Multipals 03: Anne Thériault (transcript)

[Music: All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" by Bocephus]

Chris Sims: Hello friends and neighbors and welcome to Apocrypals. This is the podcast where generally speaking two non-believers read through the Bible and we try not to be jerks about it. But this is the third installment of our very special series, our sub series within a series, our podcast within a podcast, Multipals.

Benito Cereno: Yeah.

C: My name is Chris Sims, with me as always is the other set of footprints, Benito Cereno. Benito, how are you?

B: I'm doing pretty good, Chris. How are you?

C: I'm doing all right. I am thrilled that the circle of pals is ever expanding.

B: That's right. One day it shall subsume the earth.

C: That, okay.

B: In a good way. It's a good subsumption.

C: That I don't. Sure. You know what? Don't want to really unpack that right now. So yeah, sounds like a plan. Let's get subsuming. Who do we have? Let's talk to today.

B: Today we are talking to writer, journalist, podcaster, author, Anne Thériault, a very cool person that you might know of from internet where she has written many articles.

C: I would say if you're listening to this show, there's a good chance that you have at least heard of Anne probably through her recent work talking about St. Dymphna, the patron saint of mental illness.

B: That's right. Pray for us. Pray for both of us. Pray for your boys.

C: Yeah. St. Dymphna, please. The Adderall shortage is back. St. Dymphna, can you do something for me, please? You can dip me in a river. You can sprinkle me with the censer. Just help me out.

B: Yes, and we do have a pretty good discussion about the patron saint of the mentally ill. Among other things, including her recently completed podcast and also some women when she discusses biblical women. And so we talk about that. And we also talk about bagels and cusses and all sorts of very fun things that I think you all will enjoy as listeners to this podcast, Apocrypals.

C: I think and hope so as well. So let us waste no more time and get talking to Anne Thériault.

B: Yeah. Here we are. We're back. It's another Multi-Pals. We have another pal in the room, three people in the room, like some kind of floating tub. I lost the thread.

C: Can I just say we're not in a room?

B: It's a...

C: We're in three very different places.

B: It's a metaphysical cyber room.

C: I'm in.

B: Yeah. We're here along the information super highway. We've all pulled over at the information Super Buc-ee's and we're looking at the virtual wall of beef jerky.

C: Hey Benito, introduce our guest, please.

B: Okay. We have a new guest, a great friend who is here, Anne Thériault, a writer with bylines at all the big places who also has just completed her own Bible podcast that we will be talking about and is just a cool internet person that statistically speaking you're probably already following on Twitter. Anne, hello.

Anne Thériault: Hello. Thank you so much for having me. I'm a big fan of the show.

C: That is good to hear.

B: We are fans of you. As we were saying, you are the first guest we've had who has actually listened to the show. So that's exciting.

C: Can I say you two already know this, but I put that we were going to have you on the show onto my calendar and my wife immediately texted me and was like, "you're going to have Anne Thériault on the show?" And I was like, "yeah." And she was like, "I love her." And that's the most excited. There are two people that she has been excited for at that level for me to interview, for me to talk to on a podcast. And it's you and Patton Oswalt.

A: Amazing!

B: And now you're big friends with Patton Oswalt. Chris, just talking to him on the regular now. So...

C: Yeah, he definitely remembers that he's been on the show multiple times. It's a different show, folks, different show. Don't worry about it. You didn't miss one

B: Different show, though. You should check out all related podcast media from Chris Sims and from me.

C: It's not the time to plug our stuff.

B: Oh, right. Oh, right.

C: There's a third person here.

B: That's a different segment. She's not here to listen to us talk about our haunted doll podcast.

C: But we were very excited to have you on the show and our listeners and also my wife, who does not qualify as one, was very excited. So your presence is a big deal for us here on Apocrypals.

B: Yeah.

A: Well, thank you. Delighted to be here.

B: Excellent.

C: What's your favorite episode of our show?

A: You know what? I want to go with, you know what? There's two that I really like. One is the Book of Tobit.

B: A good one.

C: That's an early one. Yeah.

A: The ones I'm most familiar with are the earlier ones. This one's a bit later, but the much requested Infancy Gospel of Thomas.

C: Those are pretty good ones.

B: Pretty good.

C: Thank you for indulging that question that I asked as a joke, but not really.

B: Right.

A: You're like, it's also a test.

C: I like hearing nice things about myself. That's all.

A: But also in our household, we often quote some of the stuff about the gospels, like about the disciples being teenagers. And also, okay, so this is also an early deep cut, but so my husband's name is Matt and my son's name is Theodore. And in one of your early episodes, you talked about Matthew and Theodore are name bros. And that is actually part of why we chose the name Theodore, because it means the same thing as Matthew.

B: Nice. Excellent.

C: Oh, that's very cool.

A: Oh man, family name bros. It's so good. All right. That's excellent. Also now, like I can call myself the Theotokos because I was like the Theobarer.

B: Nice.

A: That's my joke.

B: Look, I'm very into that kind of bilingual wordplay. It's extremely good. It's what I live for. So excellent. Before, however, we go too deep into the meaning of various ancient Greek word elements. For our listeners who are not, for some reason, already following you on Twitter, can you please just give us like the basic or extended if you want, I don't care, down-low on who you are, what you do, why you're cool. My one rule, however, is you have to brag. You can't do any self-deprecation at this point. You have to go big and tell us all your cool, most famous things.

A: Okay. I'm a Canadian writer. I currently live in Eastern Ontario, just did a podcast about biblical women, which we're going to talk about later. And that was like a huge undertaking and a lot of work and a lot of fun. And I'm really happy that it's out there now. And I write, I kind of cover a lot of different topics for a lot of different outlets. I write a lot about mental health, sometimes about parenting, sometimes about saints, really like saints. I think that covers it.

B: Where are some places where people could find your work, websites and other publications, people could be looking for your writing?

A: The Walrus, which is a Canadian publication. I write for them a fair bit, and they let me do weird stuff. Broadview, which is a publication affiliated with the United Church of Canada, and they let me write about saints a fair bit.

B: That's the site that the podcast is affiliated with, right? Is that correct?

A: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

B: Yeah. But you've written for a lot. You've written for a lot of places. If people were to Google your name, they would find your name at quite a few different places.

A: Yes.

B: But you've been around with writing on various topics. Yeah. Mental health, parenting, feminism.

A: Yeah, feminism. That's another big one. I shouldn't have left that out.

B: Do you update your blog ever? Or is that?

A: No, that's done. I actually think I need to take that off the internet. Just because it's so old, and there's more personally identifying information on there than I would love.

B: Sure. Yeah.

C: Buddy, don't we all know how that's the way?

B: We do. Yeah. Yes, there's definitely an old blogging platform that I definitely wish I could nuke from space if the site had not been bought by Russians who changed my password or whatever.

A: Oh, yeah. I've been there.

B: So like you're saying, currently based in Ontario, Anne Thériault from Ontario.

A: That's right. That's gonna be my slogan when I run for premier, which is like governor for America.

B: Yeah, it's like governor. Yeah. Hey, good. Not. I mean, I myself didn't know that for sure until relatively recently, that premier is like the equivalent of a governor roughly. And so that's cool. Toronto. I don't know. You're not in Toronto. You're near Toronto. It doesn't matter.

A: I used to live in Toronto. I lived there for like 14 years. And then I recently moved to Kingston, which is about like two and a half hours East of Toronto.

B: Okay, okay. Okay. Yeah, I was just thinking about what was in your Twitter bio, I believe. Also most of your places where you have credited work, it says you're a Toronto based writer.

A: So I left Toronto in my Twitter bio so that if like, anybody wants me to do events, and they're like, maybe she won't want to come if she's in Kingston, they'll see Toronto. Oh, maybe she's still here and still.

B: Makes sense. I get it. But Ontario, as great as it is not the province I wanted to talk about. I would like to talk please about Quebec, which you are originally from. As I understand it, your name gives you away as French Canadian.

C: Can I just say that I was really hoping that you were going to go full youth pastor a second ago and be like, that's not the province I want to talk about. I want to talk about the province of Judea. Some 2023 years ago.

B: We can all agree that Ontario is a pretty great province, but it's not as great as the providence of God, which is a steady hand overseeing all of our Okay. Anyway, I want to talk about Quebec specifically.

C: Maybe you should be Anne Thériault-d to Damascus.

