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	<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&amp;feedformat=atom&amp;user=Jemaleddin</id>
	<title>Apocrypals Apocrypha - User contributions [en]</title>
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	<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/Special:Contributions/Jemaleddin"/>
	<updated>2026-09-24T23:00:29Z</updated>
	<subtitle>User contributions</subtitle>
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	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Sidebar&amp;diff=1070</id>
		<title>MediaWiki:Sidebar</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Sidebar&amp;diff=1070"/>
		<updated>2026-09-24T01:09:57Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
* Navigation&lt;br /&gt;
** mainpage|mainpage-description&lt;br /&gt;
** Episode List|Episode List&lt;br /&gt;
** recentchanges-url|recentchanges&lt;br /&gt;
** helppage|help-mediawiki&lt;br /&gt;
* SEARCH&lt;br /&gt;
* TOOLBOX&lt;br /&gt;
* LANGUAGES&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page&amp;diff=1069</id>
		<title>Main Page</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page&amp;diff=1069"/>
		<updated>2026-09-24T00:39:38Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: /* Your Humble Sons of Thunder™ */&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;Apocrypals is podcast where two non-believers read through the [[Bible]] and try not to be jerks about it, while preserving their clean tag in iTunes. The show is hosted by [[Glossary#Show_Lingo|a scholar and a clown]], but there is no way to tell which is which. In each episode, your hosts read a passage from Bible (in the broadest conceivable sense) and discuss its origins, authorship, context and events, while making references to pop culture that may include Roy Thomas, anime and professional wrestling. Episodes are released biweekly, barring exigent circumstances, on Sunday mornings at church time, unless [[Chris Sims|Chris]] forgets to set the time, or they go off-schedule. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Your Humble Sons of Thunder™==&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Benito Cereno]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Chris Sims]]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==The Show==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Episode List]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Bonus Episodes]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Rawest Verses]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Glossary]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Reading List]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Recommended Podcasts]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Friends of the Show]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Books of the Bible Not Covered]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Every (Seven) Species Ever]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Mottos]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2g5DdVJMAd5mwnOxiedcRu?si=cf3cbb27489441a0 Playlist]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Every Gospel Ever]]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
== For more information ==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://bsky.app/profile/apocrypals.bsky.social Apocrypals Bluesky]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://twitter.com/apocrypals Apocrypals Twitter] (Do not hit them up here.)&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://apocrypals.tumblr.com Tumblr]&lt;br /&gt;
* &amp;quot;[https://discord.gg/P9q3WbSrTr The horrible clown car that is our Discord server]&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
* [http://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website Website on Libsyn]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://ko-fi.com/apocrypals Make a Donation]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://apocrypals.dashery.com Merch]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;!-- &lt;br /&gt;
== Getting started ==&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:Configuration_settings Configuration settings list]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/mediawiki-announce.lists.wikimedia.org/ MediaWiki release mailing list]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Localisation#Translation_resources Localise MediaWiki for your language]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:Combating_spam Learn how to combat spam on your wiki]&lt;br /&gt;
--&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;strong&amp;gt;For an account on this wiki, contact Jemaleddin on the Discord!&amp;lt;/strong&amp;gt;&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page&amp;diff=1068</id>
		<title>Main Page</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page&amp;diff=1068"/>
		<updated>2026-09-24T00:39:19Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;Apocrypals is podcast where two non-believers read through the [[Bible]] and try not to be jerks about it, while preserving their clean tag in iTunes. The show is hosted by [[Glossary#Show_Lingo|a scholar and a clown]], but there is no way to tell which is which. In each episode, your hosts read a passage from Bible (in the broadest conceivable sense) and discuss its origins, authorship, context and events, while making references to pop culture that may include Roy Thomas, anime and professional wrestling. Episodes are released biweekly, barring exigent circumstances, on Sunday mornings at church time, unless [[Chris Sims|Chris]] forgets to set the time, or they go off-schedule. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Your Humble Sons of Thunder™==&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Benito Cereno]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Chris Sims]]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==The Show==A&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Episode List]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Bonus Episodes]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Rawest Verses]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Glossary]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Reading List]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Recommended Podcasts]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Friends of the Show]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Books of the Bible Not Covered]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Every (Seven) Species Ever]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Mottos]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2g5DdVJMAd5mwnOxiedcRu?si=cf3cbb27489441a0 Playlist]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Every Gospel Ever]]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
== For more information ==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://bsky.app/profile/apocrypals.bsky.social Apocrypals Bluesky]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://twitter.com/apocrypals Apocrypals Twitter] (Do not hit them up here.)&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://apocrypals.tumblr.com Tumblr]&lt;br /&gt;
* &amp;quot;[https://discord.gg/P9q3WbSrTr The horrible clown car that is our Discord server]&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
* [http://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website Website on Libsyn]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://ko-fi.com/apocrypals Make a Donation]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://apocrypals.dashery.com Merch]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;!-- &lt;br /&gt;
== Getting started ==&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:Configuration_settings Configuration settings list]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/mediawiki-announce.lists.wikimedia.org/ MediaWiki release mailing list]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Localisation#Translation_resources Localise MediaWiki for your language]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:Combating_spam Learn how to combat spam on your wiki]&lt;br /&gt;
--&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;strong&amp;gt;For an account on this wiki, contact Jemaleddin on the Discord!&amp;lt;/strong&amp;gt;&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Episode_List&amp;diff=143</id>
		<title>Episode List</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Episode_List&amp;diff=143"/>
		<updated>2026-08-16T03:24:49Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: /* Episodes */&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;In each episode, [[Benito Cereno|Benito]] and [[Chris Sims|Chris]] read, watch or play something from the Bible (or Bible-adjacent) and talk about its history, authors, and contents. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
You can listen to all episodes at the show&#039;s [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com Libsyn page] or by subscribing through [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/apocrypals/id1366302177 Apple Podcasts]. [[Bonus Episodes|Bonus video episodes]] can all be seen on [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvsqJ485UTPgVIP1i-BTgMfSsmk4S7ouE Benito&#039;s YouTube channel].&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Episodes==&lt;br /&gt;
{| class=&amp;quot;wikitable sortable&amp;quot; style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
! Episode !! &amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;Date&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp; !! Title !! Subject !! Source !! Transcript&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/episode-0-ive-been-to-my-share-of-pizza-parties 0] || 2018-03-29 || [[I&#039;ve Been To My Share of Pizza Parties]] || General || || [[I&#039;ve Been To My Share of Pizza Parties (Transcript) | Yes]] &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/porky-party-the-book-of-acts 1] || 2018-04-08 || [[Porky Party]] || Acts || New Testament || [[Porky Party (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/2-one-weird-trick-the-book-of-daniel-with-apocrypha 2] || 2018-04-14 || [[One Weird Trick]] || Daniel as well as The Prayer of Azariah aka the Song of the Three Holy Children; Susanna; and Bel and the Dragon || Tanakh and Deuterocanon  || [[One Weird Trick (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/3-various-heresies-the-acts-of-peter-and-paul 3] || 2018-04-22 || [[Various Heresies]] || The Acts of Peter and The Acts of Peter and Paul || Apocrypha  || [[Various Heresies (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/4-wittgensteins-monster-the-book-of-isaiah 4] || 2018-05-06 || [[Wittgenstein&#039;s Monster]] || The Book of Isaiah || Tanakh || [[Wittgenstein&#039;s Monster (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/5-on-the-road-to-rome-pauls-letter-to-the-romans 5] || 2018-05-20 || [[On the Road to Rome]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Romans || New Testament || [[On the Road to Rome (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/6-fresh-prince-of-beliar-the-ascension-of-isaiah 6] || 2018-05-27 || [[Fresh Prince of Beliar]] || The Ascension of Isaiah &amp;amp; The Prayer of Manasseh || Pseudepigrapha and Deuterocanon  || [[ Fresh Prince of Beliar (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/7-neon-genesis-good-news-the-gospel-of-mark-and-secret-mark-0 7] || 2018-06-03 || [[Neon Genesis Good News]] || The Gospel of Mark and Secret Mark || New Testament and Apocrypha  || [[Neon Genesis Good News (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/8-whats-up-doctor-goodacre-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-one 8] || 2018-06-10 || [[What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre]] || The Gospel of Matthew, Part One || New Testament  || [[ What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/9-simon-peters-sweet-sixteen-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-two 9] || 2018-06-24 || [[Simon Peter&#039;s Sweet Sixteen]] || The Gospel of Matthew, Part Two || New Testament || [[Simon Peter&#039;s Sweet Sixteen (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/10-the-dude-hates-wizards-the-gospel-of-luke 10] || 2018-07-02 || [[The Dude Hates Wizards]] || The Gospel of Luke || New Testament || [[The Dude Hates Wizards (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/11-90s-vertigo-jesus-the-gospel-of-john-part-one 11] || 2018-07-09 || [[90s Vertigo Jesus]] || The Gospel of John, Part One || New Testament  || [[ 90s Vertigo Jesus (Transcript)| Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/12-whomst-was-at-the-tombst-the-gospel-of-john-part-two 12] || 2018-07-15 || [[Whomst Was At the Tombst?]] || The Gospel of John, Part Two || New Testament || [[ Whomst Was At the Tombst? (Transcript)| Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/11-90s-vertigo-jesus-the-gospel-of-john-part-one 13] || 2018-07-30 || [[Bonus Goat]] || The Deuterocanonical Book of Tobit || Deuterocanon  || [[Bonus Goat (Transcript)|Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/14-the-boy-related-eagle-plan-the-story-of-ahikar 14] || 2018-08-06 || [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan]] || The Story of Ahikar || Pseudepigrapha || [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan (Transcript)|Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/15-an-approximate-week-the-golden-legend-st-christopher-and-st-benedict 15] || 2018-08-13 || [[An Approximate Week]] || The Golden Legend: St. Christopher and St. Benedict || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/16-doamurder-west-virginia-the-book-of-genesis-part-1 16] || 2018-08-19 || [[Doamurder, West Virginia]] || The Book of Genesis, Part 1 || Tanakh || [[Doamurder, West Virginia (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/17-five-gallons-of-bread-the-book-of-genesis-part-two 17] || 2018-08-27 || [[Five Gallons of Bread]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Two || Tanakh  || [[Five Gallons of Bread (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/18-literally-and-figuratively-wrestling-with-god-the-book-of-genesis-part-three-0 18] || 2018-09-09 || [[Literally and Figuratively Wrestling With God]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Three || Tanakh || [[ Literally and Figuratively Wrestling With God (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/19-mbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbam-the-book-of-genesis-part-four 19] || 2018-09-23 || [[MBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBaM]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Four || Tanakh  || [[ MBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBaM (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/20-shalom-birdie-genesis-commentary-with-david-wolkin 20] || 2018-09-30 || [[Shalom Birdie (with David Wolkin)]] || The Book of Genesis || Tanakh  || [[ Shalom Birdie (with David Wolkin) (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/21-biblerella-the-acts-of-paul-and-thecla 21] || 2018-10-07 || [[Biblerella]] || The Acts of Paul and Thecla || Apocrypha  || [[Biblerella (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/22-oceans-two-the-book-of-judith 22] || 2018-10-15 || [[Ocean&#039;s Two]] || The Book of Judith || Deuterocanon  || [[Ocean&#039;s Two (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/23-dunking-on-satan-the-acts-of-pilate-and-the-gospel-of-nicodemus 23] || 2018-10-21 || [[Dunking on Satan]] || The Acts of Pilate and The Gospel of Nicodemus || Apocrypha  || [[Dunking on Satan (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/25-butt-stuff-dragon-the-testament-of-solomon 24] || 2018-10-29 || [[Butt Stuff Dragon]] || The Testament of Solomon || Pseudepigrapha  || [[Butt Stuff Dragon (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/25-one-rinthies-baby-first-corinthians 25] || 2018-11-14 || [[One Rinthies, Baby]] || First Corinthians || New Testament  || [[One Rinthies, Baby (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/26-some-other-christmas-man-the-lives-of-st-nicholas-and-st-lucy 26] || 2018-11-19 || [[Some Other Christmas Man]] || The Lives of St. Nicholas and St. Lucy || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/27-the-book-of-the-dynasty-of-gods-resisters-the-first-book-of-maccabees 27] || 2018-12-02 || [[The Book of the Dynasty of God&#039;s Resisters]] || The First Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/28-second-maccabees-second-furious-the-second-book-of-maccabees 28] || 2018-12-10 || [[Second Maccabees Second Furious]] || The Second Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/29-these-apocryphal-ravings-the-infancy-gospel-of-james 29] || 2018-12-16 || [[These Apocryphal Ravings]] || The Infancy Gospel of James || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/30-apples-and-oranges-the-legend-of-the-three-kings 30] || 2019-01-07 || [[Apples and Oranges]] || The Legend of the Three Kings by John of Hildesheim || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/31-yartzed-upon-a-distant-shore-the-book-of-jonah 31] || 2019-01-24 || [[Yartzed Upon a Distant Shore]] || The Book of Jonah || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/32-return-of-the-twelve-foot-volcel-lion-questions-answers 32] || 2019-02-03 || [[Return of the Twelve-Foot Volcel Lion]] || Questions &amp;amp; Answers || Listener questions  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/33-thicc-darkness-the-book-of-exodus-part-one 33] || 2019-02-10 || [[Thicc Darkness]] || The Book of Exodus, Part One || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/34-thorn-bushes-and-pushups-the-song-of-songs 34] || 2019-02-24 || [[Thorn Bushes and Pushups]] || The Song of Songs || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/35-down-in-the-donkey-hole-the-book-of-exodus-part-two 35] || 2019-03-03 || [[Down in the Donkey Hole]] || The Book of Exodus, Part Two || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/36-grazacham-the-life-of-st-patrick 36] || 2019-03-12 || [[GRAZACHAM!]] || Muirchu’s Life of Saint Patrick || Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/37-bigger-esther-the-book-of-esther-and-greek-esther 37] || 2019-03-20 || [[Bigger Esther]] || The Book of Esther and Greek Esther || Tanakh and Deuterocanon ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/38-sword-drill-online-bible-trivia-special 38] || 2019-03-31 || [[Sword Drill Online]] || Bible Trivia Special || Complete Book of Bible Trivia  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/39-rain-is-boy-water-the-book-of-enoch-part-one 39] || 2019-04-07 || [[Rain is Boy Water]] || The Book of Enoch, Part One || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/40-devil-got-a-hog-the-book-of-enoch-part-two 40] || 2019-04-19 || [[Devil Got a Hog]] || The Book of Enoch, Part Two || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/41-neo-mary-is-about-to-e-x-p-l-o-d-e-the-questions-of-bartholomew 41] || 2019-04-29 || [[Neo-Mary Is About To E X P L O D E]] || Questions of Bartholomew and The Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Bartholomew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/42-the-roasting-of-the-apostle-paul-second-corinthians 42] || 2019-05-06 || [[The Roasting of the Apostle Paul]] || Second Corinthians || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/43-why-prophets-so-nasty-the-book-of-jeremiah 43] || 2019-05-27 || [[Why Prophets So Nasty?]] || The Book of Jeremiah || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/44-terms-and-conditions-the-book-of-jeremiah-part-2 44] || 2019-06-23 || [[Terms and Conditions]] || The Book of Jeremiah, Part 2 || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/45-mummy-dust-and-skeleton-bones-the-book-of-ruth 45] || 2019-07-14 || [[Mummy Dust and Skeleton Bones]] || The Book of Ruth || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/46-ctrl-z-on-a-murder-the-acts-of-john 46] || 2019-08-09 || [[CTRL-Z On A Murder]] || The Acts of John || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/47-approximate-week-ii-the-quickening-the-syriac-infancy-gospel 47] || 2019-08-21 || [[Approximate Week II: The Quickening]] || The Syriac Infancy Gospel || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/48-the-almighty-ambush-bear-the-book-of-lamentations 48] || 2019-08-28 || [[The Almighty Ambush Bear]] || The Book of Lamentations || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/49-wajesus-the-first-second-and-third-epistles-of-john 49] || 2019-09-16 || [[Wajesus]] || The First, Second, and Third Epistles of John || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/50-the-terf-of-babylon-the-revelation-of-john-0 50] || 2019-10-02 || [[The TERF of Babylon]] || The Revelation of John || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/51-jesus-buffy-halloween-chick-tracts 51] || 2019-10-28 || [[Jesus, Buffy]] || Halloween Chick Tracts || Chick Tracts  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/51-apocrypals-chris-and-benito-the-book-of-ecclesiastes 52] || 2019-11-24 || [[Apocrypals Chris And Benito]] || The Book of Ecclesiastes || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/52-maccabees-3-elephant-drift-the-third-book-of-maccabees 53] || 2019-12-08 || [[Maccabees 3: Elephant Drift]] || The Third Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/54-our-favorite-murders-the-infancy-gospel-of-thomas 54] || 2019-12-22 || [[Our Favorite Murders]] || The Infancy Gospel of Thomas || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/55-the-parable-of-the-sexy-blood-baby-the-book-of-ezekiel-part-one 55] || 2020-01-12 || [[The Parable of the Sexy Blood Baby]] || The Book of Ezekiel, Part One || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/56-welcome-to-the-bone-zone-the-book-of-ezekiel-part-two 56] || 2020-01-26 || [[Welcome to the Bone Zone]] || The Book of Ezekiel, Part Two || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/57-we-holy-ghost-bro-the-life-of-xanthippe-polyxena-and-rebecca 57] || 2020-02-08 || [[We Holy Ghost, Bro?]] || The Life of Xanthippe, Polyxena, and Rebecca || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/58-blaise-your-dead-homie-the-lives-of-st-sebastian-st-blaise-and-st-agatha 58] || 2020-02-23 || [[Blaise, Your Dead Homie]] || The Lives of St. Sebastian, St. Blaise, and St. Agatha || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/59-source-of-the-flow-the-book-of-leviticus 59] || 2020-03-08 || [[Source of the Flow]] || The Book of Leviticus || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/59-joses-crust-the-acts-of-andrew-and-matthias 60] || 2020-03-22 || [[Joses Crust]] || The Acts of Andrew and Matthias || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/60-countless-large-gregs-the-second-book-of-enoch 61] || 2020-04-05 || [[Countless Large Gregs]] || The Second Book of Enoch || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/62-oh-the-jews-manatees-the-book-of-numbers 62] || 2020-04-19 || [[Oh, the Jews&#039; Manatees!]] || The Book of Numbers || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/63-wist-not-to-whom-ne-whither-the-lives-of-st-roche-and-st-guinefort 63] || 2020-05-06 || [[Wist Not To Whom Ne Whither]] || The Lives of St. Roche and St. Guinefort || Golden Legend, Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/64-spiritual-warfare-is-good-actually-bible-adventures-and-the-wisdom-tree-catalogue 64] || 2020-05-18 || [[Spiritual Warfare Is Good, Actually]] || Bible Adventures and the Wisdom Tree catalogue || Video Games  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/65-adonai-is-ichiban-the-book-of-deuteronomy 65] || 2020-06-02 || [[Adonai is Ichiban!]] || The Book of Deuteronomy || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/66-jesus-with-two-cool-ses-the-acts-of-thomas-and-his-wonderworking-skin 66] || 2020-06-14 || [[JeSuS With Two Cool Ses]] || The Acts of Thomas and his Wonderworking Skin || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/67-bad-things-to-call-your-mother-the-book-of-bartholomew 67] || 2020-06-28 || [[Bad Things to Call Your Mother]] || The Book of Bartholomew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/68-scent-of-a-jesus-the-first-second-and-third-apocryphal-apocalypses-of-john 68] || 2020-07-12 || [[Scent of a Jesus]] || The First, Second, and Third Apocryphal Apocalypses of John || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/69-thirst-corinthians-the-lives-of-st-mary-of-egypt-and-st-pelagia 69] || 2020-07-26 || [[Thirst Corinthians]] || The Lives of St. Mary of Egypt and St. Pelagia || Separate books  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xHQHK_SLX8 69 Secret] || 2020-08-28 || [[Secret 69]] || The Greater Questions of Mary || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/70-two-firkin-bored-the-letter-of-aristeas-0 70] || 2020-08-09 || [[Two Firkin Bored]] || The Letter of Aristeas || Pseudepigrapha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/71-approximate-week-chapter-3-parabellum-the-war-scroll 71] || 2020-08-23 || [[Approximate Week Chapter 3: Parabellum]] || The War Scroll || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/72-cold-brew-paul-pauls-letter-to-the-galatians 72] || 2020-09-06 || [[Cold Brew Paul]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Galatians || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/73-be-courageous-the-book-of-joshua 73] || 2020-09-20 || [[Be Courageous!]] || The Book of Joshua || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/74-howl-of-the-ostrich-the-books-of-micah-and-nahum 74] || 2020-10-04 || [[Howl of the Ostrich]] || The Books of Micah and Nahum || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/75-lazer-babies-the-apocalypse-of-peter 75] || 2020-10-18 || [[Lazer Babies]] || The Apocalypse of Peter || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/76-filling-the-room-the-life-of-st-martin 76] || 2020-11-01 || [[Filling the Room]] || The Life of St. Martin || Separate books  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/77-the-blessed-voltrons-the-lives-of-st-catherine-and-st-barbara 77] || 2020-11-15 || [[The Blessed Voltrons]] || The Lives of St. Catherine and St. Barbara || Golden Legend ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/78-maccabees-the-fourth-book-of-maccabees 78] || 2020-11-29 || [[MACCABEES]] || the Fourth Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/79-marys-christmas-the-infancy-gospel-of-pseudo-matthew 79] || 2020-12-13 || [[Marys Christmas]] || The Infancy Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/bonus-bill-bless-us-every-ted-christmas-gift-exchange-2020 79 Bonus] || 2020-12-22 || [[Bill Bless Us, Every Ted]] || Christmas Gift Exchange 2020 || The Joy of Friendship  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/80-the-deadliest-skambush-of-them-all-the-book-of-judges 80] || 2021-01-10 || [[The Deadliest Skambush of Them All]] || The Book of Judges || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/81-sometimes-its-just-sucky-pauls-letter-to-the-ephesians 81] || 2021-01-24 || [[Sometimes It&#039;s Just Sucky]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Ephesians || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/82-sedeqetelebab-the-book-of-jubilees 82] || 2021-02-07 || [[Sedeqetelebab!]] || The Book of Jubilees Pt 1 || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/83-speedrun-tactics-the-book-of-jubilees-part-2 83] || 2021-02-21 || [[Speedrun Tactics]] || The Book of Jubilees Pt 2 || Pseudepigrapha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/84-just-one-more-thing-the-life-of-st-columba 84] || 2021-03-07 || [[Just One More Thing]] || The Life of St. Columba || Hagiography  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/85-old-clootie-the-life-of-st-dunstan 85] || 2021-03-21 || [[Old Clootie]] || The Life of St. Dunstan || Golden Legend ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/87-god-junior-the-third-book-of-enoch-part-1 86] || 2021-04-04 || [[God Junior]] || The Third Book of Enoch (Part 1) || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/87-crisis-on-18000-earths-the-third-book-of-enoch-part-2 87] || 2021-04-18 || [[Crisis On 18,000 Earths]] || The Third Book of Enoch (Part 2) || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/88-a-miserable-pile-of-secrets-the-da-vinci-code-commentary 88] || 2021-05-09 || [[A Miserable Pile of Secrets]] || The Da Vinci Code, the film || Fiction  || [[A Miserable Pile of Secrets (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/89-2000-bc-the-first-book-of-samuel 89] || 2021-05-23 || [[2000 B.C.]] || The First Book of Samuel || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/90-worfin-the-lions-the-second-book-of-samuel-part-1 90] || 2021-06-06 || [[Worfin’ the Lions]] || The Second Book of Samuel (Part 1) || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt4B2OXgHN4 90.1] || 2021-06-20 || [[Double Chai: Rock Me, Asmodeus]] || Solomon and the Devil || Talmudic Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/90-the-me-in-this-story-is-you-the-second-book-of-samuel-part-2 91] || 2021-06-27 || [[The Me In This Story Is You]] || The Second Book of Samuel (Part 2) || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/92-slayer-of-men-conqueror-of-space-the-gospel-of-philip-the-gospel-of-mary-and-the-gospel-of-jesuss-wife-0 92] || 2021-07-11 || [[Slayer of Men, Conqueror of Space]] || The Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Mary, and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife || Apocrypha (Gnostic)  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HKZ-U4W7Ew 92 Bonus] || 2021-08-04 || [[Cephalo4: Protect Yr Neck]] || Cephalophores || Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/93-approximate-week-iv-oblivion-joseph-and-aseneth 93] || 2021-08-15 || [[Approximate Week IV: OblIVion]] || Joseph and Aseneth || Apocrypha (Tanakh)  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/94-little-martha-and-the-small-vandellas-the-lives-of-st-mary-magdalene-and-st-wilgefortis 94] || 2021-09-26 || [[Little Martha and the Small Vandellas]] || The Lives of St. Mary Magdalene and St. Wilgefortis || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/95-an-abyss-of-significant-depth-the-apocalypse-of-paul 95] || 2021-10-10 || [[An Abyss of Significant Depth]] || The Apocalypse of Paul || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/96-the-goku-of-judaism-stories-of-the-baal-shem-tov 96] || 2021-10-24 || [[The Goku of Judaism]] || Stories of the Baal Shem Tov || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbw3BxiTfKU Bonus] || 2021-11-16 || [[Guess the Persona-fied Bible Character]] || Persona 5 || Video Games ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/97-pretty-sus-lesbius-the-acts-of-andrew 97] || 2021-12-02 || [[Pretty Sus, Lesbius]] || The Acts of Andrew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/98-you-know-the-manger-christmas-chick-tracts 98] || 2021-12-23 || [[You Know, the Manger?]] || Christmas Chick Tracts || Chick Tracts  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/99-for-sale-baby-legs-not-attached-the-first-book-of-kings 99] || 2022-01-30 || [[For Sale, Baby Legs, Not Attached]] || The First Book of Kings || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/100-escape-from-flesh-island-the-gospel-of-judas 100] || 2022-03-05 || [[Escape From Flesh Island]] || The Gospel of Judas || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/101-the-apocrypals-solve-theodicy-the-book-of-job 101] || 2022-04-21 || [[The Apocrypals Solve Theodicy]] || The Book of Job || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/102-napalm-toots-the-lives-of-st-mary-of-bethany-and-st-margaret-of-antioch 102] || 2022-06-12 || [[Napalm Toots]] || The Lives of The Lives of St. Martha of Bethany and St. Margaret of Antioch || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/103-sucky-james-the-history-of-joseph-the-carpenter 103] || 2022-07-03 || [[Sucky James]] || The History of Joseph the Carpenter || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/104-previously-on-bible-the-epistle-to-the-hebrews 104] || 2022-08-01 || [[Previously, on Bible]] || The Epistle to the Hebrews || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/103-approximate-week-v-ravager 105] || 2022-08-12 || [[Approximate Week V: RaVager]] || El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron || Video Games  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/104-a-serious-goku-move-the-second-book-of-kings 106] || 2022-10-30 || [[A Serious Goku Move]] || The Second Book of Kings || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/107-hellmensch-stories-of-the-baal-shem-tov-vol-2 107] || 2022-11-13 || [[Hellmensch]] || Stories of the Baal Shem Tov || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin  || [[Hellmensch (Transcript) | Yes ]] &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/108-skip-this-one-the-book-of-hosea 108] || 2022-11-27 || [[Skip This One]] || The Book of Hosea || Tanakh  || [[  Skip This One (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/109-chris-and-benitos-bible-bonkers-the-didache 109] || 2023-10-11 || [[Chris and Benito&#039;s Bible Bonkers]] || The Didache || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/110-the-beastie-boys-worst-nightmare-the-lock-in-2014 110] || 2023-10-30 || [[The Beastie Boys&#039; Worst Nightmare (The Lock-In (2014))]] || The Lock-In (2014) || Fiction ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/111-all-skips-no-hits-1-chronicles 111] || 2024-08-09 || [[All Skips No Hits]] || 1 Chronicles || Tanakh || [[All Skips No Hits (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/112-approximate-week-vi-the-undiscovered-country 112] || 2024-08-17 || [[Approximate Week VI: The Undiscovered Country]] || Illuminator || Comics ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/113-jaoel-instant-messenger-the-apocalypse-of-abraham 113] || 2024-09-05 || [[Jaoel Instant Messenger]] || The Apocalypse of Abraham || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/114-sin-onyms-the-devils-argument-the-martyrdom-of-perpetua-and-felicity 114] || 2024-10-03 || [[Sin-onyms, The Devil&#039;s Argument]] || The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/115-hell-is-the-big-show-the-life-of-st-christina-the-astonishing 115] || 2024-10-27 || [[Hell Is The Big Show]] || The Life of St. Christina the Astonishing || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/116-its-his-birthday-be-nice-the-revelation-of-the-magi 116] || 2024-12-22 || [[It&#039;s His BIRTHDAY, Be Nice!]] || The Revelation of the Magi || Pseudepigrapha || &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/117-king-solomons-hog-the-second-book-of-chronicles-feat-aaron-higashi 117] || 2024-02-17 || [[King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi]] || 2 Chronicles || Tanakh || [[King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/bonus-biblical-mini-golf Bonus] || 2025-05-08 || [[Bonus: Biblical Mini-Golf]] || Fairway to Heaven || Road Trip || &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/118-the-mouse-shall-not-lie-down-with-the-book-psalms-part-1 118] || 2025-08-15 || [[The Mouse Shall Not Lie Down With The Book (Psalms, Part 1)]] || Psalms || Tanakh || &lt;br /&gt;
|}&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Sub-series==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
{| class=&amp;quot;wikitable sortable&amp;quot; style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
! Podcast !! Episode !! &amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;Date&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp; !! Title !! Transcript !! Wolverine Costume&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-01-dr-dan-mcclellan 1] || 2023-04-20 || [[Multipals 01: Dr. Dan McClellan]] || [[Multipals 01: Dr. Dan McClellan (transcript) | Yes]] || Brown and Tan&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-02-aaron-higashi 1] || 2023-06-23 || [[Multipals 02: Aaron Higashi]] || [[Multipals 02: Aaron Higashi (transcript) | Yes]] || Kimono&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-03-anne-thriault 3] || 2023-04-20 || [[Multipals 03: Anne Thériault]] || [[Multipals 03: Anne Thériault (transcript) | Yes]] || Hugh Jackman as the Music Man&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-04-tony-burke-and-janet-spittler 4] || 2023-08-20 || [[Multipals 04: Tony Burke &amp;amp;amp; Janet Spittler]] || [[Multipals 04: Tony Burke &amp;amp;amp; Janet Spittler (transcript) | Yes]] || Brown and Tan / Yellow Guy From Cartoon&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-05-dr-alexiana-fry 5] || 2023-12-13 || [[Multipals 05: Dr. Alexiana Fry]] || [[Multipals 05: Dr. Alexiana Fry (transcript) | Yes]] || Logan (2017) Suit&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-06-dr-justin-sledge 6] || 2023-12-13 || [[Multipals 06: Dr. Justin Sledge]] || [[Multipals 06: Dr. Justin Sledge (transcript) | Yes]] || &#039;90s Yellow&lt;br /&gt;
|}&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=The_Mouse_Shall_Not_Lie_Down_With_The_Book_(Psalms,_Part_1)&amp;diff=1067</id>
		<title>The Mouse Shall Not Lie Down With The Book (Psalms, Part 1)</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=The_Mouse_Shall_Not_Lie_Down_With_The_Book_(Psalms,_Part_1)&amp;diff=1067"/>
		<updated>2026-08-15T22:06:30Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: Created page with &amp;quot;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/42447965/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;  ==Show Notes==  Verily I say unto you, Theophiloi, that this generation shall not pass til the return of Apocrypals be fulfilled. And here we are, back in action after a lengthy, dissociative absence with the first part of our look at Psalms! It&amp;#039;s the celebration of Approximate Week once again, so join us as we go throu...&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/42447965/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Verily I say unto you, Theophiloi, that this generation shall not pass til the return of Apocrypals be fulfilled. And here we are, back in action after a lengthy, dissociative absence with the first part of our look at Psalms! It&#039;s the celebration of Approximate Week once again, so join us as we go through the first 23 of these possibly Davidic, probably not Adamic prayers, only stopping when we hit a famous one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion:  Fire Pro Wrestling World and mental illness, Chris&#039;s Bad Year, Benito&#039;s Good Year, Croasting (not Crow Sting), America Pope, SSGSS Luce, Swamp Thing, horse drugs, Psalty, the 120 Days of Psodom, NWAsonas, a potted review of Wicked, selah, Shrek (RIP), the CSB, Tim Meadows, a joke so good it made Benito cuss, Piccolo and Kami and Adam Warlock and the Magus and the Goddess.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Hymnal: &amp;quot;Deceptacon&amp;quot; by Le Tigre. &amp;quot;Take a Chance On Me&amp;quot; by Stephen Mann of English Martyrs Church.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
This episode of Apocrypals was edited by Chris.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Offertory: As Enoch writes, &amp;quot;Whoever of you spends gold or silver for his brother&#039;s sake, he will receive ample treasure in the world to come.&amp;quot; Support the show via http://ko-fi.com/apocrypals, or check out Official Apocrypals merchandise designed by Erica Henderson! https://www.dashery.com/apocrypals  &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Black Lives Matter. Trans Lives Matter. Heck 12. Isaiah 54:17&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Tanakh]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Episode_List&amp;diff=142</id>
		<title>Episode List</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Episode_List&amp;diff=142"/>
		<updated>2026-08-15T22:05:16Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: /* Episodes */&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;In each episode, [[Benito Cereno|Benito]] and [[Chris Sims|Chris]] read, watch or play something from the Bible (or Bible-adjacent) and talk about its history, authors, and contents. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
You can listen to all episodes at the show&#039;s [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com Libsyn page] or by subscribing through [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/apocrypals/id1366302177 Apple Podcasts]. [[Bonus Episodes|Bonus video episodes]] can all be seen on [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvsqJ485UTPgVIP1i-BTgMfSsmk4S7ouE Benito&#039;s YouTube channel].&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Episodes==&lt;br /&gt;
{| class=&amp;quot;wikitable sortable&amp;quot; style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
! Episode !! &amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;Date&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp; !! Title !! Subject !! Source !! Transcript&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/episode-0-ive-been-to-my-share-of-pizza-parties 0] || 2018-03-29 || [[I&#039;ve Been To My Share of Pizza Parties]] || nonspecific || || [[I&#039;ve Been To My Share of Pizza Parties (Transcript) | Yes]] &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/porky-party-the-book-of-acts 1] || 2018-04-08 || [[Porky Party]] || Acts || New Testament || [[Porky Party (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/2-one-weird-trick-the-book-of-daniel-with-apocrypha 2] || 2018-04-14 || [[One Weird Trick]] || Daniel as well as The Prayer of Azariah aka the Song of the Three Holy Children; Susanna; and Bel and the Dragon || Tanakh and Deuterocanon  || [[One Weird Trick (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/3-various-heresies-the-acts-of-peter-and-paul 3] || 2018-04-22 || [[Various Heresies]] || The Acts of Peter and The Acts of Peter and Paul || Apocrypha  || [[Various Heresies (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/4-wittgensteins-monster-the-book-of-isaiah 4] || 2018-05-06 || [[Wittgenstein&#039;s Monster]] || The Book of Isaiah || Tanakh || [[Wittgenstein&#039;s Monster (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/5-on-the-road-to-rome-pauls-letter-to-the-romans 5] || 2018-05-20 || [[On the Road to Rome]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Romans || New Testament || [[On the Road to Rome (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/6-fresh-prince-of-beliar-the-ascension-of-isaiah 6] || 2018-05-27 || [[Fresh Prince of Beliar]] || The Ascension of Isaiah &amp;amp; The Prayer of Manasseh || Pseudepigrapha and Deuterocanon  || [[ Fresh Prince of Beliar (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/7-neon-genesis-good-news-the-gospel-of-mark-and-secret-mark-0 7] || 2018-06-03 || [[Neon Genesis Good News]] || The Gospel of Mark and Secret Mark || New Testament and Apocrypha  || [[Neon Genesis Good News (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/8-whats-up-doctor-goodacre-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-one 8] || 2018-06-10 || [[What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre]] || The Gospel of Matthew, Part One || New Testament  || [[ What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/9-simon-peters-sweet-sixteen-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-two 9] || 2018-06-24 || [[Simon Peter&#039;s Sweet Sixteen]] || The Gospel of Matthew, Part Two || New Testament || [[Simon Peter&#039;s Sweet Sixteen (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/10-the-dude-hates-wizards-the-gospel-of-luke 10] || 2018-07-02 || [[The Dude Hates Wizards]] || The Gospel of Luke || New Testament || [[The Dude Hates Wizards (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/11-90s-vertigo-jesus-the-gospel-of-john-part-one 11] || 2018-07-09 || [[90s Vertigo Jesus]] || The Gospel of John, Part One || New Testament  || [[ 90s Vertigo Jesus (Transcript)| Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/12-whomst-was-at-the-tombst-the-gospel-of-john-part-two 12] || 2018-07-15 || [[Whomst Was At the Tombst?]] || The Gospel of John, Part Two || New Testament || [[ Whomst Was At the Tombst? (Transcript)| Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/11-90s-vertigo-jesus-the-gospel-of-john-part-one 13] || 2018-07-30 || [[Bonus Goat]] || The Deuterocanonical Book of Tobit || Deuterocanon  || [[Bonus Goat (Transcript)|Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/14-the-boy-related-eagle-plan-the-story-of-ahikar 14] || 2018-08-06 || [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan]] || The Story of Ahikar || Pseudepigrapha || [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan (Transcript)|Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/15-an-approximate-week-the-golden-legend-st-christopher-and-st-benedict 15] || 2018-08-13 || [[An Approximate Week]] || The Golden Legend: St. Christopher and St. Benedict || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/16-doamurder-west-virginia-the-book-of-genesis-part-1 16] || 2018-08-19 || [[Doamurder, West Virginia]] || The Book of Genesis, Part 1 || Tanakh || [[Doamurder, West Virginia (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/17-five-gallons-of-bread-the-book-of-genesis-part-two 17] || 2018-08-27 || [[Five Gallons of Bread]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Two || Tanakh  || [[Five Gallons of Bread (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/18-literally-and-figuratively-wrestling-with-god-the-book-of-genesis-part-three-0 18] || 2018-09-09 || [[Literally and Figuratively Wrestling With God]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Three || Tanakh || [[ Literally and Figuratively Wrestling With God (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/19-mbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbam-the-book-of-genesis-part-four 19] || 2018-09-23 || [[MBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBaM]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Four || Tanakh  || [[ MBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBaM (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/20-shalom-birdie-genesis-commentary-with-david-wolkin 20] || 2018-09-30 || [[Shalom Birdie (with David Wolkin)]] || The Book of Genesis || Tanakh  || [[ Shalom Birdie (with David Wolkin) (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/21-biblerella-the-acts-of-paul-and-thecla 21] || 2018-10-07 || [[Biblerella]] || The Acts of Paul and Thecla || Apocrypha  || [[Biblerella (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/22-oceans-two-the-book-of-judith 22] || 2018-10-15 || [[Ocean&#039;s Two]] || The Book of Judith || Deuterocanon  || [[Ocean&#039;s Two (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/23-dunking-on-satan-the-acts-of-pilate-and-the-gospel-of-nicodemus 23] || 2018-10-21 || [[Dunking on Satan]] || The Acts of Pilate and The Gospel of Nicodemus || Apocrypha  || [[Dunking on Satan (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/25-butt-stuff-dragon-the-testament-of-solomon 24] || 2018-10-29 || [[Butt Stuff Dragon]] || The Testament of Solomon || Pseudepigrapha  || [[Butt Stuff Dragon (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/25-one-rinthies-baby-first-corinthians 25] || 2018-11-14 || [[One Rinthies, Baby]] || First Corinthians || New Testament  || [[One Rinthies, Baby (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/26-some-other-christmas-man-the-lives-of-st-nicholas-and-st-lucy 26] || 2018-11-19 || [[Some Other Christmas Man]] || The Lives of St. Nicholas and St. Lucy || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/27-the-book-of-the-dynasty-of-gods-resisters-the-first-book-of-maccabees 27] || 2018-12-02 || [[The Book of the Dynasty of God&#039;s Resisters]] || The First Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/28-second-maccabees-second-furious-the-second-book-of-maccabees 28] || 2018-12-10 || [[Second Maccabees Second Furious]] || The Second Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/29-these-apocryphal-ravings-the-infancy-gospel-of-james 29] || 2018-12-16 || [[These Apocryphal Ravings]] || The Infancy Gospel of James || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/30-apples-and-oranges-the-legend-of-the-three-kings 30] || 2019-01-07 || [[Apples and Oranges]] || The Legend of the Three Kings by John of Hildesheim || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/31-yartzed-upon-a-distant-shore-the-book-of-jonah 31] || 2019-01-24 || [[Yartzed Upon a Distant Shore]] || The Book of Jonah || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/32-return-of-the-twelve-foot-volcel-lion-questions-answers 32] || 2019-02-03 || [[Return of the Twelve-Foot Volcel Lion]] || Questions &amp;amp; Answers || Listener questions  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/33-thicc-darkness-the-book-of-exodus-part-one 33] || 2019-02-10 || [[Thicc Darkness]] || The Book of Exodus, Part One || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/34-thorn-bushes-and-pushups-the-song-of-songs 34] || 2019-02-24 || [[Thorn Bushes and Pushups]] || The Song of Songs || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/35-down-in-the-donkey-hole-the-book-of-exodus-part-two 35] || 2019-03-03 || [[Down in the Donkey Hole]] || The Book of Exodus, Part Two || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/36-grazacham-the-life-of-st-patrick 36] || 2019-03-12 || [[GRAZACHAM!]] || Muirchu’s Life of Saint Patrick || Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/37-bigger-esther-the-book-of-esther-and-greek-esther 37] || 2019-03-20 || [[Bigger Esther]] || The Book of Esther and Greek Esther || Tanakh and Deuterocanon ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/38-sword-drill-online-bible-trivia-special 38] || 2019-03-31 || [[Sword Drill Online]] || Bible Trivia Special || Complete Book of Bible Trivia  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/39-rain-is-boy-water-the-book-of-enoch-part-one 39] || 2019-04-07 || [[Rain is Boy Water]] || The Book of Enoch, Part One || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/40-devil-got-a-hog-the-book-of-enoch-part-two 40] || 2019-04-19 || [[Devil Got a Hog]] || The Book of Enoch, Part Two || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/41-neo-mary-is-about-to-e-x-p-l-o-d-e-the-questions-of-bartholomew 41] || 2019-04-29 || [[Neo-Mary Is About To E X P L O D E]] || Questions of Bartholomew and The Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Bartholomew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/42-the-roasting-of-the-apostle-paul-second-corinthians 42] || 2019-05-06 || [[The Roasting of the Apostle Paul]] || Second Corinthians || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/43-why-prophets-so-nasty-the-book-of-jeremiah 43] || 2019-05-27 || [[Why Prophets So Nasty?]] || The Book of Jeremiah || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/44-terms-and-conditions-the-book-of-jeremiah-part-2 44] || 2019-06-23 || [[Terms and Conditions]] || The Book of Jeremiah, Part 2 || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/45-mummy-dust-and-skeleton-bones-the-book-of-ruth 45] || 2019-07-14 || [[Mummy Dust and Skeleton Bones]] || The Book of Ruth || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/46-ctrl-z-on-a-murder-the-acts-of-john 46] || 2019-08-09 || [[CTRL-Z On A Murder]] || The Acts of John || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/47-approximate-week-ii-the-quickening-the-syriac-infancy-gospel 47] || 2019-08-21 || [[Approximate Week II: The Quickening]] || The Syriac Infancy Gospel || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/48-the-almighty-ambush-bear-the-book-of-lamentations 48] || 2019-08-28 || [[The Almighty Ambush Bear]] || The Book of Lamentations || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/49-wajesus-the-first-second-and-third-epistles-of-john 49] || 2019-09-16 || [[Wajesus]] || The First, Second, and Third Epistles of John || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/50-the-terf-of-babylon-the-revelation-of-john-0 50] || 2019-10-02 || [[The TERF of Babylon]] || The Revelation of John || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/51-jesus-buffy-halloween-chick-tracts 51] || 2019-10-28 || [[Jesus, Buffy]] || Halloween Chick Tracts || Chick Tracts  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/51-apocrypals-chris-and-benito-the-book-of-ecclesiastes 52] || 2019-11-24 || [[Apocrypals Chris And Benito]] || The Book of Ecclesiastes || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/52-maccabees-3-elephant-drift-the-third-book-of-maccabees 53] || 2019-12-08 || [[Maccabees 3: Elephant Drift]] || The Third Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/54-our-favorite-murders-the-infancy-gospel-of-thomas 54] || 2019-12-22 || [[Our Favorite Murders]] || The Infancy Gospel of Thomas || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/55-the-parable-of-the-sexy-blood-baby-the-book-of-ezekiel-part-one 55] || 2020-01-12 || [[The Parable of the Sexy Blood Baby]] || The Book of Ezekiel, Part One || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/56-welcome-to-the-bone-zone-the-book-of-ezekiel-part-two 56] || 2020-01-26 || [[Welcome to the Bone Zone]] || The Book of Ezekiel, Part Two || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/57-we-holy-ghost-bro-the-life-of-xanthippe-polyxena-and-rebecca 57] || 2020-02-08 || [[We Holy Ghost, Bro?]] || The Life of Xanthippe, Polyxena, and Rebecca || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/58-blaise-your-dead-homie-the-lives-of-st-sebastian-st-blaise-and-st-agatha 58] || 2020-02-23 || [[Blaise, Your Dead Homie]] || The Lives of St. Sebastian, St. Blaise, and St. Agatha || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/59-source-of-the-flow-the-book-of-leviticus 59] || 2020-03-08 || [[Source of the Flow]] || The Book of Leviticus || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/59-joses-crust-the-acts-of-andrew-and-matthias 60] || 2020-03-22 || [[Joses Crust]] || The Acts of Andrew and Matthias || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/60-countless-large-gregs-the-second-book-of-enoch 61] || 2020-04-05 || [[Countless Large Gregs]] || The Second Book of Enoch || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/62-oh-the-jews-manatees-the-book-of-numbers 62] || 2020-04-19 || [[Oh, the Jews&#039; Manatees!]] || The Book of Numbers || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/63-wist-not-to-whom-ne-whither-the-lives-of-st-roche-and-st-guinefort 63] || 2020-05-06 || [[Wist Not To Whom Ne Whither]] || The Lives of St. Roche and St. Guinefort || Golden Legend, Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/64-spiritual-warfare-is-good-actually-bible-adventures-and-the-wisdom-tree-catalogue 64] || 2020-05-18 || [[Spiritual Warfare Is Good, Actually]] || Bible Adventures and the Wisdom Tree catalogue || Video Games  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/65-adonai-is-ichiban-the-book-of-deuteronomy 65] || 2020-06-02 || [[Adonai is Ichiban!]] || The Book of Deuteronomy || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/66-jesus-with-two-cool-ses-the-acts-of-thomas-and-his-wonderworking-skin 66] || 2020-06-14 || [[JeSuS With Two Cool Ses]] || The Acts of Thomas and his Wonderworking Skin || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/67-bad-things-to-call-your-mother-the-book-of-bartholomew 67] || 2020-06-28 || [[Bad Things to Call Your Mother]] || The Book of Bartholomew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/68-scent-of-a-jesus-the-first-second-and-third-apocryphal-apocalypses-of-john 68] || 2020-07-12 || [[Scent of a Jesus]] || The First, Second, and Third Apocryphal Apocalypses of John || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/69-thirst-corinthians-the-lives-of-st-mary-of-egypt-and-st-pelagia 69] || 2020-07-26 || [[Thirst Corinthians]] || The Lives of St. Mary of Egypt and St. Pelagia || Separate books  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xHQHK_SLX8 69 Secret] || 2020-08-28 || [[Secret 69]] || The Greater Questions of Mary || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/70-two-firkin-bored-the-letter-of-aristeas-0 70] || 2020-08-09 || [[Two Firkin Bored]] || The Letter of Aristeas || Pseudepigrapha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/71-approximate-week-chapter-3-parabellum-the-war-scroll 71] || 2020-08-23 || [[Approximate Week Chapter 3: Parabellum]] || The War Scroll || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/72-cold-brew-paul-pauls-letter-to-the-galatians 72] || 2020-09-06 || [[Cold Brew Paul]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Galatians || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/73-be-courageous-the-book-of-joshua 73] || 2020-09-20 || [[Be Courageous!]] || The Book of Joshua || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/74-howl-of-the-ostrich-the-books-of-micah-and-nahum 74] || 2020-10-04 || [[Howl of the Ostrich]] || The Books of Micah and Nahum || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/75-lazer-babies-the-apocalypse-of-peter 75] || 2020-10-18 || [[Lazer Babies]] || The Apocalypse of Peter || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/76-filling-the-room-the-life-of-st-martin 76] || 2020-11-01 || [[Filling the Room]] || The Life of St. Martin || Separate books  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/77-the-blessed-voltrons-the-lives-of-st-catherine-and-st-barbara 77] || 2020-11-15 || [[The Blessed Voltrons]] || The Lives of St. Catherine and St. Barbara || Golden Legend ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/78-maccabees-the-fourth-book-of-maccabees 78] || 2020-11-29 || [[MACCABEES]] || the Fourth Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/79-marys-christmas-the-infancy-gospel-of-pseudo-matthew 79] || 2020-12-13 || [[Marys Christmas]] || The Infancy Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/bonus-bill-bless-us-every-ted-christmas-gift-exchange-2020 79 Bonus] || 2020-12-22 || [[Bill Bless Us, Every Ted]] || Christmas Gift Exchange 2020 || The Joy of Friendship  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/80-the-deadliest-skambush-of-them-all-the-book-of-judges 80] || 2021-01-10 || [[The Deadliest Skambush of Them All]] || The Book of Judges || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/81-sometimes-its-just-sucky-pauls-letter-to-the-ephesians 81] || 2021-01-24 || [[Sometimes It&#039;s Just Sucky]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Ephesians || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/82-sedeqetelebab-the-book-of-jubilees 82] || 2021-02-07 || [[Sedeqetelebab!]] || The Book of Jubilees Pt 1 || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/83-speedrun-tactics-the-book-of-jubilees-part-2 83] || 2021-02-21 || [[Speedrun Tactics]] || The Book of Jubilees Pt 2 || Pseudepigrapha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/84-just-one-more-thing-the-life-of-st-columba 84] || 2021-03-07 || [[Just One More Thing]] || The Life of St. Columba || Hagiography  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/85-old-clootie-the-life-of-st-dunstan 85] || 2021-03-21 || [[Old Clootie]] || The Life of St. Dunstan || Golden Legend ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/87-god-junior-the-third-book-of-enoch-part-1 86] || 2021-04-04 || [[God Junior]] || The Third Book of Enoch (Part 1) || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/87-crisis-on-18000-earths-the-third-book-of-enoch-part-2 87] || 2021-04-18 || [[Crisis On 18,000 Earths]] || The Third Book of Enoch (Part 2) || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/88-a-miserable-pile-of-secrets-the-da-vinci-code-commentary 88] || 2021-05-09 || [[A Miserable Pile of Secrets]] || The Da Vinci Code, the film || Fiction  || [[A Miserable Pile of Secrets (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/89-2000-bc-the-first-book-of-samuel 89] || 2021-05-23 || [[2000 B.C.]] || The First Book of Samuel || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/90-worfin-the-lions-the-second-book-of-samuel-part-1 90] || 2021-06-06 || [[Worfin’ the Lions]] || The Second Book of Samuel (Part 1) || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt4B2OXgHN4 90.1] || 2021-06-20 || [[Double Chai: Rock Me, Asmodeus]] || Solomon and the Devil || Talmudic Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/90-the-me-in-this-story-is-you-the-second-book-of-samuel-part-2 91] || 2021-06-27 || [[The Me In This Story Is You]] || The Second Book of Samuel (Part 2) || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/92-slayer-of-men-conqueror-of-space-the-gospel-of-philip-the-gospel-of-mary-and-the-gospel-of-jesuss-wife-0 92] || 2021-07-11 || [[Slayer of Men, Conqueror of Space]] || The Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Mary, and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife || Apocrypha (Gnostic)  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HKZ-U4W7Ew 92 Bonus] || 2021-08-04 || [[Cephalo4: Protect Yr Neck]] || Cephalophores || Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/93-approximate-week-iv-oblivion-joseph-and-aseneth 93] || 2021-08-15 || [[Approximate Week IV: OblIVion]] || Joseph and Aseneth || Apocrypha (Tanakh)  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/94-little-martha-and-the-small-vandellas-the-lives-of-st-mary-magdalene-and-st-wilgefortis 94] || 2021-09-26 || [[Little Martha and the Small Vandellas]] || The Lives of St. Mary Magdalene and St. Wilgefortis || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/95-an-abyss-of-significant-depth-the-apocalypse-of-paul 95] || 2021-10-10 || [[An Abyss of Significant Depth]] || The Apocalypse of Paul || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/96-the-goku-of-judaism-stories-of-the-baal-shem-tov 96] || 2021-10-24 || [[The Goku of Judaism]] || Stories of the Baal Shem Tov || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbw3BxiTfKU Bonus] || 2021-11-16 || [[Guess the Persona-fied Bible Character]] || Persona 5 || Video Games ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/97-pretty-sus-lesbius-the-acts-of-andrew 97] || 2021-12-02 || [[Pretty Sus, Lesbius]] || The Acts of Andrew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/98-you-know-the-manger-christmas-chick-tracts 98] || 2021-12-23 || [[You Know, the Manger?]] || Christmas Chick Tracts || Chick Tracts  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/99-for-sale-baby-legs-not-attached-the-first-book-of-kings 99] || 2022-01-30 || [[For Sale, Baby Legs, Not Attached]] || The First Book of Kings || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/100-escape-from-flesh-island-the-gospel-of-judas 100] || 2022-03-05 || [[Escape From Flesh Island]] || The Gospel of Judas || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/101-the-apocrypals-solve-theodicy-the-book-of-job 101] || 2022-04-21 || [[The Apocrypals Solve Theodicy]] || The Book of Job || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/102-napalm-toots-the-lives-of-st-mary-of-bethany-and-st-margaret-of-antioch 102] || 2022-06-12 || [[Napalm Toots]] || The Lives of The Lives of St. Martha of Bethany and St. Margaret of Antioch || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/103-sucky-james-the-history-of-joseph-the-carpenter 103] || 2022-07-03 || [[Sucky James]] || The History of Joseph the Carpenter || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/104-previously-on-bible-the-epistle-to-the-hebrews 104] || 2022-08-01 || [[Previously, on Bible]] || The Epistle to the Hebrews || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/103-approximate-week-v-ravager 105] || 2022-08-12 || [[Approximate Week V: RaVager]] || El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron || Video Games  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/104-a-serious-goku-move-the-second-book-of-kings 106] || 2022-10-30 || [[A Serious Goku Move]] || The Second Book of Kings || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/107-hellmensch-stories-of-the-baal-shem-tov-vol-2 107] || 2022-11-13 || [[Hellmensch]] || Stories of the Baal Shem Tov || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin  || [[Hellmensch (Transcript) | Yes ]] &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/108-skip-this-one-the-book-of-hosea 108] || 2022-11-27 || [[Skip This One]] || The Book of Hosea || Tanakh  || [[  Skip This One (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/109-chris-and-benitos-bible-bonkers-the-didache 109] || 2023-10-11 || [[Chris and Benito&#039;s Bible Bonkers]] || The Didache || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/110-the-beastie-boys-worst-nightmare-the-lock-in-2014 110] || 2023-10-30 || [[The Beastie Boys&#039; Worst Nightmare (The Lock-In (2014))]] || The Lock-In (2014) || Fiction ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/111-all-skips-no-hits-1-chronicles 111] || 2024-08-09 || [[All Skips No Hits]] || 1 Chronicles || Tanakh || [[All Skips No Hits (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/112-approximate-week-vi-the-undiscovered-country 112] || 2024-08-17 || [[Approximate Week VI: The Undiscovered Country]] || Illuminator || Comics ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/113-jaoel-instant-messenger-the-apocalypse-of-abraham 113] || 2024-09-05 || [[Jaoel Instant Messenger]] || The Apocalypse of Abraham || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/114-sin-onyms-the-devils-argument-the-martyrdom-of-perpetua-and-felicity 114] || 2024-10-03 || [[Sin-onyms, The Devil&#039;s Argument]] || The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/115-hell-is-the-big-show-the-life-of-st-christina-the-astonishing 115] || 2024-10-27 || [[Hell Is The Big Show]] || The Life of St. Christina the Astonishing || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/116-its-his-birthday-be-nice-the-revelation-of-the-magi 116] || 2024-12-22 || [[It&#039;s His BIRTHDAY, Be Nice!]] || The Revelation of the Magi || Pseudepigrapha || &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/117-king-solomons-hog-the-second-book-of-chronicles-feat-aaron-higashi 117] || 2024-02-17 || [[King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi]] || 2 Chronicles || Tanakh || [[King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/bonus-biblical-mini-golf Bonus] || 2025-05-08 || [[Bonus: Biblical Mini-Golf]] || Fairway to Heaven || Road Trip || &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/118-the-mouse-shall-not-lie-down-with-the-book-psalms-part-1 118] || 2025-08-15 || [[The Mouse Shall Not Lie Down With The Book (Psalms, Part 1)]] || Psalms || Tanakh || &lt;br /&gt;
|}&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Sub-series==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
{| class=&amp;quot;wikitable sortable&amp;quot; style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
! Podcast !! Episode !! &amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;Date&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp; !! Title !! Transcript !! Wolverine Costume&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-01-dr-dan-mcclellan 1] || 2023-04-20 || [[Multipals 01: Dr. Dan McClellan]] || [[Multipals 01: Dr. Dan McClellan (transcript) | Yes]] || Brown and Tan&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-02-aaron-higashi 1] || 2023-06-23 || [[Multipals 02: Aaron Higashi]] || [[Multipals 02: Aaron Higashi (transcript) | Yes]] || Kimono&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-03-anne-thriault 3] || 2023-04-20 || [[Multipals 03: Anne Thériault]] || [[Multipals 03: Anne Thériault (transcript) | Yes]] || Hugh Jackman as the Music Man&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-04-tony-burke-and-janet-spittler 4] || 2023-08-20 || [[Multipals 04: Tony Burke &amp;amp;amp; Janet Spittler]] || [[Multipals 04: Tony Burke &amp;amp;amp; Janet Spittler (transcript) | Yes]] || Brown and Tan / Yellow Guy From Cartoon&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-05-dr-alexiana-fry 5] || 2023-12-13 || [[Multipals 05: Dr. Alexiana Fry]] || [[Multipals 05: Dr. Alexiana Fry (transcript) | Yes]] || Logan (2017) Suit&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-06-dr-justin-sledge 6] || 2023-12-13 || [[Multipals 06: Dr. Justin Sledge]] || [[Multipals 06: Dr. Justin Sledge (transcript) | Yes]] || &#039;90s Yellow&lt;br /&gt;
