So Many Gods!

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Daniel Beecher (0:30)

And I gotta say, like the reason that I chose this story was that you frequently shocked me with stories in the Bible that I had never heard or had never heard in the way that you explained them. Some of those stories were just interesting, but some were literally jaw-dropping, and today's story dropped my jaw, so.

Daniel McClellan (0:53)

Hey, everybody.

Daniel Beecher (0:54)

Hi, friends.

Daniel McClellan (0:55)

This is Dan McClellan.

Daniel Beecher (0:56)

And I'm Dan Beecher.

Daniel McClellan (0:58)

And welcome to the Data Over Dogma podcast, where we try to increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion and combat misinformation about the Bible and religion. My understanding is that we have a great episode today, Dan.

Daniel Beecher (1:15)

Yes, that's what I've been told. I'm getting the information now. And yes, I am told that it is, in fact, going to be a fun episode.

Daniel McClellan (1:24)

Well, I like that we're changing things up a little bit then.

Daniel Beecher (1:28)

Yeah, it'll be a nice relief from what we've been doing.

I'm going to be talking about a moment that you made me aware of in the Bible that kind of blew my mind, and I'll have you sort of helping out, figuring out what's actually happening there. And then what are you talking about?

Daniel McClellan (1:48)

I'm going to do a piece, a What Does That Mean, talking about the divine council. I've brought that up a lot on social media in the past, and people always say, Can you talk more about the divine council? What does the divine council mean? So we're going to talk about it in the Hebrew Bible. We're going to talk about what literature, what archaeological evidence is out there to help us fill in the gaps in our understanding and how that changed into Greco-Roman period Judaism and then into the New Testament.

Daniel Beecher (2:17)

All right. Well, let's dive into chapter and verse.

Daniel McClellan (2:21)

All right, sounds good.

Daniel Beecher (2:24)

All right. Well, this story comes from the book of 2 Kings, chapter 3, and it opens by placing us in time and space. So the time is the 18th year of the rule of King Jehoshaphat of Judah, which is super helpful, I suppose, in terms of time. Now, a bunch of different kingdoms come into play in this story, and I have to admit that my knowledge of ancient Southwest Asia is scant.

So I did a little research, and maybe you can help me out with this, Dan. It's a bit of a tangent, but I think that it's useful. Because the truth is that when I would read the Bible, I didn't know where anything was. I didn't have an image in my mind of any of this stuff. So I found it helpful, maybe some of our listeners will, too. When I looked up the ancient kingdoms, here's the best that I could figure out. The whole area of at least this story, including all the various kingdoms, was roughly the size of New Hampshire. A little bigger than Delaware, but nowhere near as big as Ohio. According to the theoretical map that I found on Wikipedia, the four kingdoms at play, Israel, Judah, Edom and Moab, basically surround the Dead Sea.

Israel is to the north of the sea, reaching up over the Sea of Galilee. Its capital was Samaria, is that right?

Daniel McClellan (4:04)

Samaria.

Daniel Beecher (4:05)

Samaria.

On the western shore was Judah, whose capital was Jerusalem. South is the kingdom of Edom, and east is Moab.

Daniel McClellan (4:17)

Correct.

Daniel Beecher (4:19)

Now, this chapter starts with Jehoram, son of Ahab, as king of Israel in Samaria. Not Sumaria, but Samaria. Anyway, it's just Samaria.

And there's a weird passage that mysteriously tells us that, quote, he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, though not like his father and mother, for he removed the pillar of Baal that his father had made. Nevertheless, he clung to the sin of Jeroboam, son of Nebat, that he caused Israel to commit. He did not depart from it. Now, call me weird, but I had no idea what the heck this thing was talking about. And I texted you and was like, you're going to have to help me with this one.