B: Wow. Wow. Wow.

C: That's it. Please continue.

B: So two topics I specifically wanted to discuss one that we've talked about on the show before and one that is a brand new one, Quebecois cusses and Montreal bagels. So those are the two things I would like to talk about. So we've talked about Quebecois cusses, but for people who are listening now who might have missed our former discussion on Quebe-cusses as we call them, can you explain why they're so unique even among other Francophonic cultures? Like people might know how a Parisian might say a cuss. There's some famous ones. There's like there's one famous one, the M people know it, but like

C: Sacre Vache.

B: "Zut alors!" Everyone knows that cuss. I shouldn't have said that. That's going to get a mark explicit. That's a joke for people who don't know that. That's the golly G of French cusses. But talk to us about it. First of all, actually, let me say, I hope you had a good Johnny Bapto day a couple weeks ago.

A: Yeah, that's the big day in Quebec. That's because many of them do not wish to be part of Canada. So they don't really celebrate Canada Day. And in fact, so it's a weird thing in Quebec where all of their leases run from July 1 to June 30. So July 1 is moving day in Quebec. But the Feast of St. John the Baptist, that's their big, they call it the Fête Nationale. That's like their big party day.

B: Yeah, it's a big national holiday for one province that sees itself as its own country. Yeah. So but back to the swears, we talked about that they're really unique because rather than being when people think of like, vulgar language in English or even other languages, a lot of the words tend to be sexual or scatological. Occasionally, even in English, we've got a couple that are the milder ones tend to be the ones that are more like religious base, right? My wife adamantly, adamantly asserts that the D word is not a swear. And I was like, that's weird, because it would have gotten my mouth washed out with soap when I was a kid if I had said it. So to me, it's a swear. She's like, the D word is not she of course doesn't call it the D word because she doesn't think it's a swear. But I'm not going to say it because I don't want to get an explicit tag. Although I don't think we would in my mind. I'm always like, if they can say it on "Wait, wait, Don't Tell Me" I think we're okay. Anyway, the cusses of Quebec are almost entirely based around religious iconography elements from the church, right?

A: Yes, yeah. And they're all church related. And most of them are not words that would even be like a bad word in other languages or even other countries that speak French,

B: Right. Give us some, please.

A: Okay, so the worst one, this is like the filthiest word you could say would be "tabarnak", which means tabernacle, obviously. And that's like where you keep the host little building where you put the host when you're before the priest does communion. That's the worst, most horrifying word you could say.

B: But it's also the one you see in graffiti and stuff the most, right? Like, yeah, I think it's the most famous one. That's certainly the one I think of first, but there's other ones.

A: Yeah, like"câlice" another big one. And that means chalice like the chalice, you would have the wine in,"ostie," which means host, "viarge," which means virgin. "Criss" is a big one, Christ. "Ciboire," which is, I think in English, it's called the pyx. It's like a little box you can put the host in.

B: Oh, yeah. Okay.

A: "Sacrament." Those are like kind of the big, big ones. But I would say like the top four would be...

C: It's literally just naming things you see in a church. It's like looking around.

B: Yeah. Imagine like a couple of like burly French Canadians sitting in church one Sunday and they're like, look, we need to distinguish ourselves from the continental French. We need to come up with our own cusses. Let's brainstorm some. And then they couldn't think of anything. And so they just started naming things they could see by looking at the front of the church.

C: Ah stained glass.

A: And oh, and the word for cuss words in French is "sacré." Or that means like the word or to swear, which also and it obviously just comes from sacred. So there are many like great things I think about cussing in Quebec. One thing is like when you're really mad, you can like stack the words like all in a row, like "tabarnak, de câlice, de monastique, whatever, whatever." You can go on and on and just keep saying them. Also, you can use them as like verbs. You can use them as adjectives like they are, it's a very functional swearing system.

C: I cannot imagine. Look, I am from the South and I had to explain to my wife what "I swan to John" meant and like why people say it. But I still cannot imagine telling somebody to like, "hey, go tabernacle yourself." Although it does sound fun.

B: Yeah.

C: Where does it start?

B: Yes. My dad is definitely a real font of Southern minced oaths. "I sewanee" so common.

C: "Hey, man, why don't you go transubstantiate yourself into the body of Christ? Cut me off in traffic."

B: Yeah. Oh, but you can. But speaking of minced oaths, right, if you don't want to go full "tabernak," you can say "tabarnouche." Is that right? Is that what it is? That's...

A: There are a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's one of them. Or for "câlice," you could say "câline de bine" or just "câline." There's like a lot of yeah, there's a lot of PC versions of....

B: Oh, my gosh, that's - "tabarnouche" is a very cute sounding word. Yes. Thank you for that introduction to the good causes of Quebec. But I do also want to talk about bagels, Montreal style bagels, which are not as far as I know, a thing that I can get here in the American Midwest adjacent South where I live. But they do appear to be a real thing. And they were also at the center of a conversation that you and I had Anne on Twitter, that kind of somewhat hinged on a clash of cultures. Two nations joined by an undefended border but divided by bagel culture apparently, because this was a while back, but I don't remember exactly how it started. It was a mental health related tweet, you were talking about having some kind of like, you tweeted about it. So I'm not blowing up your spot here. But you talked about having some kind of like depressive episode or something like that.

A: Yeah.

B: And you were like, it's a weird time of night for this or whatever, because we were also talking before the show about our respective sleep issues. But you may have been up early, and I was up late. And we were both on Twitter. And you were saying like, it's a weird time for this depressive spiral. And I was like, for me, depressive spirals are like pizza on a bagel. Right. And I was expecting you to recognize the old bagel bites commercial where the idea is when pizza is on a bagel, you can have pizza anytime, right? Wherein the joke is, any time of day, it's key time for depressive spiral for your boy Benito. But you did not know what I was talking about.

A: No, I don't. It's possible we don't... I don't think we had those in Canada. I could be wrong.

B: You do have your own unique take on the bagel.

A: Yes.

B: Because you were like, have you had a Montreal bagel? Because I could tell that you were trying to steer the conversation back into something that was not the mystery product that I was bringing up obliquely. Can you just take take a second to explain about a Montreal bagel and why we should all seek them out why it might be worth heading to Montreal, a famous like famously culinary hotspot, Montreal. That's not sarcastic. I'm being completely sincere. Montreal famous for its food. Yeah. So why should we all go to Montreal and have un bagel? That's probably not how they say it.

A: Bagel. So they are made in wood fired ovens, and they are boiled in honey water, I think and then baked, but they're just like sweeter and denser than like a New York style bagel.

B: Yeah.

A: Best is if you can just go to one of the bakeries and get one like fresh out of the oven like that with cream cheese and lox like nothing better.

B: Nice.

A: And there's like two big bagel houses both alike and dignity. St-Viateur and Fairmount and everyone has one like nobody is like, Oh, you know, I could go to either like your one team or the other.

B: I get it. Cincinnati's got a similar thing with chili parlors. You're a skyline person or you're...

C: Calling them chili parlors is the weirdest thing I've ever heard you say.

B: What saying chili parlors? That's what they're called. You're...

C: I have never heard that in my life.

B: You've never heard the phrase chili parlor. That's no, that's what they call them.

A: What's a chili parlor?

C: It's a restaurant.

B: It's a restaurant.

C: That's - the word you're thinking of is restaurant.

B: That's what it doesn't matter. That's what they're called. But so Cincinnati has its famous regional variation on chili that was created by Greek immigrants who were building diners in the Cincinnati area. And so it's chili that's not meant to stand on its own. It's meant to be used as a sauce. Okay. And so like, there's no beans and it's a much thinner than like a Texas chili con carne would be. And it's used as a sauce on things like hot dogs and most famously spaghetti, right? You use it in place of like a bolognese sauce. So most of these places Skyline or Gold Star, those are like chains, but there's also more individual places like Camp Washington or wherever you could go to. And they serve what they call "ways." And there are three ways, four ways, five ways. And so it's spaghetti with chili sauce and then cheese. And then you could also add like beans, onions...

C: Onions, beans...

B: ...or whatever.

A: Right.

C: A Cincinnati Coney, which is a little chili dog.

B: Yeah.

C: Is among my favorite foods in the world.

B: Yeah.

C: I never get to have them because they are only served in a very small regional market.

