What is a Woman... Biblically?

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

This episode is brought to you by Shopify, whether you're selling a little or a lot.

Shopify helps you do your thing, however you cha-ching. From the launch your online shop stage, all the way to the, we just hit a million orders stage. No matter what stage you're in, Shopify is there to help you grow. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com/specialoffer, all lowercase. That's shopify.com/specialoffer.

Dan McClellan (0:30)

The scholarly consensus is that there was a story about a dude named Elkanon who killed this giant named Goliath, and suddenly there's a five finger discount going on by whoever is responsible for the David history. And this just makes perfect sense of how his tradition developed over time.

Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher (0:54)

And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan (0:55)

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

Dan Beecher (1:07)

Things are good, man. I am looking, today's show is a heavy hitter.

It's a big one. I'm looking forward to it. I think maybe we'll be combating some misinformation or maybe we'll just be muddy in the waters and confusing everybody about everything.

Dan McClellan (1:22)

You know what? Sometimes that's what you gotta do to advance the football.

Dan Beecher (1:27)

That's right. That's right. So today for our first segment, we've got a Bible versus Bible contradiction watch Bible style. And then at the end of the show, we are going to be taking on one of the questions of our time, a big deal question. I will make sure that I provide a trigger warning that we will be discussing some things that might be difficult for people who have been beat up a little bit based on their sexual identity. We're going to be asking and or answering the question, what is a woman?

So biblically speaking, what? Yeah, because here's, yeah, we'll get to it. We'll get to it.

But first, Bible versus Bible.

Dan McClellan (2:14)

We're going to introduce our teams. We actually have one side of this is Second Samuel 21, Missouri State. The other side is First Chronicles Chapter 20 from Ball So Hard University.

And we have two different tellings of more or less the same story, but they are going to present a different picture. And that picture wildly conflicts with one of the most famous stories from all of the Bible, namely David and Goliath.

Dan Beecher (2:54)

Yeah, I was surprised you didn't start with First Samuel because that's sort of our base point. The story that we're all familiar with is the story from First Samuel 17, I think it is.

Dan McClellan (3:09)

It's Chapter 17

Dan Beecher (3:12)

About David killing Goliath. David is a little up-and-comer in the Israelite army. Goliath is a very large, already up-and-came over on the Philistine side.

We all know the story. David has a little slingshot, bing, bang, boom, down goes the giant sort of thing.

Dan McClellan (3:41)

And it's an interesting story. If you read it closely, David doesn't kill Goliath with a slingshot.

Dan Beecher (3:48)

Oh, that's a good point.

Dan McClellan (3:49)

He kills him when he cuts his head off.

Dan Beecher (3:51)

With a sword.

Dan McClellan (3:53)

Yeah, the text actually says he killed him and cut his head off. And so, yeah, the slingshot basically incapacitates him.

Dan Beecher (4:00)

Just knocks him out.

Dan McClellan (4:02)

Yeah.

And so it's an interesting little thing that generally we kind of scoot past without paying too much attention. But I bring up the other passages because they reflect a different take and they actually conflict with each other. And one of them seems to be-

Dan Beecher (4:25)

As well as conflicting with 1 Samuel.

Dan McClellan (4:26)

As well as conflicting with 1 Samuel. Well, one of them does not because-

Dan Beecher (4:29)

Okay, right.

Dan McClellan (4:31)

The secondary one actually tries to massage the text back towards what we see in 1 Samuel 17 And the question we're trying to answer here is basically, who killed Goliath?

Now-

Dan Beecher (4:43)

You mean that's not a settled question after the conversation we just had?

Dan McClellan (4:49)

You would think it were settled, but we have this interesting story when we go to 2 Samuel 21, where we have a story about four different giants who are called the children of the giants, who are killed by different people. And this is kind of like, this is lore, this giant lore. And so this one giant showed up, and this guy killed him, and then this other giant showed up, and this other guy killed him. And so in 2 Samuel 21 verse 19, I'll go ahead and read it from the NRSVUE. Then there was another battle with the Philistines in a place called Gab.