Simon Peter's Sweet Sixteen (Transcript)

Chris Sims: "When Jesus saw large crowds around him, he gave the order to go to the other side of the sea. A scribe approached him and said, 'Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.' Jesus told him, 'Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.' 'Lord, another of his disciples said, 'first let me go bury my father.' But Jesus told him, 'Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.'" The Gospel of Matthew, chapter 8, verses 18 through 22.

[Music: Live and Let Die]

C: Hello everybody and welcome to Apocrypals. This is the podcast where two non-believers read through the Bible and we really try not to be jerks about it. My name is Chris Sims and with me as always is Benito Cereno. Benito, how are you today?

B: Good, I'm feeling kind of divided. A little divided if you feel me.

C: As though you're in two times at once?

B: Yeah, it is a little bit like that.

C: Well, when we get our resurrection bodies, we will be able to travel the time stream.

B: Oh man, I cannot wait.

C: By vibrating.

B: Good, from Earth One to Earth Two.

C: Folks, if you listened to last week's episode, which you should, as it's part one of our discussion of Matthew, you'll know that we did not originally intend for this to be a two-part episode. We just talked a lot.

B: Yeah.

C: And that's what happens.

B: Yeah, we did a heckin' bamboozle. Get it, get it, because we're talking about dogs. That's how dogs talk.

C: Is it how dogs talk?

B: Yeah, that's what they say. They say "heck and bamboozle." That's their favorite thing.

C: Is this... Can you explain this metaphor?

B: It's not a metaphor.

C: Can you explain this parable to me?

B: It's not a metaphor, don't you see?

C: In the fashion of Peter?

B: Go back to the Acts of Peter, and he says, "Go and tell Simon Magus that his heck and bamboozle is over." It's done and that doggo exited the house, that sweet pupper. That's sweet, sweet pupper.

C: So in a few moments, you're going to hear Chris and Benito from the distant past of last week

B: Mm-hmm.

C: ...talk about the appearance of dogs in the Bible before we get into the rest of it. But before we do that Can we talk about the verse I read at the top of the show because we didn't really get into that one

B: Yeah, that's true.

C: Am I reading this correctly? that Jesus, the Son of Man, the Lord, is like, "Hey, if you really want to help me out, I don't really have a place to crash tonight." And the guy's like, "Awesome, but I do need to go bury my father who died." And Jesus is like, "Leave him."

B: Yeah, the dead are dead. Leave the dead to bury their own. And Jesus makes it very clear later on, he's the God of the living, not the God of the dead. he's here to minister to the living, the dead can take care of themselves, as we'll see later. The dead clearly have the capacity and ability to move around, etc. So.

C: Okay, but like, on a very practical level, you should not leave dead bodies.

B: Yeah, don't, yeah, don't, don't do that, probably. No.

C: Yeah, that's, that's a, that's bad news. That's the bad news bears, everybody.

B: I suspect what he actually means here is that the dead, those who are not willing to follow Jesus, should be left responsible for dealing with a dead body, the touching of which could defile you, spiritually.

C: But there seems to be an immediacy to what this disciple is saying, where he's like, "I have to go bury my father?" That's a good... if your employer does not give you time off for that, then that is, I mean, maybe go onto Glassdoor with that one. One star.

B: You know what Jesus would say? Jesus would say, "Who is my father? Who even is my mother? These are my mother and my brothers. They're alive."

C: Okay, fair enough. All right, so we are going to dive back into our discussion of Matthew. Do enjoy the second half of this episode, and maybe, just maybe, when we get to Luke, it'll take us four hours.

B: Hopefully not, because Synoptic stuff, we've already covered much of the plot, and we've already talked about what a gospel is and what a Synoptic gospel is. We came up with a definitive solution for the Synoptic problem. I hope you guys all understood that. So I don't think we have to deal with those issues in the next episode. Hopefully we're back to normal length.

C: Well, there's one thing I know about the Gospel of Luke that can affect both you and I specifically, is that it's a really good thing that we are not two people who could talk just about the Christmas story for the next four days.

B: Yep, good thing. Very good thing.

C: All right, everybody, we will be back present time, Chris and Benito, who are actually also recent past Chris and Benito, we'll be back at the end of the show. Get ready to hear about Dogs of the Bible.

B: People in the Bible don't really care for dogs. There's pretty much zero positive mentions of dogs anywhere in the Bible. If you see them, it's probably 'cause it's a metaphor for something being senselessly devoured. So not dog people.

C: Okay, but did they have dogs? Like, have they met a dog?

B: Yeah, sure. I think you actually asked me what kind of dogs they would have had in the Bible. I had to look this up.

C: I was having a conversation outside of the realm of the podcast, 'cause it started with finding out that there are some people who give their dogs bar mitzvahs.

B: Oh, wow. Like 13 in dog years, I assume.

C: That's what I was trying to figure out.

B: Oh, okay.

C: 'Cause if the dog is 13, then that's kind of a nice thing to do for an older dog. If the dog's two and a half, I don't know.

B: Yeah, yeah, I don't know. The only breed of dog that's mentioned by name in the Bible is the greyhound, which is mentioned in, I wanna say Proverbs, but that probably gives you a good idea of the kind of dogs they would have had in and around Israel at that time. The breeds--

C: Greyhounds are good dogs?

B: Yeah, basically those breeds of dogs that are known as pariah dogs, So your Greyhounds, your Afghan hounds, your various long, skinny, weird looking dogs is going to be what they had probably.

C: Okay, so where is it written in scripture that all dogs go to heaven?

B: That is the Gospel according to Don Bluth.

C: Oh, that's definitely apocryphal.

B: Yeah, most definitely.

C: Alright, why don't we move on a little bit to chapter 8.

B: All right.

C: You know what it's time for, Benito?

B: What's it time for, Chris?

[Music: Runnin' With the Devil]

C: What's up, everybody? It's Hellwatch.

B: Hellwatch.

C: Here's what it says in the HCSB, and I know I give the HCSB a hard time for not having that good, good language that you get from our pal King James, "but the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Tell me about the outer darkness.

B: Yep, I will. Uh, yeah, so outer darkness. So you have to understand like ancient cosmology. This is not just, um, ancient Israelites, but Romans, Greeks, other people have similar concepts, right, where the sky's held up by mountains at the end of the earth. One of those mountains may or may not be the Titan Atlas. Outside those mountains is just its darkness, the upper air, whatever. And so, Bible times, Bible people, the idea is that the Garden of Eden is on the eastern border, and then the outer darkness is to the extreme west. And so, this outer darkness that gets used as a term a number of times, it comes to be associated with Gehenna, which of course later comes to be Hell. And so Matthew is pretty much the only of the evangelists that uses the phrase outer darkness, but yeah, he uses it. Outer darkness and grinding your teeth, pretty common in Matthew.