B: Which reaches down to where I live. I live about an hour from Cincinnati. So when Chris came through here on his way up to Columbus, Ohio, a couple of years ago, we did have to stop and get some Gold Star. Although I personally am a Skyline partisan, which is what I was getting at. But anyway, we didn't mean to have this Cincinnati chili digression.

C: This sounds like it's bonus content.

B: Yeah, maybe, maybe it is.

C: It sounds like it's going to be cut from the show.

B: But it's good content. I don't want to, let's not lose it. Everyone wants to hear.

C: Anne, I have a question for you.

A: Yes.

C: We were talking before we started recording about our names. And I was mentioning that my name is mine and it's fine, but I don't feel connected to it at all. Other than, I mean, like, look, I do like that my dude is a 12 foot tall werewolf. That is fun for me, but I don't feel super connected to the story of Reprobus. And I was wondering as someone who is Catholic and someone who has written a lot about women in Bible and Bible adjacent things and saints, do you feel like you have any connection to St. Anne who is not someone we've discussed on the show?

B: We have a little, cause we've, you know, we, we talked about her in infancy James and also about the three Marys when we talked about the legend of the three Marys.

C: I guess, but there's not been like a full episode on St. Anne.

B: Yeah. We haven't done like a full episode on the life of St. Anne.

C: Yeah. Not like we did on St. Patrick.

B: Right. Yeah. Yeah.

A: Yeah. You know, for a long time it felt like a really old lady name. Like I remember when I was little, I wanted to change my name to Heather. Cause I thought that was like a cool girl name possibly influenced by the movie of the Heathers.

B: Definitely a movie where you would come away and be like, you know who I want to be like,

C: You know, who's cool.

A: I was way too young to see the movie. I just like, it was like, those are cool girls. They look like cool girls.

C: That's like how I wanted to change my name to Star Wars.

A: But I've come around on it and you know, like, yeah, she's, she's the grandmother of Jesus. Like that's an old lady thing, but that's a pretty cool, that's a good Jesus adjacent position. My whole name is like a very traditional Acadian name, which is like not Akkadian with a K, Acadian with a C.

B: Wait, you're telling me you're not an ancient Mesopotamian? Hold on a second.

A: It's a very traditional Mesopotamian name.

B: Stop the interview. This whole, this whole arrangement is based on a lie. I was ready, I was ready to get your hot takes on Sargon of Akkad.

A: Acadian, which is like the type of French Canadian, but it's the one no one has ever heard of.

B: People in the US might know that.

C: Except people have.

B: Yeah. Some of them, there was a terrible history thing where they had to, they all went South and they went to Louisiana and they became Cajuns. And...

C: Yeah. Cause they asked like, what kind of people are you? And they said, okay, we're Cajuns.

B:Exactly.

C: And that became Gambit.

B: It did become Gambit. That is, they are now universally known as the, as the Gambits. Great. Please continue your story.

A: I was just going to say, it's a very traditional Acadian name. Like I grew up in the diaspora. Most Acadians don't live in Acadia in like Nova Scotia, New Brunswick. And so it makes me feel connected to my culture.

B: Nice. Saint Anne. Yeah. You said Jesus's grandmother on his mom's side.

C: I would like to, I would like to know who his grandmother is on his father's side. Do you have that information? Mother void. So she's just... "Godhead Thériault is here."

B: So she's patron of moms and grandmothers. She's also patron of teachers. If I remember correctly. And because of the proximity of her feast day to a different Saint whose name I don't remember, who is the Saint of horsemen. Saint Anne is also the patron of ladies who ride horses. And the reason I know all of this, I've talked a couple of times on this show and elsewhere about some of the work I've done with kids and teenagers and stuff. And there's this one family that I've worked with where the mom and her son live on a horse farm and she used to be a teacher and a principal, but now they have a horse farm. And so like last Christmas I got her a Saint Anne medallion and I was patting myself on the back cause I was like, she's a mom, she's a teacher, she's a horse woman, not a horse, not a horse woman, you know...

C: Not a centaur.

B: ...an equestrian, equestrian. And so I was like, this is it. This is the slam dunk. I'm going to give her that Saint Anne medallion and she's going to understand why and that didn't happen. I mean, they are Catholic also, I should point out. I wasn't just expecting, I wasn't expecting a Baptist to know that or even know who Saint Anne is, but it did not have - no acknowledgement whatsoever on the Saint Anne medallion. It's fine. It doesn't matter. That's the kind of thought I put into Christmas presents. Just so you know. You did tell us a cute little story about your history with your own name. If you could please repeat it for the audience while the tape is rolling, please.

A: Yeah. So when I was growing up, I went to a French Catholic school because in Ontario Catholic schools are funded by public funds. Anyway, when we were in grade two or I guess just leading up to that, kids would always call me "Anne Le Banane," Anne the banana. And it like made me so angry. I hated it so much. And then when our class did their first confession, this boy in my class that I was friends with afterwards, he was like, "my first confession was calling you banana. And I had to say five Hail Marys." And I was very touched that he did that.

B: Do you feel that's an adequate punishment? Would you have been like, that deserved more Hail Marys? At least one our father in there? I don't know. Do you feel that the punishment was commensurate to the crime of calling you a banana?

A: I mean, yeah, I don't know. I think they should have thrown our father in there.

C: I remember in the Bible when Peter, I believe says, but what if someone were to call me a banana seven times? And Jesus says, even if it is 700 times, yeah, you must forgive them.

B: And I think we all remember from Dante's Inferno, the specific circle of hell for people who died, having not confessed the sin of calling other people various fruits. We all know it. We all know it. We all know it well.

C: The ninth. The ninth. That kid in your class is going to be chewed for eternity by one of Satan's mouths.

B: Yeah.

C: As he should be.

B: A very large fruit bat is going to eat him for eternity. All right. What if we talked about Bible? Let me throw that out here as a possibility. Can you talk to us about your cool Bible podcast that has just relatively recently wrapped up that is called "And Also Some Women" after a direct quote from Bible, which also gives the vibe of how Bible talks about women, which is, "and some women were there, question mark." And I do recommend that our listeners listen to it. It's a five episode series.

C: Covering all five women in the Bible.

B: That's great. Well, I don't want to describe it too much. I have listened to all five episodes. I will say that I just want to jump in there and get credit for that, I guess, because I have brain problems. But can you tell us what the show is about and what people can expect when they go listen to it, which they will do because we're giving it a strong recommendation right now?

A: Well, thank you. First of all, thank you for listening to it. The kind of like, I guess, elevator pitch is that it's reexamination of women in the Bible through a feminist lens, which that sounds very dry. I don't think it's as dry as that sounds. Three of the episodes focus on just one woman and then the other two, we did three women in one episode. And we talked to like, experts, mostly academics, and some of them have some really wild interpretations. And I love it because the wilder the better for me.

B: Yeah. I mean, you've had some guests who are, if people are familiar with biblical and religious academia, you've had some real names on the show. Definitely a couple people that I've been thinking about trying to get as guests on the show. Just for example, you had Amy-Jill Levine, right? You had her. She pops up all the time doing interviews and stuff on... It's interesting that she is a Jewish scholar who writes about Christianity, which I think is a relatively rare perspective. You often get the reverse. And then you had Elizabeth Schrader Polczer on, right?

A: Yes.

B: Yeah. Okay. I was like, you definitely did a Mary Magdalene episode and it would be weird not to have. We've talked about her on this show before. She is basically the main person in the world of Mary Magdalene at this point. And I do want to have her on the show, but she was also just on Dan McClellan's show. And I don't want to just look like I'm sniping guests from his show, even though we recorded our episode with Aaron Higashi first and it just his came out first, whatever. It doesn't matter. So yeah, you had some really cool guests. Definitely every episode you would name somebody and I'd be like, Ooh, they got so-and-so for this one. Really good. So yeah, a lot of really excellent guests. Let's see, who are some of the specific figures that you covered? I mentioned Mary Magdalene and Mary Magdalene is the first episode.

A: Yeah. Mary Magdalene.

B: Because I mean, the podcast was kind of sort of inspired by an article you wrote, right? For Broadview on Mary Magdalene. Is that...

