2:26)

There you go.

Dan McClellan (2:26)

At least we don't have as much of the inversion and stuff like that. If you've if you're not familiar with Utah, you've probably never heard of inversion. And count yourself lucky.

Dan Beecher (2:37)

Yeah, Salt Lake, the Salt Lake Valley has a very lovely little weather phenomenon that happens and it makes it makes for fun air. And frankly, if you're if your air is see-through, you should feel grateful. That's all.

Dan McClellan (2:51)

Yeah.

Dan Beecher (2:51)

Yeah.

Dan McClellan (2:52)

Rub it in.

Dan Beecher (2:52)

It's not always the case.

Dan McClellan (2:54)

Yeah.

Dan Beecher (2:55)

Anyway, look, we got a whole show that we need to do here. We got a whole a whole diddly-doo that we're doing. Our first segment is going to be What is that? And it is fascinating. It's disconcerting. It is disappointing, but very, very interesting. We're going to be talking about the Slave Bible. And then we're going to go for the second half of the show. We're going to be talking about wealth. And is it OK?

SPEAKER_8 (3:28)

Hmm.

Dan Beecher (3:29)

We'll see about that. Yeah. So so we'll have a little fun with that. But first, what is that?

And then, like we said, what is that? What is The Slave Bible?

Dan McClellan (3:45)

The Slave Bible, yeah.

SPEAKER_8 (3:47)

Yeah.

Dan McClellan (3:48)

This is a name that's been given, a colloquial name that's been given to a publication that was published in 1807 And its actual title is Select Parts of the Holy Bible for the Use of the Negro Slaves in the British West India Islands. So yeah, it was not originally framed as a Bible. It's always been explicitly framed as select parts of the Holy Bible, selections of kind of thing, which is something that was popular. Back in the 1600s and the 1700s, you had like the Soldier's Bible, which was like 100 passages that was, soldiers kept a little copy on them and it was, I don't know, inspired them to hide better or kill people better.

Or made them feel like war was something God was with them for. And so this kind of stuff had been done before. And the idea here was to take out about 90% of the Hebrew Bible and about 50% of the New Testament, leaving just a handful of passages so that they could get a feel for what the Bible is. And basically, it was intended to be a missionary instrument. It was intended to allow enslavers to preach the gospel to their enslaved folks without them getting their heads filled with ideas about freedom and about escape or deliverance or redemption or anything like that related to enslavement.