Immaculate Apologetics?

Dan McClellan (0:00)

As much as I love the holiday season, we all know that it can be an incredibly stressful time. And particularly as our families grow larger and connect with other families, there are more and more people that are brought into that whole gift-giving responsibility. And unfortunately, I've always been the financially irresponsible one in our household, which has been the perennial lament of my wife. And during the holiday season, it's really easy to lose sight of your money and financial responsibility. This time of year can be stressful for a lot of people, can put a lot of stress on relationships. If you want to keep your finances under control this holiday season, you need to be using Monarch, rated Wall Street Journal's best budgeting app of 2025 Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool that brings your entire financial life together in one clean interface on your laptop or your phone. And right now, just for our listeners, Monarch is offering 50% off your first year.

Dan Beecher (1:03)

Yeah, you know, my partner and I are using it. Here's the thing. We are angling for a new year's reset. We've used Monarch for a couple months now and we've really enjoyed it. It's so great to be able to see all of our finances in one place, just have a really good overview of the whole thing. And we are going to use it in the new year to set some new financial goals for ourselves and be able to track those goals and make sure that we stay on target with that. You don't need to track every dollar of your money, but if you ignore your finances, it can cost you. You could be leaving money on the table. So stay on top of it with Monarch. You could be missing chances to save more, invest smarter, and hit your financial goals faster, like buying a home, saving for retirement, whatever it is that you want. Monarch is going to help you figure it out.

Dan McClellan (2:00)

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Dan Beecher (2:40)

It suddenly occurred to me that when Jesus said, let he who is without sin cast the first stone, good thing Mary wasn't there.

Dan McClellan (2:47)

Yeah, they could have trotted out his mom.

Dan Beecher (2:49)

She could have chucked a rock and started that woman down a bad path.

Dan McClellan (2:55)

Jesus, what happened? Mom!

Dan Beecher (2:57)

Mom, stop it!

Dan McClellan (2:58)

You're embarrassing me. And hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher (3:08)

And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan (3:09)

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 (3:21)

Good, I came back from my travels with no cold.

Dan McClellan (3:25)

No cold.

Dan Beecher (3:26)

And my voice is doing just fine, so I feel like I'm a couple up on you on that front.

Dan McClellan (3:33)

Longtime listeners will probably recognize I've got a little scratchy, a little more baritone voice than normal. I'm in my, yes, I'm approaching my Silver Fox era, so I gotta have the voice to match.

Dan Beecher (3:50)

Yeah, yeah, you're gonna have to take up smoking.

Dan McClellan (3:55)

Yeah, then I can start doing voice work for like the, who's the, I wish I could remember the voice actor who does all the characters from The Simpsons. Usually the ones who smoke.

Dan Beecher (4:08)

Yeah, all right, well, instead of that, we're gonna do a show today. And I think it's gonna be a really fun one.

Dan McClellan (4:16)

We're gonna give the people their money's worth for once.

Dan Beecher (4:18)

That's right. First off, we're, look, there was a clip that went around or a series of clips that went around, got a little viral from Tucker Carlson's show, which, don't go looking for them. Let's not give him any clicks. But we're gonna talk about some claims made by a guy named Jeremiah Johnston and talk about the apologetic of manuscripts.

We're gonna talk about some apologetics, and that'll be a lot of fun. And then, in the second half of the show, for our What Is That, we're gonna discuss the much misunderstood concept of the Immaculate Conception, which I think is... When I learned what was going on there, my mind was blue. It blew my mind.