I'll make you a STAR! With David A. Burnett

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

Are you interested in the parts of history that remain a mystery? Do you want to learn more about the historical myths and misconceptions used to prop up belief today?

I'm Nathaniel Lloyd. In my podcast, Historical Blindness, I delve into all of these topics, sharing puzzling tales from the past and examining hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and misremembered events that provide insight into modern politics and religion. New episodes every two weeks find historical blindness on most podcast players and platforms.

Daniel McClellan (0:37)

If we want to understand the Bible and early Judaism and early Christianity on its own terms, rather than on the terms we are imposing, we need to rethink this category and talk more about something like one-god rhetoric, where we see people talking about the one god the way that I talk about the Denver Broncos in the late 90s. There's no other team. The Oakland Raiders, they're not even a football team. Like it's the same kind of rhetoric. It's not an actual philosophical assertion that the Raiders do not exist as a football team. I wish that were the case, but it's not.

And so I think we need to shift to talking about one God rhetoric.

Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Daniel Beecher (1:28)

And I'm Dan Beecher.

Daniel McClellan (1:30)

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

Daniel Beecher (1:44)

Doing great, doing great. Looking forward to today's show.

Daniel McClellan (1:47)

All right, excellent.

Me too. We've got a good friend of mine, David A. Burnett. How are you doing, David?

David A. Burnett (1:52)

Hey guys, I'm doing well. How are you?

Daniel McClellan (1:55)

Doing very well, thank you.

We are gonna briefly introduce David and then we'll get into things. David is a PhD candidate in New Testament and Christian origins at the University of Edinburgh, working with Matthew Novenson, is that correct?

David A. Burnett (2:09)

That's correct.

Daniel McClellan (2:10)

All right.

He has completed other doctoral work, toured a PhD in religious studies in Judaism and Christianity in antiquity at Marquette University and served there as a graduate teaching assistant and research assistant, and now teaches full-time at St. Anthony School in Milwaukee. And how's the weather treating you there these days?

David A. Burnett (2:30)

Oh man, summers in Milwaukee are paradisical, man. It is fantastic.

Daniel McClellan (2:35)

All right, it is, what is it? It's 85 today, which is actually nicer than it's been for the last few weeks around here. But David and I go way back, I think 2010, was that, that was in, and it was in Atlanta, right?

David A. Burnett (2:49)

Man, I can't believe it's been that long, but yeah.

Daniel McClellan (2:53)

We met each other at a big geek festival called the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, which happens the weekend before Thanksgiving every year. And it switches cities every year.

And you can find north of 10,000 biblical scholars who descend on the hotels in the conference center of this city during this conference.

And in Atlanta, 2010, I was presenting a paper on, I think monotheism or the gods or something like that. And I was presenting in the same session as a well-established scholar named Larry Hurtado, who was actually teaching at the University of Edinburgh for a long time. And he and I were kind of going at it a little bit in the session, disagreeing with each other a bit. But Larry and I and David began talking after the session. And maybe you can tell what you were doing there and how we got to know each other.

David A. Burnett (3:54)

Yeah, it was a blast actually.

I saw your paper in the program and me and my old friend, Mike Heiser, may he rest in peace, were coming to hear your paper and to hear Larry's. And I had always wanted to meet Larry Hurtado and I had loved his work like in college when I had read it and got really into the early high Christology stuff or not, you know.

And yeah, so Heiser, Hurtado loved Heiser's dissertation and kept trying to get him to publish it on the Divine Council.

Daniel McClellan (4:27)

Which was weird that he never published it.

David A. Burnett (4:29)

I got on to Heiser all the time.

Daniel McClellan (4:31)

He sold all the tests of the dissertation online and stuff.

David A. Burnett (4:34)

Well, it may be published posthumously. So we are currently working on that, but that's for another time. Yeah. But yeah, so we went to y'all's session, loved your paper, and it was on Septuagint, God, Deuteronomy and the Gods.