|}&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=One_Rinthies,_Baby&amp;diff=514</id>
		<title>One Rinthies, Baby</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=One_Rinthies,_Baby&amp;diff=514"/>
		<updated>2026-02-23T20:56:07Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/7563353/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
So uh, if this episode gets a little weird, it&#039;s probably because the hosts, two comic book writers, found out that Stan Lee died about halfway through it. But tragedies great and small won&#039;t stop us from learning about love, and also some extremely misogynistic rules about who gets to talk in church as Paul dashes off yet another letter! That&#039;s right, y&#039;all, it&#039;s time for Rinthies, so let&#039;s get patient and kind up in this piece! Plus: do Paul&#039;s RTs = endorsements?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion: Benito&#039;s pretty good wedding, Martinmas, Apollos, the Biblical license plates of Durham, North Carolina, jerks, Paul&#039;s guide to marriage, sacrifice cookouts, Zeus Meat, @TheRealApostlePaul, Ma-Ti, another Johnny Q. Public reference, IDIC, angel language, secret fraternity names, Desk Pals, Maran Atha, Rinthies II: Through The Portal of Time, and Podifex.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Hymnal: &amp;quot;Modern Love&amp;quot; by David Bowie&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Offertory: If you enjoy the show, head to ko-fi.com/apocrypals and send us a love offering! We absolutely appreciate it!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Opening Verse==&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;quot;I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them, if they remain as I am. But if they do not have self-control, then they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with desire.&amp;quot;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;mdash; First Corinthians 7:8-9&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Favorite Verses==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Benito:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;For who makes you so superior, what do you have that you didn&#039;t receive it? If in fact you did receive it, why do you boast as if you hadn&#039;t received it?&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; 1 Corinthians 4:7&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Chris:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Be alert, stand firm in the faith, act like a man, be strong, your every action must be done with love.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; 1 Corinthians 16:13.&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Don&#039;t you know that the runners in a stadium all race, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way to win the prize.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; 1 Corinthians 9:4&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HivQqTtiHVw Modern Love]  by David Bowie&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Choice Quotes==&lt;br /&gt;
(Help fill this in by checking out the [[One Rinthies, Baby (Transcript)|transcript]].)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:New Testament]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=One_Rinthies,_Baby&amp;diff=513</id>
		<title>One Rinthies, Baby</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=One_Rinthies,_Baby&amp;diff=513"/>
		<updated>2026-02-23T20:52:22Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: /* Show Notes */&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/7563353/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
So uh, if this episode gets a little weird, it&#039;s probably because the hosts, two comic book writers, found out that Stan Lee died about halfway through it. But tragedies great and small won&#039;t stop us from learning about love, and also some extremely misogynistic rules about who gets to talk in church as Paul dashes off yet another letter! That&#039;s right, y&#039;all, it&#039;s time for Rinthies, so let&#039;s get patient and kind up in this piece! Plus: do Paul&#039;s RTs = endorsements?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion: Benito&#039;s pretty good wedding, Martinmas, Apollos, the Biblical license plates of Durham, North Carolina, jerks, Paul&#039;s guide to marriage, sacrifice cookouts, Zeus Meat, @TheRealApostlePaul, Ma-Ti, another Johnny Q. Public reference, IDIC, angel language, secret fraternity names, Desk Pals, Maran Atha, Rinthies II: Through The Portal of Time, and Podifex.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Hymnal: &amp;quot;Modern Love&amp;quot; by David Bowie&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Offertory: If you enjoy the show, head to ko-fi.com/apocrypals and send us a love offering! We absolutely appreciate it!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Opening Verse==&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Take, O Solomon King, the gift which the Lord has sent thee, the highest Sabaoth. With it thou shalt lock up all demons of the earth, male and female, and with their help thou shalt build up Jerusalem.&amp;quot;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;mdash; The Testament of Solomon, Verse 5&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Favorite Verses==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;I am the worst of all, and our stars are in heaven. Seven stars humble in sheen, and all together. And we are called as it were goddesses.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Testament of Solomon, Verse 34 &amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8uvLHnrqdU The Monster Mash]  by Bobby Pickett&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Choice Quotes==&lt;br /&gt;
(Help fill this in by checking out the [[Butt Stuff Dragon (Transcript)|transcript]].)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:New Testament]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=One_Rinthies,_Baby_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1066</id>
		<title>One Rinthies, Baby (Transcript)</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=One_Rinthies,_Baby_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1066"/>
		<updated>2026-02-23T20:50:22Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: Created page with &amp;quot;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;Chris Sims:&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039; &amp;quot;I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them, if they remain as I am. But if they do not have self-control, then they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with desire.&amp;quot; Paul&amp;#039;s letter to the Corinthians, chapter 7, verses 8 and 9.  [Music: &amp;quot;Modern Love&amp;quot; by David Bowie]  &amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;C:&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039; Hello friends and neighbors and welcome to Apocrypals. It&amp;#039;s the podcast where two non-believers read through the Bible, and we try not to be jerks a...&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&#039;&#039;&#039;Chris Sims:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them, if they remain as I am. But if they do not have self-control, then they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with desire.&amp;quot; Paul&#039;s letter to the Corinthians, chapter 7, verses 8 and 9.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music: &amp;quot;Modern Love&amp;quot; by David Bowie]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hello friends and neighbors and welcome to Apocrypals. It&#039;s the podcast where two non-believers read through the Bible, and we try not to be jerks about it. My name is Chris Sins. And the other set of footprints is here with me, the newly married, Mr. Benito Cereno. Benito, congratulations!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hey, thank you very much. Yeah, for the first time, Mr. Benito Cereno, yeah. Yeah man, thanks. I appreciate it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You&#039;ve never been less like Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Little less like Paul. A little less like Paul every day, I feel like.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; In every way, a little less like Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Every day, in every way, a little less like Paul the Apostle.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean he calls himself an apostle, but that is highly debatable.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, well, you know, this is kind of what kicked off the show, the discussion that Paul&#039;s an apostle the way that Captain America is a founding Avenger. But yeah man. Got married. We did the thing. It was pretty good. It was pretty good. It was pretty good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Pretty good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, no...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Pretty good. Does Sarah listen to the show because maybe she shouldn&#039;t. Or maybe you want to take another take on that one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, it&#039;s fine. Like it was it was pretty good. It was good. And actually Sarah has started listening to the show because she got her own car and now she listens to podcasts in the car, and so she has listened to some episodes of this, which was very surprising to me. &#039;Cause generally she does not concern herself with my creative output. So anyway, yeah, no, it was good, man. It was small, like it was very intentionally very small, like otherwise obviously I would have wanted you to be there, but I didn&#039;t want anybody to travel. I didn&#039;t want anybody to have to travel because like for the this there was no ceremony.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
We just went to the courthouse, we went up to the judges&#039; chambers, which was cool because since it was late October, her office was decorated for Halloween. And so like one of her clerks was in there and they had like a chalkboard in the shape of a casket that they wrote Just Married on and we got to hold that and there was a life-size witch that we did a bunch of selfies with. That was pretty cool.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But you know we only had four people in there for that, you know, like legal witnesses and two friends to take pictures basically and then after that we went to go have dinner later and it was like no one should have to travel to come just eat dinner with us at a place we go to most weeks anyway. Like I didn&#039;t even have any family there except for an aunt and uncle who were completely randomly in town did not even know I was getting married. They my aunt texted me on like Wednesday that week and she was like, &amp;quot;Hey we just happen to be in Lexington. We&#039;ve got some things going on this day and this day but was wondering if you might want to get lunch on Friday,&amp;quot; and I had to text back like, &amp;quot;I have a thing on Friday. You can come if you want.&amp;quot; And so randomly I had an aunt and uncle there, but otherwise I wouldn&#039;t have had any family. And so it was just small, but it was good. We had local friends come in. We kind of packed out a restaurant and then a bar. We ate a bunch of donuts. We didn&#039;t do cake. We just got like four dozen Krispy Kreme and piled those up in a bar. It was pretty good, man. It was a good day.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, when I got married, I demanded people travel. Actually.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s true. Part of the thing with the real small wedding is, if I can be frank here for a second about my personal anxieties, is that we were worried that if we did have a party where we invited a bunch of people from across the country to come, no one would be willing to come to Kentucky just for our wedding. So it was a little bit easier if we just were like nip that in the bud. Nobody travel. If you can&#039;t walk to where we are, forget it. So...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s good because what you really want to do is base all your major life decisions on your fears.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it has worked out great so far. It&#039;s worked out really great.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like my fear that one day someone would ask me something about Bible and I wouldn&#039;t know the answer, hence this podcast.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, look, you&#039;re bettering yourself in a way, I suppose.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; In a way. In a way. So yeah, in honor of your wedding, we&#039;re reading the wedding book. We&#039;re reading First Corinthians.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We sure are. Yeah, so after a couple of episodes digging deep in the weeds of the weird and the occult and the strange, we&#039;re getting back to canon. To Pachelbel&#039;s Canon – in D. That&#039;s the song they play at weddings. Paul&#039;s first letter to the Corinthians. Well, first one that we still have. What we call his first letter to the Corinthians. The first still extant letter to the Corinthians, maybe that&#039;s how we could put that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s a lot to fit on a title page.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it really is. So maybe it&#039;s better. Maybe it&#039;s better. But yeah. We got to it. Like we&#039;ve done all the narrative bits of the New Testament. And honestly, all that&#039;s left now is letters and then revelation. And so we got to do these letters. Eventually, despite my strong preference for doing narrative books on this show.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we just gotta get through what I assume is about 800 pages of Paul telling you to stop being so thirsty.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Well here&#039;s, I don&#039;t know, maybe you might think of this as good news or nat, I don&#039;t know. If you remember in our Romans episode, we discussed how the New Testament is arranged like each section is genre, and then within the genre It&#039;s like longest to shortest basically. And so Romans is the longest letter, and then first Corinthians is after that, then 2nd Corinthians. So actually once we get past like Second Corinthians, most of these letters start getting pretty short. Like for the most part, the rest of the letters are all gonna be like six chapters or less. And so probably we&#039;re gonna have to double up, triple up once we get to some of these letters, but that&#039;s for future us to decide. Who knows? But right now, yeah, we have Corinthians, which is not mega long, sixteen chapters. Yeah, it&#039;s definitely one of the longer letters, and then of course once we get to the general epistles, the ones that are not attributed to Paul, you know, Hebrews, James, and so on, those get really short. We&#039;ve definitely already covered the bulk of the New Testament.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is great because here&#039;s a fact about your boy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Mm-hmm.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Don&#039;t like Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Paul&#039;s a lot, and I don&#039;t like him.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Paul. Paul is a lot.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And I did not know that the New Testament was mostly Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s true. I mean yes, in terms of the individual books, yes, definitely. I was trying to think in terms of like actual word count, in which case I think it might be mostly Luke. But I think we talked about that in either our Acts or Luke episode.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we&#039;re all we&#039;re through the Luke stuff.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We are literally done with Luke.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We are done with Luke and it&#039;s all Paul and then and then a couple of other people who had only one or two chapters worth of things to say, and then John of Patmos, which who knows when we&#039;ll do, our special live episode or whatever, who knows?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very weird to me that we have so much from Paul and so little from Peter the first Pope.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; True. Well part of it I think is that Paul traveled around a lot more His main thing was evangelizing and going around and founding new churches and then he&#039;s writing all these letters to check up on his new churches that he&#039;s founded, where for some of the other leaders like Peter and James, that&#039;s less of a priority. So I mean Peter&#039;s got a little bit. We&#039;ve got two letters that are possibly from Peter. But yeah, it&#039;s just I guess, you know, it&#039;s just in his nature. We know about Paul. He once he&#039;s into a thing, he&#039;s mega into that thing. And so he just got some really nice stationery that he was very into. And so he just he&#039;s like, what if I just rip off a couple letters here? And he just couldn&#039;t stop.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. You know what he&#039;s not into?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Um, I have an idea.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Let me let me ask you a question.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Just... This is this is gonna be an easy one. This is gonna be an easy quiz. So get the Guess-o-tron 5000 ready for everyone. Simple yes or no answer. Was Paul ever horny?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; According to Paul, no.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not even once.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not even once.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not even once.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Horny: not even once. Yeah, and we know and that&#039;s how we know he&#039;s not Simon Magus. Jonathan Stewart, no matter what you keep tweeting at me, we have the horny-based evidence that Paul and Simon Magus are two distinct individuals.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, Simon Magus was like the first century James Brown.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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[Music: &amp;quot;Sex Machine&amp;quot; by James Brown]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hey Chris, guess what time it is?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I believe I know what time it is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music: &amp;quot;Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)&amp;quot; by Darlene Love]&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s Christmas, baby.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, man.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s Christmas time. &amp;quot;The snow&#039;s coming dow-how...&amp;quot; I mean it&#039;s a little rainy here mostly, but yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But yeah, so obviously there&#039;s a lot of people who are very adamant that you do not start a single Christmas thing before you see Santa Claus at the end of the Macy&#039;s parade or whatever. I don&#039;t know. Like some people would be very mad at what I&#039;ve been listening to in my car the last couple days. But yeah, if we look at things from a more liturgical perspective or even from a more folkloric perspective, we&#039;re getting up to Advent. It&#039;s Advent. How do I know that it&#039;s part of the Christmas season if we include Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, if we include that bit together there. How do we know? &#039;Cause it is Martinmas. November eleventh was Martinmas. It&#039;s the feast of St. Martin, St. Martin of Tours, and as they say, St. Martin rides in on a white horse. Which is saying that it starts to snow around that time, or at least in times when our climate was different. Although it did snow here. I didn&#039;t stick, but we had flurries the other night.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Martinmas, St. Martin&#039;s Day. St. Martin is a very popular saint. He&#039;s got a lot of parallels with St. Nicholas in a number of ways, and in some places he&#039;s celebrated Almost the same way. Actually, like West Flanders, kids do presents on Martinmas instead of St. Nicholas Day or even Christmas. There&#039;s processionals where you have St. Martin literally riding on a white horse, although not usually an actual white horse. They usually do like more like a hobby horse kind of situation or they construct a thing where it&#039;s like, you know, the fake costume horse around your waist or whatever. And he comes in and he&#039;s followed by a group of Pelzmartel. Pelzmärtel, which are like Krampus-like dudes. They&#039;re parallel to Pelznickel, who come with St. Nicholas, right? That should make sense, so Pelznickel for St. Nicholas and Pelzmartel for St. Martin.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But yeah, St. Martin was a soldier, Roman soldier, and the most famous story about him is that he cut his cloak in half to give to a beggar who was gonna freeze to death and then he had a dream of Jesus with his cloak wrapped around his waist going, &amp;quot;This is St. Martin, he did it. He did what I said and he clothed me. Good job.&amp;quot; And there&#039;s that one. But yeah, a lot of parallels with St. Martin and St. Nicholas, the way that they traveled around destroying pagan temples and that kind of stuff. One of my favorite stories that I read in grad school was the story of St. Martin and a pine tree, where he&#039;s trying to destroy the sacred pine tree, and the people say, &amp;quot;You can destroy it as long as we chop it down and we decide where it falls,&amp;quot; and the idea is they&#039;re going to push it over on him. And they do that, but as it&#039;s falling towards him, he makes a sign of the cross, and then it just deflects like he&#039;s got a force field. So there&#039;s a lot of cool stories about St. Martin.