Getting to Gnow the Gnostics

Dan McClellan (0:01)

Screw Dust Covers.

Dan Beecher (0:03)

Says the man whose book is about to come out guaranteed with dust covers on it.

Dan McClellan (0:07)

That was not my choice.

Dan Beecher (0:10)

When you get Dan's book, the first thing you are required to do by Dan's own edict is burn the dust cover.

Dan McClellan (0:21)

Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher (0:23)

And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan (0:25)

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, Dan?

Dan Beecher (0:36)

Things are good. Things are good. We're here. We got some fun heresy coming up. We got some we got some good stuff going on. It's the new year. It's it's hot boys winter. I don't I don't know what I'm talking about. New year knew us knew us all of those things. And I think I think we're going to have some fun with with today's show. Our first our first segment is going to be a history's heresies because we likes to get heretical up in here. That's going to be fun. We're going to talk about Gnosticism and I'm excited about that. And then in the second half of the show, we are going to talk we're going to do a what is that about a thing that you have mentioned many times on this show and in your various other social media, Codex Sinaiticus, which sounds like probably it sounds like a disease question mark. I don't know.

Dan McClellan (1:34)

Yeah, something like that or something you see a commercial on that says may result in bleeding or something like that.

Dan Beecher (1:41)

Do not take Codex Sinaiticus if you've experienced any. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, let's let's just launch in with history's heresies.

All right. So I said it. We're talking about Gnosticism. I personally am a Gnostic.

Dan McClellan (2:03)

I am ag Gnostic. Yes. Yes. Easy to get those two confused.

Dan Beecher (2:10)

But I would like to learn more about. Here's the thing. For all of the things on the show, usually when you when we decide on what we're going to talk about, I dive in and do a little bit of research to sort of figure out what the heck we're, you know, so that I have anything at all of value to offer to the conversation. But this time, I actually opted out of doing too much. I wanted to do some, you know, surface stuff, but I figure I'm just going to be the guy learning with the rest of the audience on this one, because it just seemed like that would be a useful thing. And I'll ask questions because I don't know anything about Gnosticism.

Dan McClellan (2:45)

Yeah. All right.

Dan Beecher (2:47)

So dive in. What do we got?

Dan McClellan (2:48)

Yeah. First off, the word begins with a G. Gnosticism is what we're talking about, which comes from the Greek gnosis, which means knowledge. And so Gnosticism would seem on the surface to have something to do with knowledge. And really, it's a kind of a blanket term that is used by scholars. And there's a debate regarding how accurate a term it is for a handful of different movements that we primarily see within early Christianity, but are theorized to come from perhaps a pre-Christian Jewish movement. We're actually not totally sure about that, but it is related to a philosophical movement known as Middle Platinism, which is kind of where one way that Platinism was getting its kicks in the 1st and early 2nd century CE.

Dan Beecher (3:49)

Is that related to Plato? Is that what we're talking about?

Dan McClellan (3:52)

Yes, it would be related to Plato. So Plato was all about the fleshly material world versus the spiritual divine, and never the twain shall meet. These are two diametrically opposed categories. And this influenced the cosmology of perhaps some early Jewish folks who saw the material world as corrupt and evil, and saw salvation and the goal of what we're all doing here being related to overcoming the flesh and escaping the fleshly prisons of our bodies.

And that was not done through animal sacrifices. It's not done through penance. It's not done through payment. It's not done through all these things. It's done through accessing knowledge, and specifically kind of secret knowledge about the hidden main god. And so yeah, you go back to like Plato's Cave. You're familiar with this, the allegory of Plato's Cave, where we're all just, you're not recalling this.

Dan Beecher (5:09)