A: Yeah. Yeah. What had happened was Broadview had received like a large financial gift from a patron and he had specifically said he wanted it to be something feminist, I think specifically about biblical women, because that was what his wife had done her thesis on for her PhD, I think. And so it was kind of in honor of her. And then one of my editors said, like, you know what, we've never done a podcast. Why don't we try doing a podcast? And then she said, why don't we get Anne involved? Because she loves doing feminist stuff about biblical women. And there was, yeah, that long form article I had done about Mary Magdalene, which came out in the spring of 2020.

B: Yeah, nice. Okay, so there's Mary Magdalene, there's one where you do like, three of the more like notorious evil women, right? It's like Delilah, Salome, Jezebel, right? It's an episode. Does Esther get a whole episode? Or is she part of a different episode?

A: She's the last part of the fourth episode, which was like Old Testament women.

B: Yeah, there's a number of the most prominent women in the Bible is a thing that I think our listeners will recognize by now is, yeah, not that there's not women in the Bible, it's just most of them are not prominent. And a lot of them don't get names.

C: And those that do get names, it's like a 40% chance their name is Mary, right?

B: Or Salome, which were literally statistically the most common names in Roman Judea. For women.

A: Yes.

B: Do you have plans to do another season to come back to it? Or is this like a statement that's done? I mean, has the show been received well enough that you have an impetus to do another season or?

A: I mean, I would love to, it depends on the magazine and you know, how things do from their perspective, whether they feel like it's done well. And I think it also depends on the donor if this is something he continues to want to have his money be spent on.

B: Just spitballing, if you were to do a second season, who are some women you'd like to cover in future episodes?

A: Ruth was a big one that we didn't cover in this one, who was kind of on the table. And then she just ended up not being there. Ruth, like Bathsheba, I think has a wild story. I like maybe some of the like New Testament, some of those ladies that Paul's friends with like Phoebe and Priscilla...

B: I was gonna say your co host on the show has the same name.

A: Yeah, her name is Junia.

B: Yeah, yeah, she has the name of a lady apostle.

A: Yes.

B: I feel like you could do an episode on these early women, apostles slash disciples slash missionaries, whatever that we only have very little information about within the biblical text itself. But yeah, Priscilla, Junia, so on. I feel like that could be an interesting episode.

A: Yeah, especially because Paul's so weird about women, but like, he likes these women.

B: Right? Yeah, I think that could be very interesting. And again, I do recommend to our listeners go check it out. It's only five episodes got some great experts on talking. It's well edited, very profesh.

A: And I think it goes to some weird places. I think the Eve episode goes the weirdest. That's my pitch for the podcast.

C: I have not yet listened. I'm planning on it, but I have not yet. Do you talk about everyone's favorite screech owl, Lilith?

A: We didn't we didn't get into Lilith because she's not like, technically in the Bible.

B: Yeah, technically, schmechnically.

C: I mean, sure, not technically, but also she's a screech owl who gives birth to all monsters.

B: Right? Yeah, I will say as of this recording, the most recent episode of the Data Over Dogma podcast is about Lilith. So if people do want to know more about Lilith, I would recommend checking that out or listen to our podcast that we make where we have also talked about Lilith in the past and have Lilith merchandise available in our merch store drawn by award winning artist Erica Henderson. Anyway, alright, so Bible. Yeah, pretty good. We are. Yeah, Bible not bad. But let's talk about saints, extra biblical saints.

A: Hell yeah.

B: Or biblical saints, I don't care. And you've written quite a lot about not just saints, but historical women in general and their impact on the world. Like you had a series. I can't think of the title of it now.

A: Queens of Infamy.

C: Queens of Infamy. I knew we had queens in there. Okay.

A: In which the popes make a lot of appearances.

B: Yeah. I think your interest in impactful historic women, your interest in Catholicism, it makes sense they would overlap. So as a result, you've written in various places and at various times at various venues about Lady Saints, including of course, the Mary Magdalene piece that we talked about, but also others. I think just if you go to a site and you look at like your author profile page, if you scroll down far enough, you're going to see a number of different saints that you have written about. Who like, and there's no pressure on this. It doesn't have to be like definitive, but like off the dome, if you had to pick like five, not your five favorite, but five of your favorite, we'll say all timer Lady Saints. If you were to make some kind of like Lady Saint Mount Rushmore or like Lady Saint headed Hydra, who would be on it?

C: If a beast were to rise from the ocean.

B: That's yeah. If the beast were to come from the sea.

C: With five heads.

B: And seven heads, 10 crowns, one horn, purple people eating. Who would the lady heads be? This is going great. This question is going great.

A: I feel like definitely Saint Dymphna. She's my number one best girl.

B: We'll be returning to her at more length than just a second.

A: Who else? I think I put Saint Anne on there because that's my namesake and she's pretty good. There's so many good ones. Oh, Joan of Arc. Definitely. Is it Wilgefortis, the one who grows a beard to turn away suitors? Yeah. I like her.

B: A great pick.

C: One of Benito's favorites.

B: Yep.

A: This is awful. I can't remember her name off of the top of my head. She's a weird Scottish Saint. She's the mother of Saint Mungo who founded, I want to say Glasgow. It's either Glasgow or Edinburgh, but I think it's Glasgow. Though now that I'm saying it, I'm not sure. But anyway, she also has a wild story of her own. Saint Ursula, another good one.

B: Ursula and her 32,000 virgins.

A: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

C: Seems like a story we should maybe cover. Yep. Although you can read about it in my

B: Yep. Although you can read about it in my translation of the history of the Kings of Britain available on my Patreon. Sorry, I had to do a little self plug there since it came up. Meanwhile, I'm Googling Saint Mungo.

A: Sorry. No, that's okay. I'm trying to remember too, which city he founded.

B: Glasgow. It was Glasgow.

A: Oh, I was right.

B: He is the founder and patron Saint in the city of Glasgow. And I mean, yeah, he's like one of the famous Scottish Saints that sounds fake when you hear it. When you see them in the bad books about the boy at the magic school, when you see that, you think that it is made up, but nope, that is real. And also when you find out that Hugh Grant's name is Hugh Mungo, that sounds fake. That sounds made up, but nope. Saint Mungo is a real guy of the sixth century.

C: You just almost made me say a cuss.

B: Yeah?

C: Let's see here. I'll be gosh darned.

B: Did you Google it and you thought I was saying a lie?

C: I sure did.

B: You thought I was making up what Hugh Grant's middle name is?

C: Why would you do that? You just gotta say it out loud once.

A: Yeah. It's like a thing you think of that it's like funny in the moment at the hospital. You're like, what if we named him Hugh Mungo? And then you just do.

B: Oh man. And also his mother is Saint Tinew or Thaneva.

C: Hugh Grant's mother is a Saint? I'm kidding. I was following the conversation. It just went in a lot of weird places.

B: Yeah, it did go. That's so unlike us for a conversation to shoot off into weird tangents. Let's see. Legendary Christian Saint venerated in medieval Glasgow, Scotland. A platonic priestess of the ancient kingdom of Gadotten. Nice. That was a few. Do you have others that you want to shout out right now?

A: I think I'm good. I'm trying to think. I remember there's one that's so weird and I think she's only venerated, I feel like in Portugal or something. And like one of her things is she gives birth to octoplets. She's another weird medieval one. And I'm like, what a thing. What a thing.

B: Those are the best kinds. Yeah. No shade to biblical saints, but like I need those medieval saints. The weirder the better. All right. But yeah, let's circle back to Saint Dymphna. So it can be said Dymphna or Dympna. Which one do you say?

A: I say Dymphna. Dymphna. Yeah. But in Belgium where they have her shrine, where she, they have her relics, they say Dympna. Dympna.

B: Yeah. Is it Geel, Belgium? Is that right?

A: Yeah. Except when I was there, like in English you would just say Geel. Geel. Yeah. And then when I was there, I was like on a day trip to Ghent and I had to buy a ticket back to Geel. And I was like trying to say it in Flemish or like in Dutch. The guy kept being like, what, what? And I was like, Geel, Geel. He knew what I was saying in Flemish. I think he just was trying to give me a hard time.

B: Before we get too much into your trip, that's what I want to talk about. So Saint Dymphna, not someone we've done an episode on and not someone I don't, I don't even remember to what degree we've talked about her on the show, if at all, which is weird. Because it seems like she'd be very relevant to our audience. I mean, for one thing, she's an Irish saint, which is something we love an Irish saint on the show. But also she has come to prominence, I would say, because she's the patron of people with mental illness. That's not a new thing. Sometimes, you know, saints accumulate new patronages, whereas this is her main thing since the middle ages. So can you tell us, the listeners, like who is Saint Dymphna? And then just tell us some brief who she is, but then also talk about your relationship to her as a saint and the project you did, and that kind of stuff.