C: Yeah, it comes up quite a bit. Is this where the idea comes from that Hell is not necessarily like a lake of fire or a place of torture, but just a place that exists beyond God's light. Is that the idea of the outer darkness?

B: Quite possibly. I mean, yeah, you do get that idea that it's not just a burning garbage dump where people are punished. It's, yeah, it's dark and it's cold and it's, yeah, it's separate from God's light. So yeah, Matthew, I guess, does add that soupçon of flavor to it.

C: So beyond the outer darkness, beyond the phrase, "the outer darkness,"" not like, not like into the outer limits, we mostly, we get a lot of new versions. We get a lot of ultimate Mark. Right.

B: Yeah, a little bit of ultimate Mark for sure.

C: We go through the same things. It doesn't have the sandwich structure.

B: Right.

C: The fig tree is not seen and blighted before the template just happens afterwards in this.

B: Right. Yeah.

C: I do like, there's a bit in chapter 11, verse 18, where he's talking about John the Baptist. "For John did not come eating or drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.' The son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds."

B: That's the way though, right? I mean, like, you can't please, you can't please anybody.

C: Can't win for losing.

B: Can't do, you can't do it, my man. One thing that's interesting about this section, during the different narrative sections, right, we talked about the five and five structure. So during the narrative sections, you have Jesus performing a number of miracles. And in contrast to Mark, where Mark's Jesus was very similar to a Magus in the way that he performs miracles, spitting in guys' mouths and stuff, right?

C: Uh-huh. On their eyes, to be fair. He spat in people's eyes.

B: It was both, and their ears. He definitely did wet willy to a guy to make him hear. There's a lot of spit going around. Matthew's like, "Let's get rid of that spit," because he really kind of wants to contrast Jesus with these miracle-working guys who were, as I've mentioned a couple times before, not super uncommon in Judea and the surrounding regions at that time. And so yeah, Matthew really kind of cleans that up. There's no spit, there's no magic words, that kind of stuff is gone in Matthew.

But one thing that happens only in the context of miracles I think is interesting is you see Jesus being referred to as the son of David. For example, this guy calls out to him for him to be healed, this is in chapter nine, I should say. And it's just one of these different titles. And it's interesting because in Mark, we even see Jesus specifically refute the idea of being the son of David. He says he's not. But here in Matthew, it's one of three messianic titles that gets used a lot. Obviously, in Mark, we saw Son of Man a ton, right? That was kind of the main one. But here in Matthew, it's much more clear that Jesus is not just the Son of Man, he's also the Son of David, which is this name that in the context of Matthew is used only when he's doing miracles, and it's only for the people of Israel. It's not used in the context of him helping Gentiles at all.

The idea that the Messiah would be of the line of David is an important one. That's obviously why David has to be part of the genealogy. that's at the beginning of the book because the Messiah is, he's even called, I'm going to say Hebrew wrong, I'm sorry Hebrew speakers, but he's even called the Moshiach ben David, right? He's the anointed son of David. And so that's a major idea. So we see him fulfilling that. Here, as a son of man, he's again that apocalyptic figure. He's more of a political figure who's coming to judge the world. He's coming to tell his people and his followers, "Hey, I'm coming to do it. My enemies are not going to be ready for it." But we also see very firmly established in Matthew in a way that's not, in my opinion, established in Mark. Jesus says, the Son of God, he's Emmanuel. He's God present with us. He's God with us, God revealing himself through the sun. And so in this context it helps to know that, yeah, I mean the Messiah is a major tenet of Judaism, right? It's one of the foundational ideas that you have to expect that the anointed one of God is coming and that he's going to usher in a messianic age, right?

Some Jewish apocalyptic sects might have been expecting two messiahs, one that would have been a political leader, a military ruler who would defeat the Romans and then reclaim Jerusalem and Israel, but then also a high priest who would come and cleanse the temple. And I mean, you could argue that we had those boys. You could say, what was his name again? Cyrus the Great came and rebuilt the temple. That guy happened. And then Ezra, who we'll read about him later, he comes and he's the high priest that cleanses the temple following the exile. So you could say it's that, but people are still waiting. And arguably, a lot of people would say that the reason that Jesus is not accepted is 'cause he doesn't fit the traditional mold. He's not the military leader. He doesn't come and lead an army to overthrow the Romans. Some people would even say that's why Judas betrays Jesus is because he was expecting a particular idea of the Messiah, Jesus didn't fit it, and so he betrays him.

So anyway, I just want to talk about those different messianic titles that we see throughout David, or not David, throughout Matthew, Son of David being one that was not used in Mark.

C: There's something else I want to talk about with regards to Jesus and family, but I'm not going to do the drop again. We do have a Hellwatch part two, which comes in chapter 13 verse 49 and 50, which is, he says, "So it will be at the end of the age, the angels will go out, separate the evil people from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." This is the last panel of every Jack Chick comic.

B: Yeah.

C: Ha ha ha.

B: Yeah, pretty much, man.

C: Now, the reference to the blazing furnace there. Is that another reference to Gehenna or is that, I mean, we've seen a furnace before in the Book of Daniel. We've seen an angel show up and deal with a furnace before.

B: Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, the idea of fiery destruction, that's what we're kind of, that's going to become and stay the sustaining metaphor for post-mortem destruction of the soul.

C: So, I want to get to these two incidents with Jesus' family.

B: Okay, yeah, yeah, all right.

C: And you probably know which ones they are. This is chapter 12, verse 46 through 50. "He was still speaking to the crowds when suddenly his mother and brothers were standing outside wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, 'Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside wanting to speak to you.' But he replied to the one who told him, 'Who is my mother and who are my brothers?' And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, 'Here are my mother and and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my father in heaven, that person is my brother and sister and mother.'" That definitely feels like Mary and Jude and Joses showed up and they were like, "Hey, can we have a minute?" And he was like, "No."

B: "I'm working right now, Mom?"

C: Yeah, kind of like, first of all, classic family dynamic. They show up at work and he he tries to play it off and be cool about it. But kind of a diss on Mary, the mother of the church, she who was beloved by God.

B: Yeah, she still seems like a bit of a transitional figure here, huh? We still don't, we get a little bit more Mary at the beginning, but yeah, she's still not quite where she will be, yeah.

C: Well, what's wild is by the end of this book, by the end of this gospel, she is referred to as the other Mary. Like yeah, yeah, you know Mary Magdalene was there and other Mary.

B: That might be some other other Mary. There's a whole thing. I don't I'm not prepared to talk about the three Marys right now. We'll have to do that at a future episode, but there's a whole thing to the point where if I say the three Marys, it's not even necessarily clear which particular grouping of Marys I'm talking about, but yeah, it could be the three Marys who went to the tomb. There's a whole other thing where there's three Marys and they're all sisters. We're not doing that right now. Uh, so we'll, we'll, we'll get to it.

