The Grandfather of the Hebrew Bible (and What Is Zion?)

SPEAKER_1 (0:09)

Scan the QR code on a Sprite or Sprite Zero Sugar to see the full breakdown. Obey your thirst, Sprite.

Dan Beecher (0:15)

I see you.

SPEAKER_3 (0:17)

Avatar Fire and Ash is now streaming on Disney Plus.

It's the film critics are calling the best Avatar yet. Go, go, go, go! A true epic and completely jaw-dropping.

Dan Beecher (0:27)

This is the only pure thing in this world.

SPEAKER_3 (0:30)

Return to Pandora on Disney Plus. It will be an adventure for the whole fam. And watch the Oscar-winning phenomenon at home. This is sick! Avatar Fire and Ash, now streaming on Disney Plus. Rated PG-13.

Dan McClellan (0:47)

You see this in some of the Psalms. Maybe in Isaiah, Jerusalem cannot fall.

Dan Beecher (0:53)

Famously, Jerusalem kind of fell a time or two. So, yes.

Dan McClellan (0:59)

Yeah, every time somebody's like, God is with us, we cannot be defeated, that is usually designed for somebody to be defeated.

Dan Beecher (1:06)

Somebody's gonna be playing TAPS pretty soon.

Dan McClellan (1:14)

Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher (1:16)

And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan (1:17)

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 (1:28)

Ready to do some combating. I'm a lot less hot than you, cause my AC works currently, so that's nice.

Dan McClellan (1:35)

Yeah, we are 12 years into this home, and the AC has been not working for the last two days. So, we're- Cropping out a little bit.

Dan Beecher (1:43)

So, if you're watching this on YouTube, and you see Dan a little bit glowier than normal, let's be kind.

Dan McClellan (1:53)

There's a hue, but yeah, yeah.

Dan Beecher (1:58)

All right. Well, today, we have some fun to get into. And so, the first thing we're going to talk about is, it's going to be a, what's that? And I'm just going to say, Baal Cycle.

I'm not, I'll explain nothing else. You can't make me until we get into it.

Dan McClellan (2:20)

Thus, the segment, what's that?

Dan Beecher (2:23)

What is that? And the second one, we're going to do a History's Mysteries. A couple weeks ago, Dan, you and I asked the question, or you and I were talking about it, and I realized that I didn't know, there's a word that I had used much, and that word is Zion, or Zion, or whatever, and we'll talk about how it's pronounced.

But I didn't really know what it meant, and in that episode a couple weeks ago, you said that I'd make a good segment, and I said, well, okay, let's do it then.

Dan McClellan (3:01)

In one of the first examples ever of this happening, we actually followed up.

Dan Beecher (3:05)

We actually did it.

Dan McClellan (3:07)

Yeah.

Dan Beecher (3:08)

So that's what's coming up. But first, what's that?

Okay. So the Baal Cycle, it sounds like a... I can't even say what it sounds like. It sounds like an exercise bike at the gym that you don't want to use. But talk to me about this. We're talking about Baal. We're talking about...

Dan McClellan (3:33)

Yes, or Baal, as some folks prefer to call him, because in spelling, it's usually B-A-A-L, or B-A, and then you've got some kind of indication of an ein and then A-L. So it's the name of a deity.

Dan Beecher (3:49)

Right. And we're not about to get pedantic about how you pronounce it. You pronounce it however you want.

Dan McClellan (3:55)

Yes, you pronounce it how it's easy for you to understand and pronounce. As with, maybe, the word won't.

If that happens to be your won't, or happens to be your want, whatever your own personal won't.

Dan Beecher (4:11)

However you want to won't, we won't want to correct you.

Dan McClellan (4:16)

But this comes to us courtesy of the Ugaritic literature. And we had to have talked about Ugarit to some degree.

Dan Beecher (4:24)

We have mentioned Ugarit. We have talked a little bit. You know, the word Ugaritic comes up from time to time. But I think we should start by a quick brush up on what Ugarit is, where it was, all that sort of stuff.

Dan McClellan (4:38)

Okay, so to lay our scene, it's 1929 A French farmer, well a farmer is in French occupied Syria, is plowing a field, hits a rock, cannot move the rock, uncovers what turns out to be the top of an ancient stone doorway, or sarcophagus, actually, I think it is not a doorway. But anyway, calls some archaeologists, and they come out and discover a whole damn city.