A: Yeah, for sure. So I think of her story as having two parts. And the first part is her legend, which is that she was allegedly the daughter of an Irish king, Damian was her father, and he was a pagan, but her mother was a Christian, and Dymphna was also a Christian. And that was fine. Things were apparently going really well. And then when she was in her early teens, her mother suddenly died. And her father was stricken mad with grief. And in his madness, decided that he should marry again, but he would only marry someone who was as beautiful as accomplished as virtuous as his first wife. And he became fixated on this idea that the only person who fit the bill for all of these was his daughter. So obviously, that's not great. And this is like, I feel very typical of a lot of medieval saint stories that we've got a teenage girl, we've got some weird sex stuff.

B: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, from the medieval female saints that we've covered, you know, Barbara, Lucy, Agatha, and so on. So like so many of them, the idea is like the young woman dedicates her life to Christ, her father, who is a powerful man in some regard or another wants to force her to get married, she refuses, she gets martyred, right? Like, that's kind of like the standard formula for so many of these.

A: So the household priest who had been her mother's priest, and is now her priest, I guess, he's like, listen, let's just flee. And so she goes to her dad, and she's like, give me 40 days to make up my mind, very biblical number. And he's like, okay. So she takes a bunch of gold from the palace and flees on a ship and somehow ends up in Geel in what is now modern day Belgium, which then at this time, it would have been a village. And so she winds up there and she's got all this gold doesn't, I guess, have a whole lot to do. So she decides she's gonna use her gold to build a hospice, which would be like a hospital, I guess. And in some versions of her legend, she builds a hospice specifically for the mad kind of as a way of dealing with her feelings about her father. And so things are going good. She's built this hospice, it's going great. And then but she's like, spending all this Irish gold, which is apparently identifiable. And her father has sent out soldiers to try to find her and one of them hears a rumor of like, oh, there's all this Irish gold being spent in this small village. And so he goes there finds Dymphna, her father soon follows, he asks her to marry him again, and she's like, no. And so he cuts off her head and the head of the priest. And her first kind of miracle, again, in some versions of her legend is that a bunch of madmen from her hospice witness her martyrdom and are immediately cured.

B: Yes, you would think that's the opposite effect of what you would expect, right? You see someone beheaded and you go sane. So yeah, like if that - huge if true, as they say, if the story is true that she has created a hospice specifically for the care of people with mental illness that makes her extremely progressive in the treatment of mental illnesses by like 1000 years.

A: Yeah, I mean, this was the would even have been before that time of like medieval mad houses, because she was like a seventh century saint.

B: So this is like, like this is even like, this is like pre institutionalization, right? This is before, you know, your bedlams and what have you?

A: Yeah, like this man has a demon and we should cast him out of the village.

B: Yeah, or chain our shameful son in the basement or whatever. So yes, extreme. I mean, extremely ahead of her time, if true. So that's legend of St. Dymphna. How did you end up researching her following in her footsteps, so to speak? Can you talk about that her your project with her and her impact on your life?

A: This was at a time in my life when I had recently spent some time on a psych ward, and I was not doing great. I'm very depressed. And I had recently been released from the hospital. And I was just having a hard time working, I guess. And then I thought, like, I'll just start a little project where I write about saints. And it's not going to be for anything or for anyone. It'll just be like a make work project to get me out of the house during the day. And I'd heard of St. Dymphna and I had a medallion of hers. And like, I knew that she was the patron saint of the mentally ill, but I didn't know anything about her impact in Geel. And then there was this one book that I found in the library, I think it was called Faith Without Borders. And it had a story about Dymphna. And then it had a story kind of about what happened after she died, which is that they eventually kind of built a little shrine over her remains. And it became the site of pilgrimage specifically for people, the quote unquote, mad, which would include not just people with mental illness, but like people with epilepsy, neurological disorders, like broad medieval umbrella. And they would come and make pilgrimages and, you know, pray to St. Dymphna and hope that they would be cured. Obviously, lots of them weren't cured. And sometimes their families would just dump them in Geel, just abandon them. And over many, many years, it became part of Geel's culture that these people, these mad people began to be taken in by the families in Geel. And they would kind of like go to the church during the day to do this like ritual to cure them or whatever. But otherwise, they would live with these families and work on their farms. And, you know, it just developed into this really fascinating society where, you know, because such a large proportion of the people living in this town had mental illness, a lot of it just became very normalized. So a lot of these like, behaviors or symptoms weren't shocking to the people in the town, which, you know, kind of had the effect of for these, they eventually came to be called the pilgrims, you know, they eventually came to be called boarders. For them, it had the effect of, you know, they're living in a place where it's safe to have hallucinations or delusions or be depressed or whatever. And, you know, no one's gonna like throw them in jail for doing these things. So that helps alleviate some of the anxiety. Anyway, over the years, this goes on and on. And it's such a popular program. And then in the 1800s, through all this time, it's being run by the church. And then in the 1800s, the Belgian state takes over the program and makes a lot of improvements. And it's still ongoing today. And it's a really interesting program. Oh, and I should also say like, there was one newspaper article written about it in the 1800s. And they talked about how, for the people living in the town, it's like a point of pride, like when you get married, you would apply to like have a boarder come live with you. And if you get assigned a boarder, that is like a simple assign to all the rest of the town that you are good, upstanding citizens. That's like very much part of the culture of this town that like, it's such a mark of honor to have a boarder in your household. And to have a boarder removed from your household is a huge mark of shame, because that's telling everybody in the town that like you abused them or did something wrong. And so this program, it had its peak in the late 1930s, right before World War Two. And at that point, there were 16,000 people living in the town and 4000 boarders. So a huge program. And it's still ongoing today, much smaller, but it's really so interesting. Their whole kind of philosophy is that rather than to fix the person, it's to fix the world around them so that they can feel comfortable and safe in the world. And the language they use is very specific to that, like they say boarder rather than patient because they think that patient is a pathologizing word that indicates that there's a state of dysfunction that needs to be fixed, but rather they don't want to see them as people that need to be fixed. You know, for the families that they stay with, the families aren't told their diagnoses, because they don't want the families to see them as kind of a collection of symptoms, but rather as like, individuals with their own kind of quirks and personality stuff. It's just such an interesting way of looking at mental illness that I feel like is so different than most of the rest of the world.

B: Yeah, for sure. And I think what's really interesting is that this program, this tradition that's been going on for literally hundreds of years, is from an outside perspective, I think still is seen as a very progressive approach to mental health, right? It's seen as something so different, this like kind of deinstitutionalization that's central to their philosophy, I think is as seen as something like radical to the world outside that community. And yet it's something they've been doing for a long, long time.

A: Yeah, 100%. And it's like, yeah, when we talk about like medieval medicine, that does not have like positive connotations.

B: Yeah. Generally, no, generally people imagine leeches, etc. That's extremely cool. So yeah, you got to go and you saw the shrine and everything.

A: Yeah, I went and God works in mysterious ways. And the day that I happened to go was her feast day, May 15. And so the church was open all day, and they were running special tours, and there was a special mass. And that was really neat. And I got to see they have two reliquaries, like a regular wooden one, and then they have like a special silver one that they bring out on special occasions. So I got to see the special silver, which was dope. They have like a really interesting museum there that has a lot about St. Dymphna that I got to see, which was really neat. And this I laughed at one of the things they do through the museum is you can buy your own little like unpainted statue of Dymphna and paint it and it's like a program they run through the museum and they call it Pimp Your Dymp.

B: Wow.

C: It's also acceptable to say Pimph Your Dymph.

B: Both are acceptable pronunciations. Yeah. That is extremely cool. And I'm going to go on the record and I'm going to say St. Dymphna cured your anxiety about flying. Don't contradict me. Okay.

A: Oh, it's true. Ohio has a shrine to her, no?

B: Yes. Yes. But I can't, I don't remember where in Ohio it is. Hold on a second. US National Shrine of St. Dymphna is located inside St. Mary's Catholic Church in Massillon, Ohio, which is a city that does not even have a blue name on Wikipedia. I don't know where that is. Like Ohio is a pretty big state relatively speaking. So that could be close to me or very far from me.

C: Like literally every point on the planet earth.