C: We'll get to it.

B: Yeah. We'll find a place for that.

C: The other pretty hilarious interaction that Jesus has with his family, his extended family, I think it's probably clear by now, especially after Mark. And especially after my instant fascination with our boy Porky Party is that I am really drawn to the moments in the Bible where we are presented with people doing very relatable things.

B: Yeah, yes.

C: Like Jesus going back to his hometown and trying to spread the good news and everybody in his hometown going, "Isn't that the carpenter's son? Like, I know his sisters. He's going around saying he's the son of God. I grew up with, I went to school with that guy."

B: Yeah, I'm glad you brought this up because both of these incidents we were just talking about were both in Mark and we didn't have to, we had to gloss over a lot of stuff in and Mark, 'cause we went so long, and we're going long this time, I can feel it. But yeah, I'm glad you brought this up, 'cause that, oh, it feels so real, right? Like that moment where--

C: Yes.

B: It's like, you ever go to, it's like if you go to a convention, Chris, and you were there, and you're sitting at a table, and there's people lined up 'cause they wanna get their X-Men and their Deadpool signed, or Darkhawk's coming out now, Infinity Countdown, Darkhawk number two coming soon. If they wanna get those signed and they're like, oh, we love your podcast, oh, we love that sailor business so much. And it's a whole weekend of that. And then you come home and your wife is like, "please take out the trash, you're nothing in this house."

C: My wife would not say that, she would be, she is not that rude.

B: You know what I mean though, you know what I mean, right? Like you could be big business at the convention center, you're nothing at home. You're nothing, you're just a guy. And it feels real. Everybody is Jesus to their mom, I guess, but at the same time, no, your mom changed your diapers. But my favorite is that Jesus is like, you know what, forget Nazareth, we're leaving, I'm not doing any miracles here.

C: Yes, it totally fails.

B: No miracles.

C: I love this 'cause it's like the first time you go back home after college, right? You're like, yeah, there's the bowling alley where we used to hang out. I gotta get out of this town. That happens to Jesus. Very hilarious. As you said, we are running long, so there's a lot of Matthew that is kind of repetitive, but I do want to run through a little highlight reel of Peter being an idiot.

B: Yeah, sure.

C: Peter sucks, dude. I'm sorry. Peter's bad.

B: Oh man. All right. What are you-

C: And again, we talked about this in Mark that when, before we started and before I read Acts, I was just like, oh yeah, Peter, he's, he's a, he's a dork. And it turns out that's what the gospels are about.

B: Yeah.

C: I like that when Jesus is walking on the water, the disciples, the reaction is, "It's a ghost!" Which I thought was hilarious.

B: Yeah, the walking on the water bit. So obviously in Mark, they had Jesus walking on the water, did not have the bit about Peter coming out, and he's able to walk for a while until he gets scared and then he falls.

C: Well, because he sees Jesus walking on water and Peter goes, "I wanna walk on water! I wanna do that! Jesus, can I walk on water?" And then Jesus is like, "Yeah, sure." And then Peter takes three steps and gets freaked out and starts sinking.

B: Yeah, it's like that thing where you're riding the bicycle and with the training wheels off, as long as your dad or your mom is holding the seat for you, you're fine, then they let go, then you fall, like in full house, right? Like Michelle, she takes a header into the bush, except it's water.

But this particular story, of course, very famous, but it always makes me think, takes my mind back to the realm of Christian novelty t-shirts. When I was a kid, a friend of mine had a T-shirt that was very 80s because it was Simon Peter's Surf Shop was the idea. And it was Peter surfing, but he didn't have a surfboard because he could just walk on the water. So he's like catching some cool waves. And as I recall, the slogan on the shirt was "Who needs a board when your eyes are on the Lord?"

C: The next little bit, Jesus talks about the blind leading the blind here in chapter 15, verse 13, which again, he's like, "Yeah, if you don't know where you're going, you don't want to be led by someone who also doesn't know where they're going."

B: And Peter-

C: That's very- Peter goes-

B: What does this mean?

C: Yeah, so, uh, literally, chapter 15, verse 15, "Then Peter replied to him, 'Explain this parable to us.'"

B: Yeah.

C: Peter.

B: Are you, are you, are even you still lacking an understanding? That seems like a very polite translation, HCSB. I gotta see, I gotta see what the SVs got on this one. Let's see, let's flip to 15. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, here we go. So then Peter replied, "Explain the riddle to us." He said, "Are you still as dim-witted as the rest?"

C: Because it's like, Peter gets the most speaking roles. Like Andrew doesn't say a word in this.

B: Yeah, yeah.

C: Peter, Peter's not like always the guy. And so he's like, clearly, look, he's the favorite, but Jesus is still like, "Dude, keep up." Uh, this is not necessarily Peter. This is all the Apostles, but it made me laugh out loud, and I had to read it to my wife. This is chapter 16 verse 5. "The disciples reached the other shore and they had forgotten to take bread."

B: Yeah.

C: Hilarious. "Jesus told them, 'Watch out and beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.' And they discussed among themselves, 'We didn't bring any bread.' Aware of this, Jesus said, 'You of little faith, Why are you discussing among yourselves that you do not have bread? Don't you understand yet? Don't you remember the five loaves and the seven loaves and how many large baskets you collected? Why is it you don't understand that what I told you beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees? It wasn't about the bread.'"

B: It's not about bread y'all.

C: Jesus... Jesus invented metaphors that is I am sure Because nobody seems to understand them.

B: Yeah, it's like that thing where they invented movies and then the train was coming and people thought they were gonna get hit by a train. And here's Jesus, he invents the metaphor and he's like, blah, blah, blah, bread. And they're like, well, we didn't bring bread. No guys, it's not real bread.

C: This one is maybe my favorite. This is chapter 18, verse 21. "Then Peter came to him and said, 'Lord, how many times could my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times?'" (laughing) Which I feel like seven is the largest number Peter can think of.

B: It's because it's the perfect number. Seven is the number of perfection, but yes, that it does, without that context, does sound ridiculous. But yeah, while we're talking about Peter, we should, we got his big scene, right?

C: Oh, no, I'm gonna get back to it. I wanna, I'm doing the highlight reel right now.

B: Okay, okay, all right.

C: Much later on, we get, this one, this one I made a big frowny face in my margins.

B: I think you sent me a picture of it.

C: This is where Jesus says, "'All of you will run away. One of you is gonna deny me three times, but after I've been resurrected, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.' Peter told him, 'Even if everyone runs away because of you, I will never run away.' 'I assure you,' Jesus said to him, 'tonight before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.' 'Even if I have to die with you,' Peter told him, 'I will never deny you.'" Peter, Peter.

B: Come on, man.