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So hopefully you guys took the time to eat some goose. That&#039;s a traditional St. Martin&#039;s thing because that&#039;s also from a story that when they were gonna make him Bishop of Tours, he was so humble he didn&#039;t want to accept the position, so he went to hide in a barn, but a bunch of honking geese gave his position away and they made him bishop anyway. And so you eat a goose, I guess, in revenge or something, I don&#039;t know. But St. Martin&#039;s Day, it&#039;s a Thanksgiving-like feast in that it&#039;s kind of an end of the bounteous part of the year, right? And you&#039;re about to start the fast for Advent. And so this is kind of your last big hurrah. And so goose or beef or pig, some kind of rich meat usually you&#039;re gonna have at this time. Glühwein, which is like a mulled wine. You guys probably know what Glühwein is. Bonfires are very popular across the world. There&#039;s all sorts of different traditions, like St. Martin, like I said, is so popular that every country&#039;s got their own little tradition. But you have a big feast, bonfire, eat goose if you can. There&#039;s actually because of the fact that you&#039;re supposed to eat like a big meat meal, there&#039;s a saying, I&#039;m gonna get it wrong because I don&#039;t have it in front of me, but it&#039;s something along the lines of &amp;quot;He&#039;ll have his day just like every hog has his Martinmas.&amp;quot; With the idea that like he&#039;s gonna get what&#039;s coming to him. You know, so it&#039;s kind of the opposite of every dog has his day, right? Like every hog has his Martinmas is it&#039;s not gonna be a good day when that comes for you. So I don&#039;t know. It&#039;s a cool one, but it kind of kicks off Advent and that means it is officially Christmas. You cannot give us any lip about this, unfortunately. Let us enjoy it. St. Martin is here. St. Nicholas is coming. And then the big day. A little later after that. So anyway, yeah, that&#039;s kicking off the official holiday season as far as I&#039;m concerned.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well as you know for me it starts on All Saints Day.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure, of course.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; 12:01.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh yeah, I mean, me too. Me too. But there are many people who are vastly anti-that. And so I&#039;m just pointing out that you can&#039;t argue against November 11th as the official start date because St. Martin is here and he has a pack of angry furry dudes who will rip you up for giving them lip. So you just don&#039;t. Let us enjoy it. Let people enjoy what they like. That&#039;s what I say.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So with that, now do we want to talk to about any background here? I assume there is no debate over whether this was written by Paul. It&#039;s very Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very Paul. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I&#039;m sure there&#039;s somebody out there who&#039;s shouting like, &amp;quot;oh, this was actually&amp;quot; or whatever, but no, overwhelming consensus is that this is a legitimate epistle of Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So yeah, Corinth. This is his letter to the church at Corinth. Corinth is a city in Greece. If you guys can like create a mental picture of Greece in your head, you know you&#039;ve got the main mainland part and then you&#039;ve got the second big chunk and the big chunk and the mainland part are connected by a thin strip of land. Well that thin strip of land is the Isthmus of Corinth, and that&#039;s where Corinth is. And so that places it about halfway between Athens, which is on the mainland part, and Sparta, which is down in that the big part hanging off that&#039;s called the Peloponnese there. And so Corinth is that city right there on that strip of land, right on the isthmus of Corinth.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And about 50 CE, Paul went there and founded a church. And then after that he sailed from Corinth and went on to Ephesus, which is on the western coast of Turkey. Then of course, you know, there&#039;s an epistle to the Ephesians as well. So he wrote letters to them as well. But it&#039;s about I think I want to say 180 nautical miles or something. Like if you sail from Corinth to Ephesus, it&#039;s about that much. And so he goes to Ephesus and then from there he moves on. And so that&#039;s his like second missionary journey.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Then when he begins his third missionary journey, he returns to Ephesus, and there he hears some disturbing news about the state of his church in Corinth about things like questions of idolatry and sexual immorality and that kind of stuff. And in addition to that, he gets a letter from them full of questions about how do we do church. And so this letter was probably written during his second stay in Ephesus, sometime between 53-57 CE. You can compare if you want to the life of Paul as described in Acts of the Apostles, chapters roughly 18 and 19 is going to cover the grounds of what we&#039;re looking at right here.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
However, like I hinted at before, we have two canonical letters to the Corinthians, First and Second Corinthians. However, there&#039;s significant evidence within the text of the canonical letters themselves that Paul wrote at least four letters to the Corinthians and we lost half of them. This First Corinthians is at least the second letter that Paul wrote because he references an earlier letter in First Corinthians. And then Second Corinthians that we have in the New Testament is almost certainly the fourth. And so there would have been a third one in between. Neither of the lost ones are actually the third epistle to the Corinthians that we covered in our...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That was in Thecla.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That was in Paul and Thecla. Okay. Yeah. So none of those are the third letter to the Corinthians that we covered in Paul and Thecla. There&#039;s actually at least four letters to the Corinthians. We only have two of them, so we probably have the second and the fourth of those. And there&#039;s no question the canonicity, like every ancient canon list lists First Corinthians, like even the Marcionite canon, from Mars, lists, First Corinthians. So yeah, no question that this is Paul. There are actually some questions, however, about certain sections that may be interpolations that somebody later came in and was like, &amp;quot;hmm, what if it said this though?&amp;quot; And we will 100% hit those as we cover the text. So I don&#039;t feel like I need to cover those right now because we&#039;re gonna get to them and you&#039;re gonna say, &amp;quot;what is this nonsense?&amp;quot; And then I&#039;m gonna say, &amp;quot;well, some people think,&amp;quot; and that&#039;s what&#039;s gonna happen. But otherwise, yeah, pure Paul, pure canon, as canon as can be for New Testament.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know, I&#039;m really surprised to hear you talking about Paul traveling around so much and founding so many churches.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Are you?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I wouldn&#039;t have expected him to take so many missionary positions.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, you did it. You did it.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Three pointer, swish.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh yeah. Absolutely. From downtown. Very good. Alright.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You want to get into it? Are we just gonna go for it? Let&#039;s get it. It&#039;s it&#039;s Rinthies, baby. It&#039;s time for Rinthies.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we&#039;re doing we&#039;re doing One Rinthies. Like the president, we have to call it. We can&#039;t call it First Corinthians. We gotta call it One Corinthians, Two Corinthians. That&#039;s the president said. So yeah, on this show though, Rinthies. One Rinthies. Two Rinthies. One, two, Rinthies kneel before you. That&#039;s what I said now.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Just go ahead now.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; One&#039;s got diamonds in his pocket.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And one has never been horny.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; What can you tell me about the a new character that appears who is if Simon Magus is Paul&#039;s arch nemesis, like the Joker. Then we are now meeting Paul&#039;s the penguin, who is Apollos.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh. Okay. I thought you were gonna talk about Sosthenes, who&#039;s mentioned here at the beginning, and I was like, &amp;quot;they don&#039;t have a difficult relationship.&amp;quot; Sosthenes is just...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Nope,&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know, this is another situation where Sosthenes is the guy who&#039;s actually writing it down, right? He&#039;s the scribe, he&#039;s the amanuensis is the actual term.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, I want to talk about Apollos.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Apollos, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Who Paul is like, I mean, &amp;quot;I don&#039;t know why people keep asking if you follow Paul or if you follow Apollos. Because we all follow the same person. I mean Apollos is wrong about a bunch of stuff and not as good as me, but I mean we&#039;re all in this together, except that dude who sucks.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, no, okay, so I mean obviously this part is yeah, so the overall theme of this letter basically is like &amp;quot;Corinth, you heckin&#039; up so bad.&amp;quot; And the first issue that he chooses to address is divisions within the church where people are building these factions where there&#039;s like, &amp;quot;oh, but I was baptized by so-and-so.&amp;quot; And Paul is like, &amp;quot;this is why I don&#039;t baptize. I don&#039;t baptize people because I don&#039;t need this nonsense in my life.&amp;quot; And yeah, Apollos is the main guy who&#039;s brought up here. Paul mentions him elsewhere. In Titus? Titus he&#039;s mentioned. I don&#039;t remember if he&#039;s in Acts or not, but yeah, so he&#039;s clearly another disciple, not an apostle, but you know, disciple or a deacon going around and baptizing. We also get Cephas mentioned several times here, which of course we know is our boy, Simon the Rock John&#039;s son.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And so he gets he gets name-dropped a few times here.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Now why is he called Cephas in here? And not by the name that he is mentioned everywhere else in this book that is on my desk currently.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, sure. I mean it that just means the rock, right? Cephas also means the rock. It&#039;s just that&#039;s the Aramaic translation rather than Peter which is the Greek. So it&#039;s the same nickname, just different languages is all. Yeah, he&#039;s addressing this division and he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;look, yeah, I&#039;m not here. I didn&#039;t come to baptize because I didn&#039;t want this nonsense.&amp;quot; But yeah, Apollos, you&#039;re right. He does come up. He must have been a major presence at Corinth as well. For Paul to keep mentioning him as often as he does. Which implies that the people of Corinth are mentioning him a lot in their letter and their questions and complaints to Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep, I don&#039;t know. I don&#039;t have much more for you than that. I don&#039;t know much more about Apollos. I guess I could look and let&#039;s look at Titus 3:13 and see what he says there.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Look, it&#039;s very much a, &amp;quot;hey, it doesn&#039;t matter if it&#039;s if it&#039;s Peter. If it&#039;s Apollos, if it&#039;s Paul, we were all, you know, it was none of us were crucified for your sins, except for Peter. Peter was, in fact. You know, it was Jesus. You were baptized in the name of Jesus. Also, I mean, you know, Apollos is wrong about a couple-&amp;quot; like he smooths it over here in Chapter one, and then takes a couple of broadside shots at the guy.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s true. So he&#039;s very positive here. Titus 3:13. &amp;quot;Diligently help Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their journey, so that they will lack nothing.&amp;quot; So, I mean clearly they&#039;re on the same side, but you&#039;re right. Yeah, it is supposed to be a message of unity. Like don&#039;t worry about who the person was that baptized you. Worry about the person in whose name you were baptized. Yeah, that&#039;s that&#039;s the lesson from that bit.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So we&#039;ve got that. And then, well I think we get some pretty good language in here. And you and I talked about this before we started recording, but One Rinthies is very quoted.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;m not even gonna say it&#039;s quotable in the way that like Isaiah is quotable. It is quoted. You have heard most of this book.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Especially chapter 13. Like the entirety of 13 is quoted, which is of course the reason why we&#039;re doing this episode now. But we&#039;ll talk about that when we get there.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But there&#039;s some there&#039;s some good writing here. I really like chapter one, verse 18. &amp;quot;For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is God’s power to us who are being saved.&amp;quot; Like Paul very much has his us-versus-them attitude in here, which, to be fair, is understandable in the mid-50s CE. Sure.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; When this was essentially a cult.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And a criminal one at that.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, an illegal messianic cult.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But it is, you know, I like the language in this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure. &amp;quot;God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, which is the recurring theme in this book, and that we&#039;ve gotten so many times in going through Genesis, so many times in going through the Old Testament books, the Tanakh books, which is that God is so far above us that we cannot understand God.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So, you know, at his worst he is better than us. Which is, you know, an interesting a concept that we get over and over and that we&#039;re gonna have to eventually confront in things like Job.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is gonna be a real bummer of an episode.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, probably. One thing that Paul does to really drive home the message about how much greater God is, God and Christ are, than us is repeated use of slavery language, he uses a lot of terminology that refers to how we are the servants of Christ. And so he uses a lot of terminology and language that would be understood to refer to slaves and so the idea is that we are Christ&#039;s slave and so we need to act like it basically.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah we got that back in Romans too and we got that with Thecla as well. Like there&#039;s a lot of, you know, like the first Romans chapter one verse one &amp;quot;Paul a slave of Christ called as an apostle and singled out for God&#039;s good news.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like right at the top he is using that language.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and of course this bit here, you know, he talks about how the only thing that we have worth bragging about is our connection to Christ. Like we have nothing on our own. Anything that we have that is worth boasting about comes from Christ. And so...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I saw that on a license plate last week.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I sent you a picture because I was out, I was literally driving to therapy. And I saw a license plate that said 1 COR 4 7 And I and I texted it to you because I didn&#039;t know what that was. And that is, &amp;quot;For who makes you so superior, what do you have that you didn&#039;t receive it? If in fact you did receive it, why do you boast as if you hadn&#039;t received it?&amp;quot; Which is an auspicious thing to see on your way to therapy, I assure you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that first kind of rules though, actually, like...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s a good verse. You know what that verse is? You can do that verse in two words, which is stay humble, which is another license plate that exists in Durham, North Carolina.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure, nice. But, when I see Paul say, you know, &amp;quot;why do you boast as if you weren&#039;t given this thing?&amp;quot; What I think about is people standing out there chanting like, &amp;quot;we built this, we built this.&amp;quot; No. You had help and you know it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; You&#039;re already full, you&#039;re already rich. Well, that&#039;s later. That&#039;s Paul getting getting sassy and sarcastic. But um... yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And then also at the end of chapter 3, towards the end of chapter 3, we have actually... I didn&#039;t even notice this. It&#039;s Corinthians 3:16, which is, &amp;quot;Don&#039;t you yourselves know that you are God&#039;s sanctuary and that the Spirit of God lives in you? If anyone destroys God&#039;s sanctuary, God will destroy him, for God&#039;s sanctuary is holy, and that is what you are.&amp;quot; Which on the one hand is the... Boy, there&#039;s a lot of Corinthians in the in the film Constantine starring Keanu Reeves as DC Comics character John Constantine.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s got some extra ones. They got some extra ones in there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; As DC Comics character John Constantine.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Who is who is in the movie as John Constantine. But this I assume is the suicide as a mortal sin verse, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I think this is the source of a lot of that. I mean there&#039;s this plus elsewhere the &amp;quot;your body is a temple.&amp;quot; Right? So you&#039;ve got that concept that your body is supposed to be this sacrosanct vessel for the Lord, and so as a result, yeah, you should take care of your body, and of course, yeah, suicide is a bad thing, which of course, yeah, that&#039;s the major plot point in the Keanu Reeves film, Constantine.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, which on the one level is like that is one part of it, but I find myself drawn much more to the part of &amp;quot;the spirit of God lives in you, and your body is God&#039;s sanctuary, and God&#039;s sanctuary is holy, and that is what you are.&amp;quot; I find that very affirming, actually, as opposed to the prescriptivist way that it is usually presented to us as.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Can we talk about Paul&#039;s example of humility, which also comes in chapter four? This was almost the verse that I read at the top of the show.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, okay. Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Even now we are like the world&#039;s garbage.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. It&#039;s big mood. Big mood for twenty eighteen.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Big mood. &amp;quot;Up to the present hour we are both hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed, roughly treated, homeless. We labor working with our own hands. When we are reviled, we bless. When we are persecuted, we endure it. When we are slandered, we respond graciously. Even now we are like the world&#039;s garbage, like the dirt everyone scrapes off their sandals.&amp;quot; Which again is a verse I have mixed feelings about.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because again, looking at this in the context of the time, right? Mid 50s CE: outlaw criminal cult. Outlaw offshoot in which it all leaders thus far have been put to death.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which will include Paul eventually, after he knocks some demons out of the sky. And Simon Magus explodes into four pieces.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And all of the wives of Rome stop getting down.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But like that kind of you know, &amp;quot;we are the most persecuted&amp;quot; has existed to today.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it hasn&#039;t stopped. That hasn&#039;t stopped even as they have become the majority of the world, that they have gained control of like all branches of the US government, and they&#039;re still like, oh poor, poor us. We are the world&#039;s garbage.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which I think is one of the reasons that I have a hard time with Paul as someone living in 2018.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. Yeah, this is another one where like yeah, we talk about how commonly One Rinthies is quoted a lot. But just like in our Romans episode, we have to keep in mind that like this is a letter that a person wrote to a particular group addressing particular problems. Again, this is not supposed to be a generalized user manual for the universe. It&#039;s a specific letter that addresses specific problems and these things that we so constantly pull out of context, when you look at them in the greater context of what Paul was doing, what the church was doing, and then even in the surrounding chapters, suddenly a lot of these verses become transformed, especially chapter 13, of course, which the most quoted part would we&#039;ll get there soon enough. But yeah, when you look at the context of these letters, they&#039;re boy, are they just vastly transformed in their intent and their message.