B: Yeah, but it's a state contiguous to the state that I live in. That's what I'm getting.

C: It could be close to you or very far from you.

B: Yes, as is true from, okay. It's like a five hour drive from here. It's 300 miles. Okay. So not close, but yes. Yeah. There's a US National Shrine to her in Ohio. Extremely cool.

A: Oh, another funny thing about her is they used to have all of her bones and now they don't have many of them. Apparently, so they lost her skull, most of it, except for the jawbone. They're not like a hundred percent sure where it went. They think it might have been... So the first church was burned and then they built another one and they think they might have raked up her skull in a pillar, but they're not sure. And they don't want to like start taking down pillars to look. And then other bones are missing because there was kind of like an unscrupulous, I don't know if it was a deacon or what, but who was doing a little relic trade on the side.

B: Unfortunately quite common in those days.

C: I don't know if there's a phrase that we could use with as much regularity that is as harrowing on this podcast as they used to have all of her bones. That filled me with dread.

B: Yeah. Is there anything you would like to add before we get to some listener questions from our Discord people? Anything about any topic that we've discussed so far? You want to throw out some favorite apocryphal literature at this point or saints you think we should cover on the show?

A: Infancy James, obviously my favorite apocrypha because Saint Anne.

B: I mean, Infancy James, it's fundamental. Great. So yeah, our listeners in Discord, very excited that you're coming on the show. So we have a couple of listener questions that I have definitely looked at already. Bandyman asks, what's your favorite heresy? If you have one.

A: I don't know. This is going to make me sound bad, but like what would count as a heresy?

C: You could for instance, believe that Jesus was lesser than God.

B: Yeah. Right. Like some kind of Christological heresy, like Arianism, Adoptionism, Dosatism, Pelagianism. This may not be helping if you don't know.

C: You're just saying woreds.

B: If you don't have the heresies memorized by name.

A: What's the one that Nestorius did where he would not use the word Theotokos? I like that one where he got kicked out of being the bishop.

B: This is going to blow your mind, Nestorianism.

A: I like that one. I think anytime there's like a schism with two popes, does that count as a heresy? I like those.

B: I'm going to say yes. Definitely going to say yes, even though technically no, but yes. I did try to tell the Discord that you are not our third biblical studies PhD in a row and that they shouldn't ask the same kind of questions that they ask Dan and Aaron. But all right, let's see. Exquisite Wizard Samwise Gamzee would like to know, what are some of your thoughts on the stories of women seeking healing from Jesus in the gospels? Those are probably one of my favorite bits of Bible. I find them soothing to read when I'm feeling low. Do you have any thoughts in general on that? You get any vibes off of women coming to Jesus for healing? Like Samaritan woman, the woman touching the fringe of his garment, et cetera?

A: Yeah. I mean, you know, a big part of Mary Magdalene's story, she used to have seven demons in her, but then she had none, thanks to Jesus.

C: I can't believe we've said Mary Magdalene so much and have not clarified that that is out of whom he cast seven demons.

B: Yeah. We don't know that she had none. It doesn't say. It does say he cast seven. Maybe she had more, right? What if she had-

C: She could have had like, yeah, 12.

B: She had 12 demons and Jesus got most of them out.

C: Honestly, that's over half the demons, which is, that's got to be a relief.

B: I used to have a professor-

C: Seven demons inside you?

B: I used to have a college professor who I don't know how many demons he had in him, but one of his recurring sayings was, most is excellent, which was usually regarding me saying I got most of the homework done. So just think about Jesus taking that approach. I didn't get all the demons, but most is excellent.

C: I always think about that Calvin and Hobbes strip that's like, if the government was 70% competent, we would be ecstatic.

B: Yeah.

C: Which is a wild thing for a child to say to his imaginary tiger, but is true.

A: And perfect is the enemy of good.

B: Yeah, for sure. For sure. You know, you did your best, Jesus. You did your best, Jesus.

C: And since Jesus was perfect, he is the enemy of good. Therefore-

B: Hmm. Hmm.

C: The world has fallen.

B: Something to think about. Okay. Any thoughts on these stories of healing? Just like, you like them?

A: Yeah, I like them. It's pretty nice. So, the healing women bringing the, like he brings Jairus, his daughter back to life. Is that how you say it? I know someone whose name, but and he pronounces it Jairus. How do people usually say it?

B: Yeah, that's right. You're good.

C: I believe it's "gyros".

B: Oh. Yeah. Look, the thing I've learned about this show is it doesn't matter how you pronounce anyone's name, because even if you're 100% correct, someone will correct you. It happens every time. Even if you say it the exact right way, if you don't say it the same way, someone else has heard it, they'll get you. Same person asks if you have thoughts on the idea that women throughout the gospel show a faith that's depicted as stronger and less foolish than men in the gospels. If that makes sense, you have thoughts on the idea that women in the gospels are depicted as less foolish in their faith?

A: I mean, a lot of what we get in the gospels is the apostles, non ding-dongs. So, I guess if that's the stick against whom we measure everyone else, then yeah.

B: I mean, I think there's stuff to be said about that. I mean, yes, a common goof on this show is we talk about the apostles being shown as being relatively incompetent, but we've also talked about how that's largely, it's a literary convention because there has to be a reason why they didn't anticipate the things that happened. It's necessary for them not to have understood or whatever. And also, I think you have to read into some of the texts a little bit to get things like, well, we're talking about Elizabeth Schrader Polczer, and like we said, she is the main person of Mary Magdalene in the world right now. And she talks about how she can, by examining texts, right, she does a lot of textual criticism. She's looking at the manuscripts specifically and comparing them. And by looking at some of the oldest manuscripts, she's been able to determine that there appears to have been some selective editing going on to, in her hypothesis, diminish the role of Mary Magdalene in the early church. A thing that we talked about on this show as we covered Mary Magdalene, it's talked about how in the Middle Ages, Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany get conflated and they get talked about as if they're the same person. And we talk about how that's just the confusion of too many Marys and it's a common medieval thing. As people are telling these stories, it's natural that they can get confused. And we've talked about it from that angle, so that it's kind of natural that you would confuse Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany. What's interesting about Dr. Schrader's work is that she actually says, if you go back, it seems like Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany probably were the same person who were turned into two different people in order to minimize Mary Magdalene's impact on the gospels. And that in the original version of John, only Mary was the sister of Lazarus, but that Martha was edited in in order to dilute Mary Magdalene's impact and to make her not be the one who gives the Christological confession. Because in the Synoptic Gospels, it's Peter, but in John it's Martha, but she argues that it would have originally been Mary. Interesting to think about, I guess.

A: Yeah. And also, for sure, Pope Gregory the Great, he's the one that called Mary Magdalene a prostitute, but he says that Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany are the same person. So there was definitely a somewhat official belief in the Middle Ages.

B: Yeah, for sure. I mean, yeah, his conclusion of Mary Magdalene as a sex worker comes from him, yeah, combining Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, and the sinful woman who washes Jesus' feet into one figure, right?

A: One superwoman.

B: Yeah. But it's interesting to think that maybe he was accidentally doing something right, you know what I mean? By conflating the two figures who maybe were originally the same. That's really interesting. And yeah, like I said, she's someone I'd like to get on the show to talk about that stuff.

A: Yeah, she was so fascinating to interview and just really cool.

B: She was on the Gilmore Girls. That's a thing that happened in her life. Before she became a scholar, she was a musician. On the show, we definitely talked about how she opened for Rusted Root, and she was on the Gilmore Girls. And we got to ask her about that if we get her on the show.

A: I guess to that question, yeah, I guess women, I mean, they're the ones who stay at the cross, they're the ones who are at the tomb. So in a way, one could argue they're doing more work around Jesus' death than the apostles who have kind of all fled.

B: Right. It does seem like there have perhaps been some in the redaction of the gospels, it seems like there's perhaps been some effort to minimize the role of women in the early church. I think there's evidence for that. On a similar topic, Kivatar asks about your opinions on Mary Magdalene fanfic throughout the centuries, people writing on Mary Magdalene. Do you have thoughts on that? Do you have any particular takes on her that you find interesting or weird?

A: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of weird medieval mythology about her. Like there's that whole story that she went in a boat with a few of the other Marys, and they went to France.

B: Obviously, yeah.