C: Peter is, Peter's bad, Peter's awful.

B: Like how is that the kind of thing you forget? Like was he texting at the same time? Was he just like, yeah man, it's ride or die Jesus, yep, for sure, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, yeah man, and whatever it takes. Like put nail my hand up next to your hand, man, for sure. Tick, tick, tick, tick. Yeah, I don't know.

C: Peter, get it together. This, now all of this happens, but back in the middle of it, this is back in chapter 16, verses 13 through 20. This is right after Jesus is rolling his eyes because he's talking to them about yeast. And they're like, "Oh, we don't have any bread, Jesus. We forgot it." This is immediately after. Peter goes, "'Hey, you're the Messiah, Son of the Living God.' And Jesus responded, 'Simon, son of Jonah, you are blessed because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter and on this rock, I will build my church and the forces of Hades will never overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth is already bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth is already loosed in heaven.'" This feels like a post-it note written by Peter that was just stuck on the scroll that Matthew was writing.

B: Yeah, yeah, I don't know, but here's the thing though. I was talking to a friend of the show, Ben Rowe. He pointed out to me this very, very excellent point that the fact that Peter is such an idiot throughout this, not just this book, but all the gospels, he says that is the strongest possible evidence that the Gospel of Mark was not actually written by Peter's interpreter, just writing down personal recollections, as is the tradition. 'Cause I feel like Peter would probably skew it a little bit more in his favor, and he's like, "Yeah, and then I didn't understand what he was talking about with the bread. And then also I fell asleep two times. And also," yeah, like--

C: Well, to be fair, this is circa 30 CE, right?

B: Yeah.

C: Peter lives to pretty late, right? Like, he dies in the time of Nero, so when is that? 70s, 60s?

C: No, 60s. It was like mid 60s.

C: So I do feel like 30 years later, Peter could be like, "Yeah, I was real dumb when I was a kid."

B: That's fair.

C: Is Peter like 14 here? Because that makes sense.

B: That would explain so many things, wouldn't it?

C: He doesn't understand metaphors. He's really sleepy.

B: Yeah. I say as someone who works with teens in my day job every day, that actually opens up so much of the disciples. If it's used to go, yeah, they're 15. Oh, oh, oh, no wonder you have to explain everything to them. Yeah, yeah.

So yeah, so this is the bit where Peter's given the keys to heaven and earth, which again, that's a metaphor, but very much literalized in art. That's why he holds the keys. The two keys, one, a key to heaven, a key to earth, and they're enormous. Someone has asked me on Twitter, they said, Peter always depicted with the giant key, is it possible that it's actually a key blade and the kingdom of heaven is actually kingdom hearts? And my answer to this twofold, one, if what you're asking is, is Donald Duck in heaven? My answer is yes, absolutely, he is. If what you're asking is, is heaven an anime? My answer is not if God is on his throne. So I hope that answers your question, whatever it was.

C: Okay, you said that the key to heaven and the key to earth are metaphors.

B: Yeah.

C: I disagree.

B: Okay.

C: I think all those giant keys that he's holding in the art are very real because if they weren't, the next sentence would be Peter going, "Where are the keys, Jesus?" It's amazing that it's not currently, "wow, a lock big enough for these keys would be huge."

B: Do you, is this Peter's super sweet 16 right here? (laughing) Jesus tosses him the keys? Is that what's happening? Maybe it is.

C: Peter, canon accepted, Peter is 16.

B: Yeah, man, boy, does that make so much sense.

C: He's so sleepy.

B: Yeah. It makes so much sense. But yeah, another thing, this one pointed out to me by King of the Gnostic, Jonathan Stewart, he said that there is a joke/theory about Peter's name, the rock, which by the way, Keppa, I said it was Hebrew last week, it's Aramaic. That's a small difference, but whatever. Wanna be accurate. There's a theory/joke that he gets that name because his head is full of rocks, basically.

C: Yeah, no, like that, like, Peter asking all these questions and then Jesus going, "You know what, your new name is Rock. Your new name, you're, like, you are, I will build my church upon this very dense rock, this very, just the words bounce right off of it, and that's you, Peter.

B: Yeah.

C: That's you, Simon.

B: And Jesus is like, "Cool, what a very good compliment from my Lord." And Jesus is like, "Yes, correct, a very good compliment."

C: And then he tells Mark the Evangelist, "Hey, write down that he called me a rock."

B: Yeah.

C: And make sure that everyone knows that.

B: I'm Simon the Rock Peter now. Let everyone know.

C: All right, so that's our Peter content for this week.

B: Yeah.

C: Jesus starts going off on the Pharisees.

B: Yeah.

C: In chapter 23, this is very good language. I don't know what this is in King James, but chapter 23, verse 23, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You pay a tenth of mint, dill and cumin, yet you have neglected the more important matters of the law, justice, mercy, and faith. These things should have been done without neglecting the others. Blind guides, you strain out a gnat, yet gulp down a camel."

B: That's so good. That's so good.

C: It's very good.

B: It's very good.

C: It's less good if you are of the mind that a camel is small enough through the eye of a needle.

B: Yeah, so that comes up again, right? That's chapter 19. We got that bit again. And that's definitely one where people have been coming at us about our discussion on Mark. And even though you specifically, Chris, mentioned it, you said, no, it is a metaphor, but it's not a metaphor. The needle is a needle. It's not a secret code language for a winding path through an alley where you just have to bend down, and that means secretly if you pray you can be rich and get into heaven. That is some white nonsense and you need to get that white nonsense out of here. Get out of here with your "you can be rich and get into heaven." Jesus says no. Let me...

C: Yeah, he once again says, "Go, sell your belongings and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven."

B: Yeah.

C: Like that's in chapter 19. That's chapter 19 verse 21.

B: Let me read the footnote from the Scholars Version for 19:24. "The needle's eye refers to a sewing needle, not as some have maintained a twisting door in the city walls. The aphorism is a paradox." That's it. Get that white nonsense out of here.

C: Camels are, at the very least, larger than gnats, because we know that from this.