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, because the sentiment here is look, everybody hates us, but we&#039;re going to have to endure it because our concerns are beyond. Like we&#039;re the world&#039;s garbage. But the very next part is, I&#039;m not writing this to shame you, but to warn you, because you know, like what we need to be doing is following the teachings of Christ, regardless. But there&#039;s, you know, even in the HCSB, there&#039;s a hard break, new verse, new paragraph, new header.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right Just a quick linguistic note. The word garbage here is the Greek word perikatharma, which actually refers to what you shake out of a chamber pot. So that&#039;s where we&#039;re at. 2018, big mood, world&#039;s garbage.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Looks like the church of Corinth got some problems, according to Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; They sure do. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is this is coming up in chapter five. &amp;quot;Y&#039;all too horny. Stop it!&amp;quot; That&#039;s chapter five.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s specifically a man is living with his father&#039;s wife, and this is causing a great scandal. This is a sexual immorality that&#039;s not even tolerated among gentiles, which by the way, people at Corinth would be gentiles. So worth noting there. And oh boy, yeah. On that note, he definitely, talking about the division among the church, because there&#039;s obviously some, you know, there&#039;s some ethnically Jewish Christians as well as the many gentile Christians that would be present. And there&#039;s some divisions there about circumcision, of course, there always is. And he sure does describe the process of being uncircumcised or being like decircumcised, which&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I have a lot of questions about that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. Yeah, it was apparently...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; How do you put it back?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Apparently that was a thing. Like I don&#039;t know what it was. The only note I received on that was that it&#039;s very painful, which sure? Like I don&#039;t, like who knows?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I really want to know. A couple things that caught my eye here in chapter five though, &amp;quot;When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus with my spirit and with the power of our Lord Jesus, turn that one,&amp;quot; by which he means the sexually immoral, &amp;quot;over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.&amp;quot; Well, okay, Paul. Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Maybe we don&#039;t just hand people over to the devil, Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so if the flesh is destroyed, then his spirit is saved is the idea there. But yeah, I don&#039;t know. Let me just, let&#039;s see. &amp;quot;Paul declared that the assembled corporate body was capable of judging the offender in the name of their Lord, because he, as an apostle, had already rendered his legal decision as though he were present. Paul&#039;s legal perspective on this case would have supported the church body that possessed the authority of the Lord Jesus to render a decision on this sin. They had the authority to remove him from their midst for the destruction of the flesh. This may refer to physical judgments such as sickness or even death. If the person were a true believer, banishment to Satan&#039;s domain would cause misery and possibly repentance. Paul expressed hope for the guilty person&#039;s ultimate restoration with the legal phrase, so that his spirit may be saved on the appointed day of the Lord.&amp;quot; Okay. I&#039;m not sure how much that helps, but sure.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is in chapter five. This is verse eleven. &amp;quot;But now I am writing you not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer, who is sexually immoral, or greedy, or an idolater, or verbally abusive, a drunkard, or a swindler, do not even eat with such a person.&amp;quot; And that really caught my eye. And I really wish there was someone that we could use as an example, someone who was claiming to be a believer, but was immoral and verbally abusive and greedy and a swindler, &#039;cause I think this language here in 1 Corinthians could really be applicable to someone if we had an example of that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It seems like there should be like a really prominent example of that kind of person, and yet Nothing&#039;s coming to my mind, which is weird because I have one of the greatest memories of all time. Right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s it&#039;s so big.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s really really fine minds, the best minds on this show. And we can&#039;t think of an example. I don&#039;t know.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. It&#039;s huge, your mind.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Huge.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very it&#039;s very good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here&#039;s a thing that I think I want to mention. One of the reasons that I wanted to do this, this show, and one of the reasons I wanted to dig into the Bible. You and I grew up in the South.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We have seen a lot of examples of weaponized scripture in our lives.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Absolutely.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And we read this, and even though we are not believers, although my wife does still believe I will be dunked in a river eventually, I do have volunteers to do the dunking. I was literally walking around downtown Durham after the convention a couple nights ago, and I was talking to Chad Bowers about the Bible. And I was approached by a homeless person asking for money, and I gave him five bucks because I couldn&#039;t justify walking around talking about Jesus and not giving this guy money because &amp;quot;that which you do to the least of these you also do to me.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, St. Martin would tell you to cut your cloak in half. Pull out your military grade Roman sword. Cut your military cloak in half. Give him half the cloak.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, to be fair, that was Friday night and I made $9 at that con, so he got more than half of the Friday take.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Nice! Hey, great job.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But one of the reasons that we approach this show with the idea of not being jerks about this is that I&#039;m tired of letting jerks have it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You don&#039;t get to have the Bible anymore, jerks.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we&#039;re taking it back. We&#039;re reclaiming it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s not yours anymore. And that includes Paul. That includes Paul, whose words these literally are. But yeah, anyway, if only we knew someone like that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
 &#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Unfortunately, by the time we roll into chapter six, I wrote &amp;quot;Yikes.&amp;quot; And then I wrote down at the bottom of the page in much bigger letters, &amp;quot;YIKES,&amp;quot; and underlined it twice.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, okay. Yeah, because of course we picked First Corinthians because of the relationship to weddings, which is primarily from the fact that every white person has First Corinthians chapter 13 at their wedding. I should... White Christians, sorry.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Did you do any did you have any Bible stuff at your wedding?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, no. We just, it was completely, we were in the Judges Chambers, it was like two and a half minutes was the entire thing. There was no readings. We just did the vows. We exchanged rings. Then we took witch selfies. That was it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, did you find, because Aiden and I also got courthouse married because neither of us is particularly religious yet, but I remember being kind of surprised at the intensity of even getting married by a judge.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That he did give us a little speech about, you know, the standard, you know &amp;quot;marriage is a contract not to be entered into lightly etc. etc.&amp;quot; and we had to do the I Do&#039;s which I was actually not expecting and was like super emotional.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah we did those too. Yeah we had the standard the standard vows. The richer for poorer bit we had that. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But yeah, so this sure is read at a lot of weddings. Not at mine though, not at yours.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. But anyway, oh yeah, so I was saying, yeah, 13 at a lot of weddings, but the fact is this also is the book where he talks about marriage a lot.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s rough.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, especially here chapter seven, or, you know, end of six through seven. Chapter seven here at the beginning is where you can see that he&#039;s switching, he&#039;s transitioning from starting with his own issues that he has with the things he&#039;s hearing out of Corinth, right? &amp;quot;I heard this about the sexual immorality, I heard this about divisions in the church.&amp;quot; Now he&#039;s starting to address their letter specifically when he says, &amp;quot;Now in response to the matters you wrote about.&amp;quot; And so from here until I don&#039;t know, about near the end, about chapter 15, I guess, as he switches topics from question to question, he&#039;ll say, you know, &amp;quot;now about marriage, this,&amp;quot; and then he&#039;ll say, &amp;quot;now about eating and temples, this,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;about spiritual gifts, this,&amp;quot; right? And so from now on, for most of the rest of the letter, he&#039;s addressing their specific concerns. And so yeah, one of their big questions was about marriage. Like, do we get married? Should we or not, right? And well, as we&#039;ve kind of referred to in past episodes when we talked about Paul, we talked about it in Paul and Thecla, Paul&#039;s answer is like, get married if you have to. But if you are of superior flesh and can avoid the temptation, then you can remain celibate, like your boy Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; He does literally say, &amp;quot;I say the following as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all people were just like me.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Don&#039;t we all? Don&#039;t we all wish we were just like Paul? Yeah, so...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Now, here do you want to know what I wrote &amp;quot;yikes&amp;quot; about here?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I have a guess. Is it is it the bit about &amp;quot;a wife does not have the right over her own body but her husband does&amp;quot;?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That was the all-caps underlined yikes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which, to be fair, the next sentence is &amp;quot;in the same way a husband does not have the right over his own body, but his wife does,&amp;quot; but still iffy territory.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right, yeah. It&#039;s not purely against women. It&#039;s the idea that if you are married, then you have responsibilities to the other member of that marriage, right? You cannot just go out and do the deed with whoever because technically your body belongs to your spouse, which, okay. Not great, but not as bad as it could be, for sure. But yeah, &amp;quot;do not deprive one another sexually except when you agree for a time to devote yourselves to prayer.&amp;quot; So just take some prayer breaks every now and then. Otherwise the bone zone is your area to explore.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You left out my favorite part of that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh yeah?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I highlighted it. This might get cut out. &amp;quot;Do not deprive one another sexually except when you agree for a time to devote yourselves to prayer, then come together again.&amp;quot; That&#039;s Paul&#039;s words. Paul, not me.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hey, that&#039;s that&#039;s good advice from Paul. That&#039;s good advice. He&#039;s not privileging one over the other.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. The other the other yikes was obviously for how anyone practicing homosexuality will not inherit the kingdom of God. That&#039;s a rough one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, sure. Oh yeah, yeah, that&#039;s a bad one. Yeah I mean it&#039;s definitely one thing where we can say like Jesus never talks about homosexuality and he doesn&#039;t, but Paul does, and here&#039;s probably the key one that&#039;s gonna get quoted. When he when he lists homosexuality here, this is in this is in chapter six he lists it among a list of sexually immoral practices among idolaters, adulterers, homosexuality, then thieves, greedy people, drunkards. They&#039;re all the same, I&#039;m guessing. Yeah, let&#039;s see. The word here is not actually homosexuality. This word refers to, he says, &amp;quot;don&#039;t be a bottom,&amp;quot; actually, is what he says. It&#039;s the word that used that&#039;s referred to passive homosexual partners. Which honestly is actually what, for the Greeks especially, that&#039;s the shameful thing, right? Obviously the Greeks were pretty into two dudes to the point where like that&#039;s what the word Greek still kind of refers to that in some circles. But yeah, the thing that was shameful for the Greeks and for the Romans subsequently was being the passive partner. The idea that submission was the bad thing rather than the actual rest of the deed. I don&#039;t know. That&#039;s a whole other can of worms that we don&#039;t need to discuss, I suppose.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Anyway, my point is even the language here that Paul&#039;s using is not exactly the same concept as what we would think of today. It&#039;s still problems. It&#039;s still hecka problems. So I want to be clear about that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Alright, yeah, so I mean plenty of stuff about marriage. The idea is that marriage is a good outlet if you need to exorcise your sexual impulses in a virtuous way. Right? So there&#039;s a lot of stuff about that. About if you&#039;re unmarried, it&#039;s better to stay unmarried. If you&#039;re widowed, stay widowed. But being widowed is the one circumstance in which it&#039;s okay to remarry. Then we have the bit about the various situations in life. This is where he talks about circumcision versus getting de-circumcised.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Still have a lot of questions about that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like literally, all that I have on this is that &amp;quot;such a man had the option to remain circumcised or become uncircumcised, that is, to undo his circumcision by undergoing a painful operation as some secular-minded Jews did in the first century, according to Josephus.&amp;quot; So it was an actual thing that people were doing. Weird. But you know, the bodymod community&#039;s been a thing for a while, so...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; What is the process? How do you do it though?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I don&#039;t know, man. Like I don&#039;t know. They...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is it glue or is it needles? It&#039;s gotta be needles.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Feels like it&#039;s gotta be needles. And Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s bad. That&#039;s a bad scene.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s bad. It&#039;s a bad scene. Anyway, again, you know, it&#039;s talking about like how Christ should be the change in you, not necessarily how you need to make physical changes in your life. Lots of stuff about marriage. There&#039;s a weird thing here that reads really strange here at the end of chapter seven. &amp;quot;If any man thinks he&#039;s acting improperly towards his virgin, if she is past marriageable age, and so it must be, he can do what he wants, he is not sinning they can get married. But he who stands firm...&amp;quot; Okay. That might be talking about a father with a virgin daughter that he&#039;s giving in marriage to someone else. Maybe. This is another one where there is no circumstance in which it&#039;s not at least a little bit weird.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, because it sounds like it&#039;s a lot of weird, if you get what I&#039;m saying.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Anyway, hey, let&#039;s move on to chapter eight. Let&#039;s talk about food offered to idols. Let&#039;s do that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You should eat it. Or should you. I was very unclear on this, honestly.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right, the idea that you have to understand is that sacrifices made to Greco-Roman gods, they&#039;re basically barbecues, right? You kill a bull or a pig or a ram or whatever, and the gods get the inedible portions. Thanks, Prometheus. Shout out. You burn the bones and so on for the gods. They eat that smoke. That&#039;s how gods do.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; What if you eat the bones, like in that great advertising campaign?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039;  For KFC? &amp;quot;I ate the bones!&amp;quot; Then Zeus would come with a mighty vengeance upon you?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Don&#039;t want that, obviously.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; The bones are for Zeus. Actually the bones&#039; smoke. The guys just inhale the smoke. And anyway, so then what you have left is basically... You&#039;ve got a cookout. You&#039;ve just cooked all this you cow meat and you gotta do something with it. So you have you have a little party, everybody eats a sacrificial animal. And so the question is, is it cool for me as a Christian to eat an animal that has been sacrificed to say Zeus or Poseidon or whomever? And Paul&#039;s answer is like, yeah man, it&#039;s cool because Poseidon&#039;s not a thing, so you&#039;re just eating a hamburger. That&#039;s pretty chill. But...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; How many parties do you think Paul went to? And he just grabbed...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Very few.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean, yes, in general, very few, but like percentage-wise of the parties that were attended by St. Paul, how many of them do you think involved him like picking up a hamburger and then going, I&#039;m gonna eat this now, &#039;cause Zeus is fake.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; As like out loud, as he&#039;s taking a bite.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, no, like saying that too, I don&#039;t know, what&#039;s a what&#039;s a good Greek name? Agrippa. Saying that to Agrippa.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s a Latin name, but I&#039;ll take it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know what I mean.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, sure. Yeah, exactly. He just turns to his pals, Aquila and Priscilla, and he&#039;s like, ?This doesn&#039;t count. This is not Zeus meat. This is just regular. This is regular. Zeus is not real.&amp;quot; And then he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Hey, remember that time? Remember that time when everybody thought I was the god Hermes? That was pretty cool. He&#039;s not real though. I&#039;m real. I&#039;m eating this hamburger.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But yeah, yeah. So basically his..&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then he tips his Fedora.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah. But his take on it is go ahead and eat it because it&#039;s not a thing, it&#039;s just a hamburger, unless there&#039;s somebody nearby who would be confused by this and caused to stumble.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So every time you go to a party, which for Paul is, I&#039;m guessing it&#039;s Pentecost and Hanukkah and that&#039;s it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, probably. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Every time you do that, you gotta go, &amp;quot;Hey, is it cool if I eat this hamburger?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Is anybody gonna think that this is somehow dedicated to the Greek pantheon if I eat this hamburger? No? Good? We&#039;re chill? Cool.&amp;quot; Yeah, so here it&#039;s about setting an example and not being a stumbling block to other people because one of the main issues, one of the things that&#039;s one of the main issues for the Church of Corinth is that they&#039;re having a hard time transitioning from Greco-Roman stuff into Christian stuff and those things are still getting mingled up. And one of these one of these issues is people are confused about these sacrificial meals and what they should do. And he says, &amp;quot;Well, as long as your conscience is clear and you know that Zeus is fake, go ahead and eat it. But if you have somebody who&#039;s struggling with this, then don&#039;t, because it&#039;ll just lead them towards something bad, you know.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;If food causes my brother to fall, I will never again eat meat so that I won&#039;t cause my brother to fall.