Latest / Drawn of History / Dan McClellan on the Origins of Adam _ Eve and the Removal of Passages from the New Testament(M4A_128K)

Transcript

Dan McClellan on the Origins of Adam _ Eve and the Removal of Passages from the New Testament(M4A_128K) · Drawn of History

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: The Joe Rogan experience.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: You know, I've always wondered what the original stories were
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: based on. I keep going to the origin story because
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: like Adam and Eve being the one that the Christians share.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Is there a similar Adam and Eve story in other
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: older stories?
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You, a lot of them have, uh, the early humans.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: They're usually not individuals. They're usually groups.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Well, that makes a little more sense. Yeah.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Um, but we do have, um, there is an, an
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Adapa tale, uh, that's, uh, is somewhat related. And, and
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: some people think that, that features of the Adam and
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Eve story were borrowed from, uh, Adapa, but, but it is.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Sounds similar.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: It, well, yeah, the name sounds, sounds similar. Um, And
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: there are some folks who try to find inspiration for
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: the Garden of Eden story in other later traditions, even
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: going down to Nordic traditions and things like that, that
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: weren't copied down until only a thousand years or more ago.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know that we can hunt down a single
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: source for inspiration. the story because it's primarily, it's cobbling
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: together a bunch of different things, but overwhelmingly it's an
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: etiology and an etiology is an origin story for something
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: that is going on today. It's similar to Aesop's fables.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: You've probably, I don't know how many you can remember,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: but I used to know all the, you know, this
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: is how the elephant got its long nose. And this
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: is how, uh, this is why the answer industrious. And
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: there are all kinds of these stories, but when you
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: look at the Adam and Eve story, when you, and
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: particularly the curses in Genesis three, It's like, oh, this
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: is why childbirth is painful. This is why men have
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: to work hard to make plants grow. Oh, this is
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: why we hate snakes. And this is why snakes oddly
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: don't have legs. Like this little guy right here doesn't
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: have any legs. In an odd way, it's kind of
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: an ideology for how the world got to be the
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: way it was. And then, you know, you don't need
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: a whole lot of inspiration from other traditions to do that.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: But certainly the idea... that humanity or the gods created
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: humanity because they wanted to do something with humanity, uh,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: comes from, uh, other tales. And the Epic of Gilgamesh
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: is an interesting one. Uh, I don't know how much
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: you've read of, of Gilgamesh.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: A little bit. Yeah. It's, it's difficult. It's difficult to absorb.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: There's a, and, and part of the beginning you've got, uh,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Enkidu is, is his bud, uh, and, and, Maybe more.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: But there's a story about basically they have to kind
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: of grow up and become civilized. Initially, they're running around naked.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: And then there's a sex worker who shows up. And
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: that intercourse is what kind of catalyzes a maturation. And
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: now they're going to wear clothes and they're going to
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: not run around in the nude like an animal. And
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: that's very similar to what I think we've got going
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: on in Adam and Eve because they're innocent. They are
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: naked and they don't care. And then when they eat
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: the fruit, their eyes are open. Suddenly they're like, oh,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: I'm ashamed of being naked in public. I'm going to,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: you know, we're going to have clothing now. And so
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: the fact that we've got this maturation going on in
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the early history of humanity where we go from more
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: like an animal to more like a civilized human.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: What is your take on the origin for this concept
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: that we were better off ignorant? Because that seems like
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: you're eating from the tree of the knowledge of good
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: and evil. Yeah. Well, that seems like a good thing
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: to be able to know what's good and evil. But
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: the idea is that all that is the original sin
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: and all of our issues happen because people ate from
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: the knowledge of the tree of good and evil. And
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: if they didn't, We would be in paradise still.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Well, I think that's a Christian interpretation.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Because in the Hebrew Bible, one interesting thing about the
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: story of Adam and Eve, specifically Adam and Eve, their
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: story is never mentioned once again anywhere in the Hebrew Bible.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: You would think that would be kind of important.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you would think. Nobody talks about it until we
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: get to the New Testament. There's a reference to Adam
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: at the very beginning of a big genealogy in Chronicles.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: And in Ezekiel 28, there's a reference to the mountain
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: of Eden, which you would imagine would be the same thing,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: but there's no mountain in the story in Genesis 2
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: and 3. So it's a different tradition. Whatever's going on
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: in Ezekiel 28 is not just, they're aware of much
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: more than just what's in Genesis 2 and 3. But
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: so throughout the Hebrew Bible and even in Greco-Roman period
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Judaism and down into some parts of the New Testament,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: it's not Adam's and Eve's fault that evil exists. That's
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: not the main story that they use to understand why
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: evil exists. The main story that they use is from
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Genesis 6, where the angels, well, they're angels in later interpretation,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: but they're second tier deities. They come down and they
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: have children with the human women. And this is what
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: causes God to send the flood. But you're familiar with
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: the book of 1 Enoch. And so that is a
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: version of that story where that is what caused evil
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: to be on the earth. The angels came down and