B: We do know that from this swallowing metaphor. While we're in this section, I'd like to look at chapter 21 here for a second. This is the part that I like very much. This is because it gives me... So this is Palm Sunday, the triumphal entry, right? Jesus comes into Jerusalem. So we talked about Matthew and how he's very interested in making the life of Jesus conform to scripture and prophecy of the Old Testament because he really wants to make it clear that that Jesus is the Messiah that was promised by Isaiah and Micah and the Psalms and all these different things. And so, but we did, this is the example I was talking about earlier where he's really trying to shove that square peg into that round hole. And that's here, chapter, well, yeah, chapter 21. "So when they approached Jerusalem, Jesus then sent two disciples telling them, 'Go into the village ahead of you. At once you will find a donkey tied there and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you should say that the Lord needs them and immediately he will send them.' This took place so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled." And this is from Isaiah. "So tell daughter Zion, 'Look, your king is coming to you, gentle and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of the beasts of burden.' The disciples went and did as Jesus directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt. Then they laid their robes on them, and he sat on them." So the bit from Isaiah, it's clearly a poetic repetition. He says he's riding on a donkey, you know, the son of a different donkey. That's how donkeys work. But Matthew is like, "Oh, he says donkey and then a baby donkey, so clearly Jesus rode a donkey and a baby donkey at the same time." He's ghost riding two whips into Jerusalem. He spreads the blanket across them. He sits a stride, a donkey and a baby donkey, like with his legs spread out? Is he side saddle? Matthew, what's going on, my dude? Like you're a little too beholden to this very literal and frankly Peter-esque interpretation of prophecy.

C: You don't think, I feel like it's an Ottoman situation.

B: Yeah.

C: Not the empire, but the furniture. Like, Jesus is on the regular donkey, and then he's got the smaller donkey next to him to keep his feet up.

B: Okay, all right. Maybe I'm sold, yeah.

C: It's all about comfort. Here's what Jesus is inventing. Metaphors and recliners.

B: Yeah. Wow.

C: The note that I wrote down for this passage, remember how last week in Mark, Jesus was like, "Yeah, it's like when you rob a house and first you gotta tie the strong man up so that he doesn't beat you up for robbing his house."

B: Yeah.

C: This is when Jesus is like, "Hey, go into town, and if you see a donkey tied up anywhere, bring it to me." You know, like stealing, like a crime, but if anybody asks, tell them it's okay.

B: Yeah. Jesus needs this, and they're like, "Who's Jesus? He's never met--who's that guy? He'd never been to Jerusalem before."

C: Here's what we know about Jesus. He eats and drinks and hangs out with sinners and tax collectors, knows a lot about robbing houses, and sometimes tells his followers to go steal donkeys. I'm not saying any of that's a bad thing, I'm saying it makes him very relatable.

B: Yeah. Who hasn't stolen two donkeys?

C: A donkey and a little donkey. Which is like one and a half donkeys.

B: One and a half donkeys and just coast in to the capital city.

C: Yeah. You know why? Because you gotta love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and all your mind, and love your neighbors yourself. IT says nothing in there about not stealing donkeys or robbing houses.

B: It's true. It's very true. We get to fig tree again.

C: We do get the fig tree again.

B: We've been, um, for those of us, those of you who follow us on social media may have seen the fig tree discourse that has been taking place since our previous episode.

C: Mm-hmm.

B: Basically, I contend that the fig tree is a metaphor. It represents Israel, Jesus came, he was expecting figs, i.e. righteous people. He did not find them. The fig tree, i.e. Israel, was destroyed by Jesus, i.e. Titus, I guess. And you say, "The fig wasn't in season." And I say, "It's probably not apocalypse season either, Chris, but no one knows the hour."

C: Okay, yeah. "No one knows the hour for the day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night." We all know about that.

B: Yeah.

C: But we do know when fig season is. it's August to October.

B: Alright man.

C: So...

B: I'm just saying do not do not condemn Peter for the spec in his metaphorical not understanding eye when you have a plank of metaphor not understanding in your eye. That's all I'm saying.

C: Okay okay but here's the thing it's not a metaphor I mean it functions as a metaphor but if we are to engage with the text there is a literal fig tree that Jesus cursed.

B: Yeah, that's what symbolism is. There's a thing that's a literal thing, but also a figurative thing.

C: No, no, symbolism is when you speak of a literal thing, and then there's another meaning to it. This is, there is a literal fig tree. Again, when he talks about the sower, he doesn't pull out a bag of seeds and throw them around to illustrate his point. He's not doing prop work for most of this. The fig tree is the only bit of prop work.

B: So anyway, this has been a recreation of fig tree discourse.

C: The hottest new segment in biblical podcasting.

B: Yeah. Let's continue.

C: So yeah, you all know what happens from here. Jesus goes to Golgotha, which means skull place.

B: Which is translated, by the way, if you translate that into Latin, which happens frequently, you get calvaria, and that's where the word Calvary comes from, and it never ceases to amuse me how many Calvary Baptist churches there are. There's one that I used to drive past in town here all the time. And I'm just like, "Yeah, y'all go to Skull Mountain Baptist Church. That rules, but you don't even know it." Someone in there thinks, "Oh, a bunch of people who ride horses used to be in here, I guess." No, it's Skull Mountain. Skull Mountain Baptist Church.

C: We get the crucifixion.

B: Yeah, even prior to the crucifixion, we need to look at the trial with Pilate because I need to address a question that's been in our inbox here for a little while. I was waiting for Matthew 'cause this is the appropriate place. And this is in reference to us talking about people with the same names, Joshua, Jesus, Isaiah, right?

So the question is, what about the other Jesus in the New Testament, Jesus Barabbas? And it's true. In the Gospel of Matthew, and in Matthew alone, the text actually reads that his name is not just Barabbas, his name is in fact Jesus Barabbas. Which, first of all, is funny, because Barabbas means son of the father, which that's not a good name. That's every son. Daddy's boy is his name. But yeah, let me look at the Scholars Version definitely the HCSB does not preserve this. "They were holding a notorious prisoner named Jesus Barabbas." And the note here they have is, "Many texts omit Jesus, but it's probably the original reading of Matthew and was omitted because of the reverence shown to the name of Jesus. The early church authority Origen," who was from the early third century, "he knows of manuscripts with and without the double name, but thinks it cannot be original because," and I quote, "in all of the scriptures, we know of no one who is a sinner named Jesus." Very good. Very nice Origen.

C: Very good. Maybe that's the Jesus who's going around telling a everybody about robbing houses and stealing things.

B: Maybe so. But I should just point, Yeshua was an incredibly common name, right? Just all of these names are so common, right? Everyone's Mary, everyone's Jesus, everyone's Judas, right? They're so common. So it's not out of the question that you'd have a guy, Yeshua Barabba.

Also, Barabbas, I should point out, they call him a murderer, but really he was a revolutionary, right? He was involved in a stasis, that's your Greek word for an uprising or a revolt. And of course, here in Matthew, it also says that rather than thieves on either side of Jesus, they would have also been revolutionaries because that is the time. Here we are. It's getting hot in Judea. The people's front of Judea, the Judean people's front, they're all there. That's a Life Brian reference, but that joke is accurate to history because there were very many different revolutionary sects in Judea at this time.

We see the we see the Titulus again. It is worded differently from Mark. It is worded differently in each of the four gospels, and so that has led people to go, "Well, maybe it was written four times in four different languages, and they were all worded slightly differently." But yeah, so there's that. So this time it's, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews," right? A little different than it was in Mark. Then, chapter 27, verse 45. We gotta get there. Boy, boy, oh boy, have people been rolling up into my menties about this one.