A: Where else would you go? And she became a hermit and lived in a cave and grew very long hair all over her body and just was like a naked, hairy cave lady thinking about Jesus the rest of her life. And obviously, there's a monastery in France that says that it has at least her skull. And if you Google skull of Mary Magdalene, it's very beautiful because they've put golden jewels all over it. It's like peak Catholic, I would say.

B: Oh, yeah. Yes, we're very into the golden statue reliquary of Mary Magdalene, which we-

C: The space kook?

B: It looks like the space kook from Scooby-Doo. I don't know if you know that episode of classic Scooby-Doo, but yeah, she looks like the space kook.

C: Oh, to be a hermit covered in body hair in a cave just thinking about Jesus.

B: Yeah.

C: Big mood.

A: Yep.

B: Yep. A big mood. Great. Thank you for this great question. Frozen trout, here we go. What is the largest number of eggs that you have eaten in one sitting?

A: I mean, I was going to say probably two or three, but if we're talking about it's a potluck and somebody brought deviled eggs, I've eaten more than three.

B: Give us a rough estimate.

A: I mean, because that's only half an egg, but I've definitely probably eaten at least 10 of those. So, that's like five eggs.

B: Five. Okay. Well-

A: But I mean, I can't resist a deviled egg.

B: My boy Luke can eat 50 eggs. I don't know if you've heard about that, but he can.

A: But were they deviled eggs?

C: Luke the physician?

B: Yes. Yes.

C: Luke the evangelist?

B: Luke the evangelist. My-

C: Am I forgetting significant egg content?

B: My boy Luke the evangelist can eat 50 eggs. It is well known. That's why he's represented by the bowl. Also famous for eating large numbers of eggs. That's what everyone knows.

C: Demonstrably untrue.

B: Everyone knows this about bovines. They love eggs. One last listener question and you can just however you want to answer this is fine. Do you have any thoughts on the Schofield reference Bible and how it helped shape American fundamentalism and the modern American right in general? Do you have thoughts on that? Yes? Nah?

A: I don't know what that is.

B: Okay. Well, that's fine. No problem.

A: I'm a Canadian.

B: That's all good. Sorry, Brad. I tried. We're going to get to your question one of these days. I don't know. Maybe next time, buddy. Okay. I don't know what that is either, but it sounds bad. From context, I'm going to say it's bad. It is bad. That's also me continuing this running goof about Brad's question from Discord. Okay. So we're almost done here. I asked you before the show, if you could create a short list of books that you might recommend for our listeners and you did do that. Could you just list those off now so that those who are listening can know what to look for to get on your level?

A: All right. Jesus Wars by Philip Jenkins, which I just wrote, which is about kind of the early fights in the early church about what was going to be included in the New Testament. And it gets violent. I shouldn't say that with so much relish, but it's really interesting. I'm like, and let me tell you. Absolute Monarchs, a History of the Papacy by John Julius Norwich, which I would say is like a pretty irreverent and funny and like decent History of the Papacy that the New York Times said was like a beach read.

B: Not many books about the papacy that you can describe that way, to be fair.

C: I mean, I don't know. Like a lot of stories of Popes that I've read do have like an enemies to lovers element. I've heard that in the Vatican, there is only one bed.

B: Yeah, they do say that. It is known.

A: It is known.

B: They say Vatican's only got one bed. Cows love eggs. Everyone knows these facts.

A: That's the book that I learned the term pornocracy from.

B: Oh, pornocracy. Yeah. Yeah.

C: I learned that also from a book about Popes, but a different book about Popes. Probably referring to the same Pope.

A: Yeah. It's just a great term, though. How the American right hasn't revived that, I don't know. I guess it's too Popish.

B: Yeah.

A: But yeah, the other books, these are three from guests that I had on the podcast. One is The Misunderstood Jew, The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus by Amy-Jill Levine, who as you mentioned, she's Jewish, but she's a New Testament scholar. And so she has like a really great perspective on the life of Jesus. And I thought it was a really interesting book. And there was stuff in there that I had literally never thought about or questioned. Another one is Gender Play in the Hebrew Bible by Amy Kalmanofsky, who I interviewed about Jezebel and she is a big Jezebel fan girl. And her writings about her are really interesting. That story is in Gender Play in the Hebrew Bible. And then the last book is Dancing Girls, Loose Ladies and Women of the Cloth, The Women in Jesus's Life by F. Scott Spencer. And we interviewed him about Salome. And I think that was one of my favorite bits because I love the story of Salome. I love the Herods. I could do an entire podcast on the Herods because they are so bonkers.

B: That would be really interesting, actually.

C: If you ever want to come back and do an episode of this podcast, then you are welcome to join us and talk about the Herods.

A: I would love that. One of the things of Queens of Infamy that I did was on Herod, the Great's second wife, Mary Amne, who that's a wild story. And one of my favorite Herod facts is that he wanted to put a hit out on Cleopatra, but didn't. He really hated Cleopatra.

C: Seems rude.

B: Yeah. But also that's one of those things that we talk about on the show sometimes. It's the seeing your teacher at the grocery store vibe. I think the first one where we talked about that is when Paul and Barnabas are compared to Zeus and Hermes in the Bible. And Chris is like, you don't expect to see Zeus and Hermes pop up in the Bible. It's like, I know them from somewhere else. I'm not expecting to see them here. And so it's like, you don't expect Cleopatra to pop into your A Christmas Story guy, right? The guy who tried to kill a baby, who killed as many as 400,000 babies, depending on the version of the Massacre of the Innocents that you read.

C: Unless of course you have the experience that I have watching so many episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess.

B: Yes. A show which famously claims that all of antiquity happened over the course of...

C: Six years. Yeah.

B: Three weeks. Yeah.

C: Yeah.

A: Yeah. Herod's one of those guys that I was like, all right, I know the Massacre of the Innocents. There's not really any evidence that that happened. And I was like, is the Bible just doing him dirty in an anti-Semitic kind of way? Maybe he wasn't that bad. And then you start reading about his life and you're like, oh my God.

B: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You learn about it and you're like, is he really that bad? And then you

A: read it and you're like, oh, he's worse. Herod, the not so great, if I'm being honest.

C: Unbelievable burn.

B: He felt that one.

A: Yeah.

B: Okay. But before we go, one final question, the most important question of all, Chris, if you would please ask the final question.

C: Which of Wolverine's costumes do you think is the best?

A: I have never seen a movie with Wolverine in it.

C: That's okay. He's primarily a comic book character.

B: Yeah.

A: So presumably you have read several issues of Uncanny X-Men, X-Force.

B: Right. So...

C: Wolverine solo title, Wolverine volume two, The Frank Miler/Chris Claremont miniseries, Wolverine volume one.

B: When we say the name Wolverine to you, what do you see him wearing in your head?

A: I picture Hugh Jackman in the Music Man.

B: Great.

C: Okay. So that's one vote for the brown and tan costume.

B: Yeah.

C: One vote for the yellow costume and one vote for the Music Man.

B: Did Aaron say the yellow costume? I thought he said...

C: Aaron said he would go with whatever I said and I said the yellow costume.

B: Okay. I thought he said he liked Wolverine in Japan. I just remember, I imagine him meeting Wolverine wearing a kimono at his failed wedding.

C: At his wedding. Yeah. His tragic wedding to Mariko Yashida.

B: Yeah. And then one vote for him as the Music Man.

C: Specifically Hugh Jackman as the Music Man.

B: Hugh Jackman.

C: So Wolverine as Hugh Jackman as the Music Man.

A: It is a Wolverine who knows the territory.

B: You got to know the territory.

C: I was about to make a joke and then I realized that what I was actually going to make a joke about was the monorail.

B: Yeah. Yeah. That happens. Thank you to our very special guest, Anne Thériault, for coming and talking to us about nonsense for a long time. Thank you for indulging our nonsense. I hope you had an okay time because we loved having you on.

A: Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun.

B: And you are welcome to come back at any time. Once a MultiPal, always a MultiPal. So you can, if you ever have something you want to talk about or plug, just drop us a line. In fact, actually on that very topic, please tell the people where they can find you online and where they can find your work and where they should throw money at you. How can they do that?

A: They can find me on Twitter at Anne, A-N-N-E, underscore, T-H-E-R-I-A-U-L-T. That's kind of the primary place I am online. You can find my work by Googling my name, I guess. I do have a Patreon. It's linked on my Twitter bio. I haven't updated the description of it in a very long time. So in the description, it says, I'm trying to recoup finances from having bed bugs, but I haven't had bed bugs since 2014. So I'm sorry.