&amp;quot; Which, you know what? Kudos, that&#039;s a good one, right? Like if what you&#039;re doing is gonna be hurtful to somebody else or cause them to feel pain, probably don&#039;t do it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, that&#039;s the one thing that we&#039;ve said that we really like about Paul, right? Because he says that in Romans too about like, hey, whatever anybody else needs to do to get through the day, let them do it. If they need to fast, if they need to do whatever, chill out.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So can you tell me about how some people committed sexual immorality and in a single day 23,000 people fell dead? Which is like Gettysburg levels.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That is a lot. Okay, I see. Alright, so we&#039;re in chapter 10. Yeah. So this is...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This rolls right into chapter 10.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is chapter 10. This is referring back to Exodus, right? He&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Take this as a warning. You had the people of Israel who literally got out of Egypt, Moses was there, brought the commandments and so they all ate the same spiritual food, drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.&amp;quot; Okay, very cool. But then, like, yeah, then they became idolaters, and it was bad. And yeah, 23,000 people fell dead. I guess that is a reference to Numbers. Sure. Numbers chapter 25. I don&#039;t know. This is the Israelites from the desert times. And it&#039;s just an example of how especially in that time you have the ebb and flow of the faith of the Israelites. And this is an ebb period and the destruction of 23,000 people. That&#039;s a lot. You&#039;re right. That is that is an exceptionally large number.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s a town.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like that&#039;s not a big town, but that&#039;s a town.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean that&#039;s...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Back then it&#039;s a huge town.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, for sure. Like right now, there are certainly counties in Kentucky that don&#039;t have that many people.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So what do we have next?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Let&#039;s see. So here we have yeah, warning against idolatry. And here he comes back to the question of eating these things. So this is considered to be this bit here, chapter 10. Well, what we were just looking at, 1 through 22, is considered to be a possible interpolation, something that somebody later came and added in, because it seems to contradict what he was saying that we were just looking at in chapter 8 about how it&#039;s chill to eat that Zeus hamburger as long as you know Zeus is fake. And so here he seems to contradict that a little bit and say like just don&#039;t eat the Zeus hamburger at all. So this is one of the places where this is considered to be a later possible later edition. Not everybody agrees with that. A lot of people think that there&#039;s unity from chapter 8 through 11. So not everybody agrees with that, but some people think that this part is a later edition.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I have a question for you, Benito.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, I&#039;m ready.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do you like rules?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do I like rules?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. Well I don&#039;t know that I like them. Do I have a compulsion to follow them? Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do you like hats?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh man. I&#039;m not really a hat person. I and you&#039;re not really a hat person either, in my experience.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; When I am not at minor league baseball games, I am not generally a hat person.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. Yeah, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I will rep my beloved Durham Bulls when I&#039;m over at DBAP.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But not otherwise, no.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Final question in this little string of questions. How do you feel about misogyny?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, not a fan, generally speaking.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, because I&#039;m gonna guess that then you are not a fan of what we get here in [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2011&amp;amp;version=HCSB chapter 11], which I described in the margins of my Bible as lots of misogynist hat rules.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, so this is one of those sections, and of which there are a few throughout, where it seems on the surface very bad, and if we dig under the surface it might still be bad, but if I don&#039;t try to present a positive spin on it, we&#039;re going to get very many tweets where people are like, actually Paul was saying this, and that&#039;s why this is good. Anyway, so...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Alright, please, please give me the positive spin on &amp;quot;So if a woman&#039;s head is not covered, her hair should be cut off. But if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, she should be covered.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; For people who have not read, the idea is that it&#039;s sinful for a man to cover his head in prayer. It is sinful for a woman not to cover her head in prayer. That&#039;s the gist of it. This is, according to some interpretations, this is Paul reacting to another thing where people are conflating Greco-Roman worship with Christian worship and he&#039;s trying to say, stop doing this pagan stuff. And so the example there would be, this is not a reference actually to a hat, but to the Roman practice of when they would bow to pray they would pull their toga over their head in order to prevent distractions. And so because this was associated with pagan worship, a male believer would be dishonoring his true head, that is Christ, the head of the church, by covering his physical head with a toga. So that&#039;s the men half of that, arguably, right? The reason men are not supposed to cover their head is because it&#039;s too much, it&#039;s too pagan-y.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And then in the first century a woman would only speak with her head uncovered in private settings. That is true. So for example, women would sometimes lead prayer with their head uncovered at pagan clubs meeting in private homes. So Paul did not give a reason why women in the church at Corinth were uncovered. It may be that they brought into the church religious practices that paralleled habits in the pagan meetings. And he explains that a Corinthian woman&#039;s uncovered head dishonored her head. A woman who prayed or prophesied with her head uncovered was one and the same with the one having her head shaved. Which a shaved head is something that pagan women would do to dedicate their shaved hair to a god. And so again, a head uncovered mirrors this pagan practice. And so it&#039;s not so much about the gender dynamics, but rather about not mirroring pagan practices, arguably. That&#039;s that&#039;s the defense on that one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Can you maybe go into some detail on [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2011%3A10&amp;amp;version=HCSB chapter 11, verse 10]? &amp;quot;This is why a woman should have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Mo I cannot because nobody knows what that means.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right, okay, so it&#039;s not just me on that one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, no, no. So like basically everything from ten to fifteen are described as being obscure and have yielded multiple interpretations. So nobody knows exactly what verses 10 through 15 here mean. It&#039;s very confusing, and it sure is. Angels, who knows? I mean, like, do the angels...? I don&#039;t know it&#039;s an outward symbol that signified to the angels her deference to leadership. Great. I don&#039;t yeah, I don&#039;t know. It&#039;s can these are confusing, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, I&#039;m glad that you said from 10 to 15 because First Rinthies 11:16 is m my favorite verse in the book.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Uh-huh.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2011%3A16&amp;amp;version=HCSB But if anyone wants to argue about this, we have no other custom, nor do the churches of God].&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, you just dismiss whatever.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. If you want to argue about this, sorry, no.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I know you want to argue about this. Oh my Twitter app keeps crashing. Sorry. Sorry.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sorry, don&#039;t @ me. Don&#039;t @ Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Don&#039;t @ Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Please don&#039;t @ St. Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; @TheRealApostlePaul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; @TheRealPaul. PaulOfficial.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; PaulOfficial. PaulOfficialApostleRealApostleNotFake.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; What is the bio for St. Paul&#039;s Twitter account? Because first line is like &amp;quot;Servant of Christ,&amp;quot; and there&#039;s one of those vertical lines.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And it&#039;s like &amp;quot;#NeverHorny.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; What else? Any thoughts?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Ooh, hmm. &amp;quot;Real apostle, saw Jesus. Jesus he gave me a mission. Real for real. Don&#039;t listen to James.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Definitely, definitely, I&#039;m definitely more Christian than Jesus&#039; brother, James. &amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Jesus&#039; for real, for real, actual brother, but aren&#039;t we all not brothers in Christ? Check out my SoundCloud,&amp;quot; and then there&#039;s a link.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And Paul is definitely a guy where his following count and his follower count are the exact same number. He follows back everyone.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do you think Paul&#039;s RTs equal endorsements?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I think no. No, because we see that. We see in this very book, we see his RTs frequently not equaling endorsements. &amp;quot;Everything is permissible,&amp;quot; he RTs at least four times and says, &amp;quot;No, no. Everything is permissible, but not everything is helpful.&amp;quot; So no, RTs do not equal endorsements.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Of all the biblical figures we have studied in our journey through Bible, are Paul&#039;s threads the most obnoxious? I say yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, one hundo. Oh yes. Paul definitely does thousand tweets. He&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Oh, so you&#039;re concerned about eating meat sacrificed to idols, you say? Time for some game theory.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Paul&#039;s RTs are not endorsements, but Paul&#039;s opinions are those of his employer, Jesus Christ.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s right. Except for like literally twice in this book where he says, &amp;quot;This is just me, this is not Jesus speaking, but this is Paul&#039;s opinion. So I&#039;m not speaking from Jesus here. This is just me. Don&#039;t get married. Okay, peace.&amp;quot; Oh boy. Paul on Twitter.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I can&#039;t wait for someone to start [https://x.com/therealpaul @TheRealPaul].&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;m sure that somebody&#039;s got a parody Paul account, right? It&#039;s got to exist. There&#039;s one for Chaucer, there&#039;s got to be one for Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Let&#039;s see, we&#039;ve got [https://x.com/paulmovie @PaulMovie], that&#039;s for Paul Apostle Movie.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here is [https://x.com/stpaulapostle St. Paul the Apostle], which, this does appear to be Paul&#039;s Twitter account though, because it&#039;s mostly the pin tweet is a quote from Romans, and there is nothing more Paul than your pin tweet quoting you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This account is literally just quotes from Paul&#039;s letters and then this one tweet says &amp;quot;to live is #Christ to die is King.&amp;quot; I think we actually found Paul&#039;s actual Twitter account.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I think we found it. Good job. Good job. We did it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There are tears in my eyes right now.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; All things are possible through Christ who strengthens me, even finding Paul&#039;s Twitter account. Paul talks about the Lord&#039;s Supper and he gives the exact words that we see later, of course, in the Gospels. So there must have been a strong oral tradition on this, or else people were even using the epistles possibly as sources for the... I don&#039;t know. That doesn&#039;t sound real. But anyway, yeah, there must be a strong tradition about the exact words from the Lord&#039;s Supper because we see them here in Paul. Keep in mind that Paul&#039;s epistles are, of course, earlier than any of the gospels. Any of the canonical gospels anyway.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Chapter 12, we get into spiritual gifts, which was a thing that was always weirdly focused on in my Sunday school growing up, you know, that everybody has talents and things, but they&#039;re separate from your spiritual gifts, which are, you know things that the Holy Spirit has bestowed upon you that make it easier for you to minister to other people. And so: wisdom through the spirit. Knowledge. So here we get even Paul making the distinction between wisdom and intelligence roles. Faith, healing, and faith healing, performing of miracles, prophecy, distinguishing between spirits, different kinds of languages, and interpretations of languages, which cool, I got that last one, which makes me feel I&#039;m a little bit the Ma-Ti of the spiritual gifts tiers, right? Because there&#039;s definitely somebody over there doing fire-based miracles, someone can control the earth, faith healing, and me, I&#039;m over here, I&#039;m like &amp;quot;Well, actually, you see, this semantic root is tied to...&amp;quot; yeah, that&#039;s me over there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean look, I find that – I don&#039;t want you to think that I don&#039;t think that&#039;s impressive about you. I&#039;m very impressed by your knowledge of language – I do not know that I would call it miraculous.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No yeah, knowing languages? Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I mean I feel like that&#039;s like saying if you went to school and studied really hard you could learn to bi-locate and fly and carry your own decapitated head down the road.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s true. And because I know somebody&#039;s gonna shout at me if I don&#039;t It&#039;s like being the Doug Ramsey there. If you don&#039;t like Ma-Ti, there, I could be the Doug Ramsey. But then we get this bit here that&#039;s another kind of commonly quoted one that I like. I mean it addresses the idea of unity and diversity coexisting. Very good message that I think can be applied in a wide scope of things. I know we keep saying like these books are not universal user manuals for existence on Earth. But at the same time, some of these things are applicable in other circumstances outside of specifically a church in the Isthmus of Corinth.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Only a few things though.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, but I like the idea that you know we&#039;re a body, not everything is supposed to be the same thing, right? If all of my parts could see, I mean, what&#039;s the point of the eyes?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I actually really like the language here because it&#039;s very evocative to be like, you know, the hands should not be like I&#039;m more useful than the eyes, and the eyes shouldn&#039;t be like I&#039;m more useful than the hands. It&#039;s a really good way to put it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s actually the other way around, right? It&#039;s not that I&#039;m an eye and I&#039;m more useful than the hand, but rather I&#039;m an eye and thus am not useful because I&#039;m not a hand. And that&#039;s the idea that a lot of people would have. But it&#039;s like we need the eyes, we need the hands, we need the ears. And I know I frequently reference the Christian rock of my youth. And there is a song by the band [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfFq7SdU_Z8 Johnny Q Public called &amp;quot;Body Be&amp;quot;] that addresses this exact issue. I&#039;ll probably post it on the Tumblr. Where it&#039;s like &amp;quot;I can&#039;t see that something&#039;s wrong if all my pieces become pieces and not all one.&amp;quot; And yeah, so that part&#039;s cool. You know, there&#039;s individual members. You should have both unity, everyone working for a common goal, but diversity within that group, which is I think a lesson that a lot of groups today could probably take and use to their benefit.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I believe that is the motto of the Vulcan confederation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is it?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, man.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, okay. Hey. Well there you go.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; IDIC, baby.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Hey let&#039;s look at chapter 13, because that&#039;s the one. That&#039;s the one everybody knows. This is the one, of course, that everybody reads at their at their wedding. Not literally everyone, but you know what I mean.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, neither me nor you. Nobody reads this first line though. People come in at in verse 4. Nobody starts with verse 1&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;ve been to plenty of weddings that start with verse 1. They I&#039;ve been to plenty that do the whole chapter. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So they just straight up they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;Hey, thanks for coming to witness these two people get married. Let&#039;s talk about angel language.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. Yeah, cause that...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; What&#039;s your angel language? Mine is acts of service.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; My Angel language is [https://buffy.fandom.com/wiki/Smile_Time that one where he&#039;s a puppet]. Yeah, so this follows up the idea of different spiritual gifts. It&#039;s like everyone&#039;s got different gifts, but even if I have the power to speak the language...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sorry, I literally just got a text from my wife that says, &amp;quot;what are you talking about in there?&amp;quot; Babe, we&#039;re just talking about angel language. Love you. Do go on.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay. Yeah, so this follows on...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Wait, now she&#039;s in here. If you&#039;re speaking angel languages, but you don&#039;t have love, that&#039;s just noise. That&#039;s what it should say in this Bible. That&#039;s what it should say.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so this follows up on the bit where he&#039;s talking about all the different spiritual gifts, right, and the diversity there and he says, &amp;quot;But even if I have these great powers, if I have prophecy, if I have the gift to speak to angels,&amp;quot; right? And the idea of these angelic languages, that&#039;s where you get the these ideas of speaking in tongues, right, where you&#039;ll have at certain church services where people will suddenly start speaking gibberish and the idea is that they&#039;re speaking some kind of celestial language, an angel language or something. I&#039;ll come back to that. I wanna...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Have you ever been to a church where someone started speaking in tongues?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes I have. I was gonna tell this in a second, but I&#039;ll tell it now since you&#039;re bringing it up. It wasn&#039;t a church. It was it was a coffee house, and my mom was like, &amp;quot;Hey, there&#039;s somebody doing music at this coffee house they&#039;re gonna do some Christian music you should go check it out,&amp;quot; so I went and it was a place where the guy was doing music and suddenly the people all around me just started going [makes garbled word sounds] when they were particularly moved by the music. And I was like, &amp;quot;okay, this is strange, what kind of coffee house am I in?&amp;quot; And then It got super dope because the guy doing the music also revealed his spiritual gift, which was the gift of prophecy. And so for each individual in the coffee house, he gave each person a prophecy, which he recorded on a cassette tape and then handed each person their cassette tape at the end of the show. And so I left this coffee house, A) with a mega weird feeling, and B) a cassette tape that possibly contained my future on it that I have not listened to in probably some twenty, twenty-five years, so who knows.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But you did listen to it. You have to have listened to it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not since then. I don&#039;t remember what it says on there at all. I know I left there feeling...