Rod Almighty!

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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SPEAKER_2 (0:30)

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Dan McClellan (1:02)

Everybody's done terrible stuff. Like even Aaron created a divine image and told all of Israel to worship it. Aaron's fine. Like Aaron's never threatened with death, but Moses slaps a rock with a stick and suddenly he's not allowed to enter the promised land. So the Book of Numbers is bonkers, is what we're trying to say here.

Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher (1:28)

And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan (1:30)

And this is Data Over Dogma, 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 (1:41)

Things are great. I'm having a good time. We're living our best lives out here in the world.

We got a good show coming up, and I'm stoked.

Dan McClellan (1:51)

And you've got a fancy new mitre on your shelf behind you. I do. Only slightly sacrilegious.

Dan Beecher (1:58)

I have a Pope's hat. I am assured it is not sacrilegious. This was blessed by many, not literally blessed, but blessed.

Anyway.

Dan McClellan (2:09)

It was condoned by many.

Dan Beecher (2:11)

Condoned by the church apparently, and yeah, given away the baseball game. That was fun. All right. Awesome. Today coming up on the show, we got a couple of good ones. It's a humdinger, I think.

We got a What's That? Where we're going to be talking about Aaron's Rod. Keep your mind out of the gutter, everybody.

Dan McClellan (2:36)

Not the 1974 movie. This is different.

Dan Beecher (2:40)

Yeah.

Dan McClellan (2:41)

Don't ask.

Dan Beecher (2:42)

And we're going to be saying stuff about budding rods and stuff, so everybody just calm down.

And then in the latter half of the show, we'll be returning to 2 Maccabees. We've hung out there a few times, but we're going to be getting some chapter and verse action for 2 Maccabees 6, where Eliezer is going to show us how it's done.

Dan McClellan (3:10)

Yeah, Old Man Eliezer.

Dan Beecher (3:12)

Yeah, so that's going to be some fun. But let's launch it off. Let's start it off with a What's That?

Okay, so the What's That is Aaron's Rod. Aaron, let's remind ourselves a little bit. Aaron is the brother of Moses.

Dan McClellan (3:31)

Brother of Moses.

Moses' spokesperson, so when we have in Exodus 7, when God tells Moses, I will make you a god to Pharaoh, goes on to say, and Aaron will be your prophet. And so it's actually usually Aaron doing the talking.

Dan Beecher (3:49)

Right, right, because Moses was slow of speech or had some sort of speech impediment or something.

Dan McClellan (3:54)

Yeah, so he was mainly there to, Aaron would be like, and now, behold, and Moses would probably step forward and slam his rod on the ground and then frogs or something like that.

Dan Beecher (4:06)

So or the stick turns into snakes or whatever.

Dan McClellan (4:10)

Yeah, yeah.

Dan Beecher (4:10)

So we have no way of knowing if this is the same rod that turned into a snake.

Dan McClellan (4:18)

Probably a very different one. We're actually going to be in the book of Numbers.

Dan Beecher (4:21)

Yeah, we're way out of side of Exodus. We're all the way to Numbers, so.

Dan McClellan (4:27)

Yeah. And we have this, there's controversy. And if you've read the Pentateuch, you are familiar with the fact that the Israelites were always mumbling and grumbling.

SPEAKER_5 (4:41)

They were a mumbling and grumbling group.

Dan McClellan (4:43)

Yeah, they were always challenging Moses' authority. And we have these dudes named Cora and, I forget the name of the other, Dathan and Abiram are kind of like, hey, we want to be in charge. And things didn't go great for them. We'll discuss the Cora episode in another episode.