C: I like how this episode is the mailbag.

B: Yeah, it is.

C: The very defensive mailbag episode.

B: I'm just saying. Yeah, so like, I'm not being defensive. I'm just saying that, like I said, these are the books that people know. So people have comments on this and people wanna talk about these things. I should say, what am I talking about? This is the death of Jesus. This is last words. Matthew changes a little bit. He gives the phrase, "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He gives it in Hebrew, whereas Mark did it in Aramaic. Why did he do that? My guess is it makes the wordplay a little more clear, because if he says Eli or Eli, E-L-I, the Eli, Elijah wordplay is a little bit more clear than Eloi, right? So anyway, so here's a representative sample of some comments I received regarding our discussion of Jesus's final words in the Mark episode.

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" isn't a cry of despair in context. It's quoting Psalm 22, the text of which, from a Christian perspective, implies the ultimate success of Jesus's mission, despite his current suffering. It's a declaration of future triumph, not of despair.

And I will say, fair cop, we should have talked about Psalm 22 last week. We didn't, another one of those things where we're going long, can't hit every detail. But yeah, Psalm 22, I did mention the fact that a lot of the elements of the things that happened to Jesus prior to his crucifixion happened as a result of fulfilling prophecy. And the prophecy here is not really a prophecy, it's a song. And it's Psalm 22. So for example, "they pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. People look and stare at me. They divided my garments among themselves and they cast lots for my clothing," right? Those things sound familiar? Yeah, we see all those things happen.

So Psalm 22, it opens with the line, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? "Why are you so far from my deliverance "and from my words of groaning?" And then by the end, "I will proclaim your name to my brothers. I will give you praise and a great congregation. All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord. All the families of the nations will bow before you. Their descendants will serve him. The next generation will be told about the Lord." It's, yeah, it's ultimately a triumph, right? So, but you know, he didn't say that part. says the beginning part.

It's all these people coming to me with, actually, this is that good kind of God-forsakenness, actually? You know, the good way of being abandoned by God. So, I mean, I get it. Like, why do I think it's a cry of despair? Well, it's Jesus who's dying, and he's saying God has abandoned me. That is why. That's why I said it was a cry of despair. Because like, as a victory cry, it kinda, it's kinda like, it doesn't quite have the triumphal zing of like, for example, if he had shouted "Imperius Rex," for example, if you could imagine that. Or even if he had just said like, "We did it, Reddit," like that would be a little more like, "Yeah, man, this was it, this mission is accomplished," instead of like, "Oh God, oh, what's wrong? What's the matter?" Like that's, it doesn't sound like triumph. I get it, it's an allusion.

But like, so yeah, okay, the later parts of the psalm, if I memorize that whole song and I knew the end of it, I'd be like, "Oh, okay, it's an allusion, Michael," with an A. But yeah, so I get it. But it's like at the same time, if I were there, if I were a disciple who had not fled, If I were one of the ones that was there, it's the foot of the cross, and I'd call up to Jesus, I was like, "Hey Jesus, what's going on, man? How are things up there?" And he looked down at me and he says, "This is no bed of roses. This is no pleasure cruise." I would be like, "Oh man, that sucks." I would probably not be like, "Oh, that's code language for how he's a champion and he's gonna keep fighting until the end." You know what I mean? You see where I'm getting at?

C: I feel like there is an aspect of this where, look, Jesus knows what's gonna happen. He is a God on earth. He can see the future. That's one of his very canonical superpowers. He tells Peter he's gonna betray him. There's a bit in here where he's like, "Hey, one of you guys is gonna betray me." And Judas goes, "Uh, but not me, right?" And Jesus goes, "You said it." Which they still let Judas hang out with them after that, which is weird. But like, he knows that he is going to... All the Passion of the Christ stuff is about to happen. He's aware of it. But also, it's a horrible way to die. It's a pretty bad experience to go through in general. Even if you know it's coming, I feel like we can... like, you know, Jesus being like, "Wow, this is really bad," is a pretty acceptable reaction to that.

B: Yeah, I'm not saying it's not a moment of triumph, ultimately, 'cause it is, if you believe this, right? But at the moment, yeah, I mean, he's saying the bad thing. He's in pain, y'all, that's all, that's it.

C: At most, I will give you that it's a double meaning.

B: Yeah, for sure. And I don't think we're the only ones who think that, 'cause we see Luke, he's gonna change it a little bit. So we'll see some alternate final words of Jesus. Does he say Imperius Rex? Maybe, stay tuned.

C: Speaking of things that happened at the crucifixion that are a little different than they were in Mark, this time the guys are not sarcastic when they say this was the son of God because they are terrified.

B: Even more supernatural signs going on. There's earthquakes, plus we got that eclipse again. The tombs are opened and zombies come out.

C: Yeah. Yeah. The bodies of the saints rise up.

B: Y'all if your Easter party does not have zombies in it, you did it wrong. This is the Bible. Bible says zombies gotta be at that party.

C: A lot of people make jokes about Easter. I heard it a lot this year in the run up to the release of our first show. There's the zombie Jesus joke, which was, which was pretty funny in like 2003.

B: Yeah, sure. The very first Photoshop of the Ghostbusters shooting Jesus with the proton packs, fine.

C: Yeah. It's played out now.

B: Yes.

C: Especially because we know that on Good Friday, there were straight-up dead bodies coming out of tombs.

B: There were real zombies.

C: Yeah. There were walkers.

B: Like, I got-- yes, roamers.

C: Biters. So-- Oh, it actually doesn't say they're biting anything.

B: "Suddenly the curtain of the sanctuary was split in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked and the rocks were split. The tombs were also opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And they came out of the tombs after his resurrection, entered the holy city and appeared to many." This is... we're not exaggerating. Nobody exploded in this one and I'm sorry guys. It's been a while since we've had an explosion. But I hope you guys will accept these very good zombies as our humble offering to you, the listener, the faithful theophiloi of this show.

C: Yeah, it's pretty wild. So that's why these Roman centurions are like, "Oh, that was the son of God. We have hacked up. We hacked up real bad." Also, we get the first appearance of Joseph of Arimathea, who you might remember from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

B: Or Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

C: And then, now we do get Judas and the Field of Blood in this book, but there is no explosion, as you pointed out.

B: He doesn't explode, he hangs himself, and then it's called the Field of Blood for Other Reasons. Who even cares?

C: Yeah, go to Luke for the answer to that one. In Acts.

B: Yeah.

C: But we get a little bit more of the resurrection than we get in Mark. 'Cause as we know, Mark has an extended director's cut ending whereas Matthew, you got Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, which I highlighted because it's very disrespectful.