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: brought all of this knowledge and gave it to the humans,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: including how to make weapons of war. And makeup is
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: listed as one of the evil things that the angels
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: taught humanity. And so I think that up until the
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: New Testament was written, that was probably the dominant tradition
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: about where evil came from. And then in the New Testament,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: we kind of see both of them. Paul talks about
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Adam and Eve. But in other parts of the New Testament,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: in Jude, for instance, they quote directly from the book
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: of 1 Enoch, calling it a prophecy. But they also
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: talk about the angels who left their first estate and
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: engaged in all this wickedness. And so it seems like
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: these are competing traditions about where evil came from. And
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: the 1 Enoch tradition was probably the dominant one. And
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: then because of Paul and the New Testament, we can
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: kind of see traces of both of them in there.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: But I think Christianity later decided to just go with
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: the one that was in their canon. which was the
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Genesis one.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: And blame the woman for everything.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: And well, yeah, you do have.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Which by the way, I want to let women off
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: the hook. Adam talked to God. Eve did not. So
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: maybe Adam forgot to tell Eve to not eat the
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: It's never specified that he did. Yeah.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: And that's an interesting part of the story because what
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Eve says is the rule is not what God told Adam.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: It's different. Now, you know, ultimately, it's still don't eat
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: the fruit. But she says we shouldn't even touch it
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: or we'll die. And there are a couple of details
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: that and so this has puzzled people for centuries. Where
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: did Eve get her idea of why they weren't supposed
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: to eat the fruit? So did Adam report it to
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: her and get it wrong? Did God show up off camera?
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: No.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Offstage and tell Eve the same command, but in a
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: slightly different way. Now, now this is probably, you know,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: this is a literary creation, but for the earliest audience
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: who heard someone sharing this story, they would have probably
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: thought the same. That's not the same thing that God
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: said to Adam. So the author probably had something in
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: mind about how to account for why Eve's story was different.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: And we don't have any access to that. So we
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: have no idea. And, and this is actually something that
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: scholars talk about. Did, Did the author want you to
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: imagine that Adam is the one who passed it on
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: to Eve and just amplified things?
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: You would think that would be specified.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: You would think, but it's not. And is it the
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: accident of preservation? Do we just have a much shorter
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: version of a story that was originally much longer? Or
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: is that how it was originally written? It seems to
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: be at least based on our earliest manuscripts. It doesn't
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: seem to have changed much since as far back as
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: we can go.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: So.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: These are the kinds of questions that keep us up
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: at night.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: This episode of the Joe Rogan Experience is presented by
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: the Farmer's Dog, gently cooked, fresh dog food that's clinically
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: shown to support healthy aging. Both of my dogs take it.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: I personally buy it, and I bought it before they
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: were a sponsor. New customer, get 50% off your first
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: box at thefarmersdog.com slash rogan. Plus, you get free shipping. Well,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: it's so fascinating because if you just imagine our version
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: of the Bible today and if we continue to exist
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: as a society a thousand years from now, most likely
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: it would be the exact same version because we're really
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: good at keeping records now, right?
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I think there would be versions that are very close
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: if not exact, but I think at the same time
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: there would be versions that are very different because the–
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: so the King James Version is the– I think it's
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: probably still the highest-selling Bible translation. I don't think it's
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: the most read. I think the NIV might be the
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: most read, but.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: NIV?
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: NIV, New International Version, or Not Inspired Version, is another
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: reference that I think is kind of funny. Most modern
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: translations of the New Testament have taken out more than
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: a dozen verses that are in the King James Version.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Because... Since the King James Version was translated, we have
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: discovered hundreds more manuscripts and we have been able to
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: do a lot more study and a lot better study
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: on those manuscripts to figure out what most likely these
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: manuscripts originally said. Originally is a complicated term in academics,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: but our ability to reconstruct the text as it was
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: in its earliest stage Um, and we know that some
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: of the passages that were are in the King James
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: version were added later on that were not written by
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: the author. And so now when we publish these translations
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: of the new Testament, we just omit the verse. And
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: because versification is kind of complex to just redo, we
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: just leave the verse out entirely. So if you look
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: in Matthew 17, for instance, you'll see verse 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: And there'll be a footnote at the end of verse 20.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: That'll say, some ancient manuscripts add, and then it'll quote
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: a translation of verse 21. And this freaks people out
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: when they discover this, if they don't know the history,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: the reason that these passages were taken out. There are
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: about 16 passages in the New Testament that have been
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: taken out.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Is there any debate about whether or not they should
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: have been taken out?