C: That's, that's, I mean, first of all, that's an incredible thing to put in your bio. Second of all, that's an incredible thing to be like, just so everybody knows I'm not nasty for nine years.

A: Although I did have them for almost a year because they are very hard to get rid of.

B: Even the Apostle John had to deal with bed bugs in the Acts of John. We all know this. So if even the beloved disciple...

C: And that is why we say to this day, sleep tight.

B: All right, great. So yes, everyone listening, please go support Anne and her work and please help her recover from her 10th consecutive year of bed bugs.

C: Anne thank you so much for joining us. Please come back and we'll do an episode about the Herods. That actually sounds super fun.

A: Yeah, preparing a dossier as we speak.

C: Please do.

[MUSIC]

C: Thanks once again, Anne Thériault, for joining us. That was a very, very fun time.

B: Yeah. Excellent discussion. Yet another successful MultiPals episode in the can. Great job, everyone. Great job.

C: Yes. Great job. And if you thought it was a great job, maybe you want to kick your boys a little bit of a love offering.

B: Yeah, that would be great. If you like the show and you like the things we do and the cool people that we talk to, then you can help us out and help us keep the show going by supporting us on Ko-Fi. Ko-Fi.com/apocrypals. That's ko-fi.com apocrypals. And you can go there and leave a donation in any amount, really, and you can set up one-time donations or recurring donations. And we have special incentives in the Discord for people who are donors and so on. We appreciate everyone who has done that. It literally is how we're able to do the show. We couldn't do it without your support. So thank you, everyone who has gone to ko-fi.com slash apocrypals and left a donation. Otherwise, if you can't support us financially, that's also OK. You can help us out by leaving a rating or review on your podcast app of choice, especially Apple Podcasts. Leave us five stars, drop a nice review, or, you know, just talk about us somewhere on the Internet. Tell your friends in real time space where you see their skin body and not just like their name on a screen.

C: Why did you say it that way?

B: It's I mean, it's technically correct.

C: It's- I- I'm... I'm taking an extra 10 percent. The split is now 60 40 because you said that

B: It was... ummm... worth it? Question mark. But otherwise, if you're looking for us, you want to keep up with us in between episodes. We are still for the time being on the increasingly worse website, Twitter @apocrypals. We're also on Tumblr and apocrypals.tumblr.com. We're on Discord. Just Google Apocrypals Discord and you'll find the invite link. Join us over there. We've got a great community, and that's where we're taking listener questions from on these multi pals episodes. So join us over there. We don't just discuss the show and Bible. We've got all sorts of different topics. So feel free to join this community of cool and occasionally extremely weird people.

C: I'm also I'm on BlueSky now, but I don't think you can make like a locked account on there. And I like looked away for a little bit and then people were following me and I'm like, oh, not this again. So I think maybe social media just might not be for me

B: at this time in my life. I'm also on BlueSky.

C: Don't follow me there. Don't follow me there.

B: Do follow me on BlueSky. Do feel free to follow me on BlueSky. Benito Cerwno all one word. Otherwise, yeah, I'm still on Twitter for now. Benito underscore Cereno. I'm also on Instagram Benito underscore Cereno. And most importantly, and I cannot stress this enough. Most importantly, I am on Patreon dot com slash Benito Cereno. All one word. I got all sorts of stuff going on over there. I'm doing weekly horror movie reviews. You can get those for one dollar. Even at the one dollar level, you can get it's a mere two bits for a review and recommendation of a movie you have probably not seen that in addition to my ongoing Latin translation projects, comics, previews, old comic PDFs, Christmas stories, all that stuff that you can get on my Patreon. Please help me be alive by going to Patreon dot com slash Benito Cereno. Would you like Benito to continue being alive and living indoors? Then check out Patreon dot com slash Benito Cereno. I cannot overstate. Please do. Please do that. Chris, what about you? Where can the people find our good friend, Christopher Sims?

C: Everybody can find me by going to THE dash ISB dot com. That is my website. It's got links to all the stuff. You can follow me on that bad website. I don't go there anymore. I'd like to check in every now and then just to watch the slow decline. But, honestly, the rapid decline.

B: I've been trying to phase it out now that I got on to BlueSky, but I feel like so many people jumped to threads. I don't know what's happened. I'm not going to sign up for threads. Don't look for me on threads.

C: I'm not doing threads. I didn't do Mastodon or Ello. Yeah, I have picked the Metropolis Kid. That is Blue Sky.

B: Yeah. Yeah, I am on Blue Sky. That's the horse I'm picking.

C: But don't follow me there.

B: Yeah, but do you can you can feel free to follow me.

C: Don't go finding me, I am not on Blue Sky looking to be a fisher of men. I'll tell you that.

B: So anyone who has an inclination to follow Chris on BlueSky, just follow me instead.

C: Just follow Benito.

B: Just follow me and subscribe to my Patreon.

C: The account is going to be very similar. Probably.

B: There's only one way to find out.

C: The only thing I posted on BlueSky so far is a panel from Usagi Yojimbo that has increasingly become my life's philosophy.

B: Yeah, I saw it.

C: I think about it every single day and I'm thinking about getting it tattooed on my body.

B: Yeah, that's probably going to happen. I can see it.

C: Speaking of things that are tattooed on my body. What if I told everybody the sword and the shield on my arms were the sword of the spirit and the shield of faith?

B: Yeah, isn't it?

C: It's definitely not.

B: No, no, it's not.

C: It's from the game Dungeons and Dragons.

B: Oh, you have a different-- you have a different sword tattoo.

C: Oh, yeah, I have two swords and I want to get a third. And my wife has told me, hey, maybe chill with the sword tattoos. At least get like a couple other things before you get Andúril, the flame of the West.

B: I don't want to contradict your wife, but what if you got a lot more sword tattoos?

C: I want them. I want every sword that I have ever loved tattooed on my body. And folks, that's a lot of swords. I love swords, dude. You know what? Swords are cool.

B: Swords are extremely cool. That is a subject on which you and I are in complete agreement.

C: She was like, maybe you should get something that's not a sword. And I was like, what, like a knife? I mean... okay.

B: Yeah, like like a like a halberd or something.

C: Oh, a halberd would be pretty cool. I'm going to get a thigh tattoo of Andúril I think.

B: I think that'd be pretty sick.

C: Yeah, folks, I have great news. And Benito, I have good news for you. Oh, which is that I have finished the legend of Zelda Tears of Kingdom.

B: Oh, wow. Chris, are you from the Yiga clan? Because what you're telling me right now is mighty bananas.

C: Oh, you almost knocked my headphones off. Oh, that was good. That was very, very good. Very, very good. That means that I can finally read the Didache, which means our next episode is going to be about the Didache, folks. It's going to happen finally. And we got to get that knocked out because we have to do our contractually obligated approximate week episode coming soon in, I guess, the third week of August.

B: I mean, we do also already have other guests lined up as well, so...

C: But those are definitely going to be the next two things we do, probably.

B: OK, sounds great. I'm excited.

C: So do not miss those. Be here for those. Please join us and we'll have some fun talking to each other. I already know. I've already put it in our request for my birthday present from Benito.

B: Yeah. So keep a lookout for more episodes forthcoming in the next little while.

C: Until then, everybody, don't forget, Black Lives Matter.

B: Trans rights are human rights.

C: As are abortion rights.

B: Cops. Are not your friends.

C: But we love you. And for Benito Cereno, I've been Chris Sims. Until next time, Benito, peace be with you.

B: And also. With you. Tabernouche is a very cute sounding word.

C: That, of course, is from the like word for where you put your copy of Stranglehold by Ted Nugent. OK. All right. Look, sometimes it's a shotgun.

B: Yeah.

C: Sometimes we just see how many hit.

B: Look, nobody knows that better than me. Don't worry about it. I know it.

C: Lucas, cut that one out. I'm embarrassed now.

B: Oh, don't be embarrassed.

C: Benito made me feel that, and I hope he's happy with that.

B: I told myself this time going into this episode, I was like, don't make any kind of offhand joke that makes Chris feel bad this time.

C: Well...

B: Too late.

C: Seems like you're just a naturally bad person.

B: Yeah, that's that's fair. People constantly commenting on my cruelty, my casual cruelty.