B: Yep, is this Mary, the mother of Jesus? Maybe, let's see, let me see what HCSB says. They suggest that the other Mary is probably the mother of two of Jesus's lesser known disciples, so that'd be the mother of James and Joseph, that Joses. So yeah, maybe not, who knows?

C: Mary, the mother of James and Joses is Mary, the mother of Jesus. Unless she's married the mother of James the Less, which-

B: Whose brother is also named Joses.

B: Yeah, it's too many. Too many James, too many Joses, too many Marys.

C: It is also mentioned here. She's there at the crucifixion, but not the resurrection. And this is not the only time in this book that she has called this the mother of Zebedee's sons.

B: Yeah.

C: Mrs. Boanerges?

B: Yeah.

C: Just gonna let you complete that one in your own heads.

B: Yes.

C: Kind of a weird way to refer to somebody. Is she Zebedee's ex-wife?

B: Uh... No. Probably not.

C: Then why don't they just say "Mrs. The Sons of Thunder"? Like you know, "The Sons of Thunder's mom"? "Thunder". They could call her "Thunder".

B: "Thunder's wife", I guess. Or something.

C: Zebedee is their father. If they are the Sons of Thunder, that means she is Thunder.

B: Yeah.

C: Anyway, they go to the tomb. It is also, our boy Matthew heads off an argument in this.

B: Yeah.

C: And says, "Hey, there were rumors going around, they spread false rumors that people just stole his body from the tomb in order to discredit us. And some people even today believe that, but that is not true. Let me tell you what happened."

B: And another thing that Matthew does to clarify a point, his boy here is very clearly an angel. Like he says angel at the tomb. It is not, it is not a boy in a white sheet. It is straight up an angel, clearly, unambiguously.

C: It is, he says, "don't be afraid. If you're looking for Jesus, he's not here." Hey, do you guys wanna leave a message for Jesus?

B: Yeah.

C: But then Jesus does catch up with everybody in Galilee.

B: This is the last note I made for myself because this bit, when I read it in English, I laughed so much, I had to check and see what-- I had to look at the Greek. I was like, what does it say? Because I laughed so much just at this image. And it's here. It is. 28 verse 9, the Greek. I even-- just a quick side note. Thank you to everyone who has never written in to correct the numerous Greek mistakes I keep making on the show. So I know most of you don't know that. But occasionally, I'll say a vowel wrong, I'll leave out an article or that one time I forgot the genitive of Isaiah. Thank you for not calling me out on that. I assume most of you do not speak ancient Greek, but I know and I listen back and I go what have I done and here I am revealing my own mistakes, whatever but yeah chapter 28 verse nine. The Greek is... [Redactor's note: Greek words I am not going to translate.] And it literally, "and behold, Jesus met them saying, 'Hello.'"

C: I'll tell you right now, I am not super familiar with the Gospels. This is not the funniest thing Jesus is gonna do post-resurrection.

B: Yeah, they're standing at the tomb, and they're walking down the road and Jesus is like, "Sup, y'all? It's me, Jesus." Keep in mind that when we talked about resurrection bodies, we discussed it in terms of the Flash.

B: Yeah.

C: 'Cause I don't know if it's in Luke or John, but we're gonna get some pretty choice post resurrection Jesus.

B: Yeah.

C: So we get the Great Commission from the Great Commissioner, Jim Gordon. Puts the Jesus signal in the sky.

B: Yeah.

C: Go make disciples of all the nations, baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Teach them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." That's dope final lines before my man ascends into heaven. All right, so we did it. We made it through Mark. Benito, do you have an additional reading, like a verse that stuck out to you?

B: I do, in that I had one that was really good when I was reading it and I didn't write it down and then I forgot it and I couldn't find it. So my verse is a little bit of a cop-out that I just kind of went and looked for one that I did like. And we have chapter 25 verse 40. "And the king will answer them, 'I assure you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' Then he will also say to those on the left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you didn't take me in. I was naked and you didn't clothe me. Sick and in prison and you didn't take care of me.'" It's unambiguous y'all. Gotta do good. Do good to be good.

C: Yeah, give your money to the poor. We didn't even talk about the devil and his angels, by the way. That's something we're gonna have to get into later. The one that I have written down is Matthew 23:27. This is from the part where Jesus is just going at the Pharisees and hypocrites. The language here really stuck out to me. "Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs which appear beautiful on the outside but inside are full of dead man's bones.

B: Yeah, that's a good bit. I thought you might pick that one actually.

C: Yeah, I really like that. First of all, that's some real Dungeons and Dragons type language, which you know I'm a fan of. Second of all, it's very applicable because no matter how beautiful you are on the outside, we are all full of dead man's bones. There's a skeleton in every one of us.

B: The real skeleton was inside us all along.

C: In a very literal sense. So that's the book of Matthew. Again, I was not a huge fan. There's a lot of good stuff in there, but I mean, we've talked about it forever, so there's a lot of content. But it's twice as long as Mark. It's over twice as many verses. And they are lengthy verses. And a lot of it is repetitive. And there's a lot of weird, there's a lot of stuff in there that has been used in a very uncharitable and unkind way moralizing.

B: Absolutely. We talked it we already talked about how it's been used to justify refusing divorces for women including abused women and I think surely it's implied that if not fully clearly explicitly stated that a lot of this has been used to justify anti-Semitism over the years. There's also Matthews approach to poverty which is quite different from Mark where Mark is like give to the poor or I'll destroy you, whereas Matthew is a little bit more like you might be poor, but you need to deal with that as best as you can, right? And so his kind of turn the other cheek philosophy is good in certain applications and others not so great. Like it works great for somebody who just suffered a loss and a revolution that maybe you want to keep your head down, but you know, take your suffering like a champ is not always the best advice, I think. And so a lot of pros and cons, yeah, ups and downs to Matthew for sure.

C: I feel like the line about laying up treasures in heaven has always bothered me, because I feel like there is a lot, whether it was the original intent or not, a lot of stuff in the Bible was used over the next 2,000 years to make poor people not chop the heads off the rich in the streets, basically.

B: Yeah.

C: And I have seen, again, novelty Christian t-shirts, I have seen bumper stickers, don't judge me by my terrible car, I'm laying up my treasures in heaven.

B: Yeah.

C: So, you know, look, if it makes you happy to be driving a terrible car, look, I got a 2000 Toyota Camry, so I'm there with ya. But I feel like there's, we're getting into a lot of stuff that as unambiguous as it might be has been used very hurtfully. And I think that might be part of why I enjoyed Mark a little more.

B: Sure.

C: 'Cause there's less.

B: All right.

C: And also, our biggest argument coming out of Mark was about a fig tree.

B: Yeah, that's true. All right, so if we're every gospel ever-ing, so far you rank Golden Age Jesus number one, Silver Age Jesus number two.