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Among scholars, not really. So, for instance, the passage in
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Matthew 17, 21, we have.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Some very, very old manuscripts that don't have it at all.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: It's just not in there. And then we have like
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Codex Sinaiticus, which is mid fourth century CE. So this,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: this text, this Codex was probably transcribed a little after
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: the Council of Nicaea. And it's not in the main
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: body of text, but there's a little star in the margin.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: And then up at the top, somebody scribbled in this passage.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: And then in manuscripts after Sinaiticus, it's in the main
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: body of text. And so we can see in action
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: the verse being added to the manuscripts.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: What is the verse?
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: It says this is where the disciples are coming back
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: to Jesus and saying, yeah, we've forgiven sins. We've cast
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: out demons. And there's this one demon we can't cast out.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: And Jesus says, yeah, that kind doesn't come out except
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: by prayer and fasting. Now, this is actually being borrowed
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: from a similar story in Mark 9. And so what
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: most scholars think happened was an early scribe was like, okay,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: this is the same story. This detail is in Mark,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: but it's omitted in Matthew. I'm going to scratch it
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: into the manuscript there. And then later on gets worked
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: right into the body of the text. So Most modern
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: translations of the New Testament, there are about 16 verses
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: that are commonly just omitted, and they're included in footnotes.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: But also the ending of Mark, the whole story of
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Jesus's post-resurrection appearance at the end of Mark, scholars agree
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: that's not original. That was something that was added. So
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: chapter 16, verses 9 through 20, a lot of translations
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: will put them in brackets, and a footnote will say,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: you know, this comes from later manuscripts. It's not in
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: the original version. And there are a handful of stories
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: like that. And then with the Dead Sea Scrolls, we
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: have a better idea of how some verses read. We
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: have a better idea of what verses might've been added.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: We even have a whole paragraph that was omitted that
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: we didn't really know. We knew something was supposed to
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: be there, but we had no idea what, and we
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: found out what was supposed to be there in the
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Dead Sea Scrolls. So maybe we discover another cache of
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: ancient manuscripts of the Bible that And maybe they're earlier
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: than the Dead Sea Scrolls.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Boy, that would be exciting.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Oh, it would be phenomenal. I would love that so much.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: But a thousand years down the road, who knows what
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: the Bible will look like. Now, there are still people
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: who are like, no, it's the KJV or nothing. And
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: I think people like that will be around a thousand
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: years as well. But I think we will just multiply
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: the available versions of the Bible. And some of them
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: will probably be closer to what was originally written. Originally.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: And some of them will be people trying to hold
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: on to their favorite translation or their favorite version.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: It's just such an insane story that a sheep herder
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: or a goat herder threw a rock into a cave
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: and hit a clay vessel.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: And heard it shatter and then realized there was something
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: in there and decided to go look.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: If not for that, how long? Oh, yeah. Who knows?
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: We still wouldn't know.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, it might mean that. cave might not have
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: ever been discovered. I mean, who knows? That was 1947. Yeah. Yeah.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Actually, I think it probably would have been discovered because
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: that's right around the time that Israel became a state.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: When Israel became a state, it now had state funding
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: for archaeological research. And so excavations- So they started going
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: looking around. They started going looking all over the place.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: And so by the 60s or 70s, there would have
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: been enough excavations ongoing at Qumran that they would have...
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: I've been to Qumran a couple of times. You can
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: see the caves, like, not far away. It's like, that's
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: going to be a trip to kind of get to it.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: How insane is it that that cave sat undisturbed for 2,000 years?
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you had to.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: That is so nuts. Is that it? Yeah. Right there,
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: where your cursor is?
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Well, there are a bunch of caves, but that's one
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: of them.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, imagine if somebody decided not to store it
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: there and just leave it out somewhere. Or they died.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: They were going to go store it there and they
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: got killed in a raid.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: This is one of the kind of tragic things about
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: archaeology is when a lot of people are getting killed
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: at the same time. That's good for us.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Because we find the bodies.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Well, not just the bodies, but that's the circumstance that's
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: most likely to preserve stuff. Because when they burn things
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: to the ground... Particularly if you have things on clay tablets,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: that bakes the clay tablets and they stay exactly as
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: they are.