C: Okay, that's the other thing. This was described to us as Silver Age Jesus, right?

B: Yeah, and to a degree it is. He's a more refined Jesus. We've built up his cast of characters and his surroundings and his mythos a little bit. And he's much more of a, he's more of a suave peacekeeping kind of guy than a, than action Jesus.

C: Yeah, except that like Silver Age, look, this is just me. And I realize this is my failing because you're right in describing it as that way.

B: Yeah.

C: My impression was that we were gonna get Jesus being like, sorry, Peter, I can't help you spend any of that one million dinars.

B: Yeah, or like Jesus melting Peter's robe with his heat vision. Yeah.

C: Yeah. Or Peter turning into a giant turtle.

B: Yeah, yeah.

C: Jesus making Peter get married to a gorilla? Or Jesus having to eat a bunch of hamburgers?

B: We do have two entries into the Legion of Jesus pets. We've got a donkey and a baby donkey.

C: What would Jesus's dog be named? Would he be named Hevo?

B: Hevo, yeah, Hevo.

C: Eve? Just since Krypto's Krypton without the M, would he just be named Eve?

B: Could be. Heave the Jesus dog.

C: Heave the Jesus dog. I mean, there was that good dog in the Acts of Peter and Paul. That was a pretty good dog.

B: That's true. Not, you know, we got a couple hundred years in between there. Different author, different context, different perspectives on dogs.

C: So that's going to be it for the Book of Matthew. Next time we're going to be tackling the Book of Luke. But before we get into that, we have had some developments.

B: Yeah.

C: If you are a fan of the show, if you enjoy what we've been doing, if you want to help us at least recoup the hosting costs of Apocrypals, then you can make a love offering.

B: Yeah, drop in your widow's mites.

C: How can people support the show a little bit if they want to give back monetarily?

B: So we have set up a page on, I don't know how it's pronounced, coffee, Kofi, it's spelled Kofi.

C: I always say Kofi, but I think it's supposed to be Kofi.

B: Yeah, because it's the idea is you're buying us a cup of coffee, but it's kofi.com/apocrypals. That's the name of this show and you go there and then you can just make a one-time or repeated donation in increments of three dollars, approximately the cup of coffee the price of a cup of coffee and so you could give three dollars you can give any multiple of three and it's there and we'll you know, we'll be able to post updates and kind of things on there similar to like a Patreon but it's a slightly different thing It's not a recurring donation unless you want it to be. You can go back and you can give as much as you want. It goes straight to PayPal. So if you want to help out the show, that's a good way that you could do it. Because all those excellent music drops that Chris does throughout the show, if you lost your mind when In the Air Tonight came on, Chris had to pay money for Phil Collins, y'all.

C: I had to buy... I've had to buy multiple MP3s for the show.

B: Right, so between hosting costs, because these episodes are not short, this one being the prime example, we have to pay like the premium fees for hosting and plus music. We have some expenses is what I'm getting at. So if you want to help us just kind of break even on this show, that's a good way to help out.

C: Yeah, and if you're rich, give your money to the poor, by which I mean us.

B: That's us.

C: That's us.

B: The Sons of Thunder.

C: All right, so that does it. Next time we will be reading the Gospel of Luke. So get ready for the Christmas story, everybody.

B: Real Christmas, finally.

C: Yeah. And boy, you know what song I'm gonna be playing in that one.

[Music: opening to Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)]

B: Oh yeah. Yeah, I do.

B: 'Cause it's time. It's time, it'll be Christmas in July. So thank you for joining us. We'll be back next time with Luke. If you wanna read along, we are reading the HCSB, but you can find multiple translations of the Bible at BibleGateway.com, including the HCSB. And you can also just go to a hotel or walk around your neighborhood and ask if anybody's got the Gospel of Luke. Maybe a small child with a blanket will come up to you and start reciting in a way that's sweet, but kind of a little moralistic.

B: I hope so. Find us at apocrypals.tumblr.com, where we post notes, links, and images related to each week's episodes, including very helpfully from mentioned several times in this episode, friend of the show, Ben Rowe, the Scream Scene Podcast, which you should listen to if you like vintage horror movies. He put together a map of all the locations in the Gospel of Mark. And so if you wanna see where all the action in action Jesus's action gospel was actioned, you should go check out that map.

C: If you wanna find me individually, you can go to the-isb.com and that'll have links to everything that I do.

B: Yeah, and if you're looking for me, You can find me on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, all of those as Benito Cereno, but with either a dash or an underscore in between my first and last name, depending on what that particular site uses. I'm also on Trivia-

C: That's very clear. That's very clear instructions you're giving to everyone. Guess. Everybody just guess.

B: No, it's not. benito_cereno on Twitter, benito-cereno on Tumblr, and then I don't remember what it is on Instagram. So there, that's my bad, I guess. I think it's underscore, probably.

C: Oh, and by the way, A lot of people have been talking about the show lately, so if you have told someone to listen to the show or given it as a recommendation or written a review on iTunes or just dropped five stars on us on iTunes or your podcatcher of choice, thanks. We appreciate that. And if you wanna keep doing that, that does help people find the show, which is nice 'cause we need more people telling us that we're wrong about the Gospel of Mark.

B: Yeah, we joke, but we love it and we encourage, we encourage that sweet, sweet discourse. Please use #Apocrypals to discuss this very good show. And yeah, absolutely, thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed the show on iTunes. And thank you, despite the added anxiety that you have placed on my shoulders, for those of you who have recommended our shows to prominent theologians and scholars, I still, I do appreciate it, despite what I might've said at the top of the show.

C: Do you think we can get that clutch Pontifex retweet?

B: I think we're working, we're building toward it for sure. We got Chris Burnham this week, and it's not many steps from there.

C: From the artist of Officer Down and Batman Incorporated.

B: It's very few steps. He's drawing Arkham Asylum 2. That guy knows Grant Morrison. You think there's a lot of steps from Grant Morrison to the Pope? Because I do not.

C: I think there might be a couple.

B: I don't know.

C: A couple big ones.

B: Maybe.

C: Don't go tweeting at the Pope. Francis seems like a pretty cool guy as far as Popes go. He's not digging anybody up and putting him on trial.

B: Absolutely do not recommend this show to the Pope, please.

C: But you know, if you are the Pope, Father, then we'd love to have that clutch retweet on the episode.

B: Yeah, absolutely.

C: And if you could say, "listen to Apocrypals" and make sure that you specify that you are speaking Ex Cathedra on that one.

B: Yeah.

C: Issue a bull.

B: This is an infallible recommendation.

c: All right, that's it for the Gospel of Matthew. Have a great week, everybody. For Benito Cereno, I've been Chris Sims. Benito, peace be with you.

B: And also with you.

[Music: Live and Let Die]