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; How do you not remember a prophecy that someone gives you?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, because at the time I was very mad. I was like, &amp;quot;This is some kind of garbage weirdo coffee house that my parents sent me to, and I don&#039;t believe that prophecy is a thing that a person can actually do. And no thank you.&amp;quot; And so, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean look, those are very good reasons, but also how do you specifically not pop that cassette in and then be like, alright, let&#039;s take a shot at this prophesy?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; If I had if I had that cassette tape now, I would listen to it every day. Like I would wake up, look into the mirror like Stuart Smalley and play that cassette tape in the background and be like, &amp;quot;you are going to fulfill the prophecy of this crazy long-haired creature man in a coffee shop.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; What if it was just his demo?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, just a scratch version. Like later he did he did a studio version with actually way too much production on it. Just too many squelchy beats in there. Just like this is not appropriate for the material.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay. Alright. So yeah, now can you talk to angels? Because you just said you had the angel miracle.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, no, I have the I have the interpretation of language, miracle, I&#039;m not even the speaking one. I&#039;m the I&#039;m the understanding one, but no. I have not to the best of my knowledge been able to understand angelic languages, but we haven&#039;t covered any text written in Enochian yet, so who knows, maybe, it could happen.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Hey, [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2013&amp;amp;version=HCSB chapter 13]. Yeah, so the idea is even if you have all these gifts, if you don&#039;t have love, these gifts are worthless. And then he lays out the idea of love. And this is one of those places where putting it in context totally changes the meaning of this thing, because when you hear it at a wedding and you&#039;re like, oh, &amp;quot;love is patient, love is kind,&amp;quot; you&#039;re just like, &amp;quot;yeah, love rules!? But really, in the context, this is like a scathing indictment of the Corinthians because he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;You&#039;re supposed to have love, and you don&#039;t. You&#039;re supposed to be patient, and you&#039;re not. You&#039;re supposed to be kind, but you&#039;re not. Supposed to not envy, but you do. You&#039;re not supposed to boast, but you&#039;re doing it.&amp;quot; Right? And so this is not him saying like, &amp;quot;love is dope,&amp;quot; it&#039;s more like &amp;quot;Corinthians suck,&amp;quot; is really what this chapter is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s not, &amp;quot;love is dope.&amp;quot; It&#039;s &amp;quot;Corinthians suck.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; While we&#039;re on the topic of my ability to interpret languages in this chapter, one of the things I used to do when I was in college and grad school, when I was more finely attuned to my powers of ancient Greek, much of which have grown quite rusty. One of the things I used to like to do is try to guess the secret Greek names of Greek organizations, fraternities and sororities, because like, you know, all those Greek letter names, they&#039;re abbreviations for things. And for most of them, those are like secret names and you&#039;re not supposed to know them and you&#039;re not supposed to share them and that&#039;s part of the mystery of the group is knowing what those things are. And so I used to try and guess and so I&#039;d meet people from those groups and I&#039;d be like I&#039;m just gonna guess and if I guess right you have to tell me. And I&#039;m like don&#039;t tell me what it is, just tell me if I&#039;m right if I guessed it. So for example, and I&#039;m gonna blow up that spot on this podcast right now, so get ready, Greek organizations. So for example, like SAE, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, is Su Adolfos Esa, which means &amp;quot;you are my brother,&amp;quot; which is a very boring thing for a fraternity to be called, but that&#039;s one. Kappa Delta, that&#039;s a sorority. That one stands for Kala Diokomen, which means &amp;quot;we pursue the good things.&amp;quot; That one may not be their secret name. I think they have a separate, more secret thing that they keep. But related to this, another shorty, AOPi, Alpha Omicron Pi. stands for agape ou perpereuetai, and that&#039;s this right here, &amp;quot;love is not boastful&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;charity vaunteth not itself,&amp;quot; as the King James Version says. So there you go. Ruined your secret, AOPi. I don&#039;t feel guilty about it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Please don&#039;t come after me. I have never been hazed and I am not eager to start.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, one that I&#039;ve guessed on that I&#039;ve never had confirmed is I feel very certain that Kappa Alpha Stands for Kalos Agathos. If somebody was in Kappa Alpha, please let me know if I&#039;m right that Kappa Alpha stands for Kalos Agathos because I&#039;d really like to know. It means it means &amp;quot;good and noble.&amp;quot; And the reason I really think it&#039;s that is because Kalos Kai Agathos, good and noble, was the phrase that was used in like ancient Greece to refer to kind of like good ole boys, and Kappa Alpha is like the most good ole boy style fraternity that there is, which is a very high bar to clear. And so I&#039;m really interested to see if there is that tie between the current state of that fraternity and the ancient phrase, that term of like good ole boys. And so someone let me know if Kappa Alpha does stand for Kalos Agathos. I&#039;d really like to know.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So yeah, &amp;quot;love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy, is not boastful, is not conceited, does not act improperly, is not selfish, is not provoked, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.&amp;quot; Very good reason that is read at ever wedding.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I mean, it&#039;s nice, it&#039;s really good language. I mean, is it at this point cliché and trite? Yes, but at one point this was incredibly powerful. It&#039;s still has power. It still has power. And then again he comes back to these spiritual gifts, right? &amp;quot;Prophecies will come to an end. Languages will cease. Knowledge has an endpoint. Love is the only thing that lasts forever.&amp;quot; And then of course we get this other very quoted: &amp;quot;when I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things.&amp;quot; And that one, obviously mega quoted, even also at weddings, right, especially ones that do the full verse, the idea that you know getting married is an important step towards maturity, so that&#039;s an important one there. Here the HCSB kind of loses the iconic translation here. &amp;quot;For now we see indistinctly as in a mirror.&amp;quot; And of course the famous KJV version is &amp;quot;We see as in a glass darkly,&amp;quot; right? So that&#039;s that&#039;s where that comes from.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; On the subject of, here in verse 11, &amp;quot;when I became a man I put aside childish things,&amp;quot; I&#039;m just turning my head 45 degrees to the left. And looking at my desk where I record the show and I do a little bit of my work, my job that&#039;s been my job for a decade. I have a lot of little plastic people. I have I have Captain Jean-Luc Picard.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I have Bruce Wayne, the Batman.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Mm-hmm.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I have, not my uncle, but he is noted Calisotan businessman Scrooge McDock.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I have a lead statue of Dracula.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Mm-hmm.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; A pewter statue of a wizard with a hologram on a pedestal that was given to me on the occasion of my wedding.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yes, yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And a stuffed Bulbasaur.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Nice. So&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Also a little tiny Sailor Neptune.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; You put away the childish things and you have kept out the adult-y things. That&#039;s seems fair.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I have kept out the people we can learn from. Scrooge McDuck, Captain Picard, Batman, and Dracula, and a wizard. A wedding wizard.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So yeah, more behind the scenes. I record in my bedroom and so just on my end table, I don&#039;t have as many figures because I keep most of those out in another room. But on my end table, I do have a Donald Duck. Donald Duck from the current DuckTales, so he&#039;s got a smartphone, obviously.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this is a Scrooge McDuck that was given to me on my 36th birthday by my wife who knows I love Scrooge McDuck.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah. So my Donald Duck is from the same line, right? Yours is from the new DuckTales, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Next to that I have an ornament of Santa Claus towing a kayak that was given to me by my wife that she got when she took a vacation in Maine. And then next to that, I have a plastic skull that I keep next to my end table as a reminder as St. Jerome did that I need to finish the great work before I&#039;m a skull myself. And so...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Memento Mori.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Memento Mori, indeed. And so those are the things that I have next to my bed in addition to you know, my prescriptions and things. So.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Are you at least a little impressed that I pulled out a proper Latin phrase?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I am, except I&#039;m not surprised because you&#039;re an educated person, Chris, so, I&#039;m not surprised at it, but good job.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay. Alright. I will follow you around whispering that into your ear like the Caesars of old.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Thank you. Thank you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If I turn my head to the right, I got Santas, by the way, but just that was straight 45 degrees to the left.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; All my Santa stuff is in the other room. Including and&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well it&#039;s Christmas time. It should all be out.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; My Santa Stuff is out all year.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Of course it is. Of course it is. You know what? Mine too.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
This is another one that I almost read at the top of the show, because I really do like this. This is chapter 13, verse 13. It&#039;s the last verse of the chapter. &amp;quot;Now these three remain faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and of course, again, in the context of what he&#039;s talking about, that makes sense because faith and hope have expiration dates, right? Eventually, in Paul&#039;s theology, faith and hope are going to be fulfilled and we don&#039;t need them anymore because God&#039;s kingdom is gonna come, but love will continue. And so as a result, love is the greatest because it&#039;s eternal even as faith and hope find fulfillment in the promise of God&#039;s kingdom. And so that&#039;s why love, love is the greatest of all the virtues.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know, it does kinda make sense that faith would not be part of the equation for Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean, &#039;cause cause he met her on the road.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s not blind faith for Paul because he saw with his eyebones. Yeah. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Those bones fell right out of his eyes, I believe, is how that went. It&#039;s been a while since we did Acts.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah, that&#039;s true. There&#039;s we&#039;ll get to eventually where the idea is that maybe Paul&#039;s vision was actually possibly damaged by that. But that&#039;s in another, that&#039;s a different letter.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Alright, so after the part that&#039;s read at your wedding, we get a lot of talk about prophecy. That does not usually come up at nuptials.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; A lot of prophecy talk as being the superior gift. And then in the back half of [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2014&amp;amp;version=HCSB 14] we get another kind of controversial part.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this I&#039;ve written &amp;quot;yikes.&amp;quot; I&#039;ve written &amp;quot;yikes&amp;quot; and underlined it. And this one just says, &amp;quot;yikes, my guy.&amp;quot; Now you don&#039;t care for hats.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Mm-hmm.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; How do you feel about churches?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like in general, like from my personal perspective, I&#039;ve had what I feel is a sufficient amount of church time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean your concept of churches does in fact include ghosts menacing you that can be that can be kept away with contemporary Christian music.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So we&#039;re gonna say that&#039;s positive though.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Now remind me, you don&#039;t care for misogyny?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not my fave.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Ooh, then I feel like [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2014%3A33-36&amp;amp;version=HCSB verses 33 and 34 and 35 and 36] are probably gonna be a little rough for you to get through.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Please put the positive spin on these, because I&#039;m curious.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let&#039;s just, real quick, &amp;quot;As in all the churches of the saints, the women should be silent in the churches for they are not permitted to speak, but should be submissive, as the law also says. And if they want to learn something, they should ask their own husbands at home, for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church meeting. Did the word of God originate from you or did it come to you only?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Yeah, this one&#039;s a little rough to spin. So on the one hand, this is the other place that people think this is a later interpolation. Specifically because 14:34 and 35 directly contradict what he said earlier in chapter 11, where he talks about women prophesying in church. And so clearly he thinks there&#039;s a role for women to play. And so some people think that this is a later interpolation where they want to say, hey, no women actually.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Or, but of course, you know, the HCSB commentary, they don&#039;t want to spin this as an actual document that has patches in it, right? Because the HCSB, the commentators are Christian and they have a vested interest in maintaining the idea that the The Bible is the inerrant word of God, and that this entire thing is by Paul, so there has to be a reasonable explanation. And so they say, &amp;quot;During assemblies of the church at Corinth, women were not permitted to speak in the process of evaluating prophetic utterances. For the sake of propriety and order, they were to ask their own husbands in private at home about what was spoken. These verses should not be taken as a prohibition against women speaking in church. To say otherwise contradicts Paul elsewhere,&amp;quot; as we said in chapter eleven, verse five.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Elsewhere I read a commentary that it&#039;s possible that women were chattering during services and this... whatever. I don&#039;t... there&#039;s not a real good spin on this one, but there have been a number of possible explanations that people have used to try and soften this a little bit. But on the other hand, of course, this is a big part of why you have a significant number of churches who don&#039;t allow women ministers because women are not supposed to be speaking during the service.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s a rough one, buddy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s rough. No, it&#039;s hard to defend. That is a hard one to defend. [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2015&amp;amp;version=HCSB Chapter 15] talks about the resurrection and why the resurrection is an essential idea. We get more talk about resurrection bodies.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We did. I wrote it down. There&#039;s a header in the HCSB. There&#039;s literally &amp;quot;The Nature of the Resurrection Body.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Foolish one! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.&amp;quot; That is a pretty good– that&#039;s a Doctor Doom line.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That is pretty Doom-y. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Not all flesh is the same flesh; there is one flesh for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, #NotAllFlesh. #NotAllFlesh.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; #NotAllFlesh. That&#039;s in Paul&#039;s Twitter account. &amp;quot;There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is different from that of the earthly ones. There is a splendor of the sun, another of the moon, and another of the stars; for one star differs from another star in splendor. So it is with the resurrection of the dead.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Brothers, I tell you this: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and corruption cannot inherit incorruption.&amp;quot; That is Gnosticism.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is a little bit, isn&#039;t it?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s what I&#039;ve learned over the course of this show.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; See how far I&#039;ve come since April?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I know. Hey. Yeah, good stuff. Jonathan Stewart gives you a spiritual high five across the airwaves.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But not a physical one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not a physical one because the flesh is corrupt, created by lesser God. All right. Yeah, and so anyway, then he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;send some money to Jerusalem is a good idea.&amp;quot; And then he tells him about his plans and what he&#039;s going to do. Blah blah blah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s that&#039;s that&#039;s Paul linking to his Patreon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Pretty much, yes. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Please go to Kofi dot com slash St. Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. We get references to some other dudes we know from the Bible. We see Timothy who of course, first and second Timothy are letters to Timothy from Paul. We get Apollos coming up, &amp;quot;I strongly urged him to come to you with the brothers, but he was not at all willing to come now.&amp;quot; Shade, okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah. Where&#039;s Apollos&#039; letters?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, man. Do you think you think Paul intercepted them, threw them in the fire?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean, I don&#039;t not think that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Let&#039;s see. We get Name drops for Aquila and Priscilla, who we met in Acts. They&#039;re the husband and wife tent makers. The holy kiss, of course, Christian side hug here at the end. Oh, and then we get what we were talking about, right? So Paul dictates his letters, but then occasionally he&#039;ll jump in with his own, and that&#039;s what&#039;s going on here. &amp;quot;This greeting is in my own hand.&amp;quot; So this is Paul jumping in his own handwriting. What&#039;s called an autograph, not in this modern sense, but the idea that it was &amp;quot;graph&amp;quot; written &amp;quot;auto&amp;quot; by himself. Paul, &amp;quot;if anyone does not love the Lord, a curse be on him. Marana tha, that is Lord come.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And &amp;quot;if anyone does not love the Lord, a curse be upon him,&amp;quot; is like the second most Paul thing in this book.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s incredible. It&#039;s incredibly Paul. And so here we get this word. Two words really. It&#039;s written as one word in the Greek. Marana tha or Maranatha gets said a lot in English. And it&#039;s used commonly for things. There&#039;s Maranatha churches throughout. It&#039;s an Aramaic phrase and because it&#039;s written in one as one word in Greek, it&#039;s difficult to determine exactly what it means, because it could be &amp;quot;maran atha&amp;quot; or it could be &amp;quot;marana tha&amp;quot;, and it&#039;s related either way. So it either means &amp;quot;Lord come&amp;quot; as a command, as it&#039;s translated here in the HCSB, or it might mean &amp;quot;the Lord has come.&amp;quot; But anyway, this is the only appearance of that phrase in the canonical Bible. But it is it&#039;s one of those words that gets used a lot. You might see it on the side of a church bus somewhere, Maranatha Baptist Church or something like that. And then yeah, the closing, &amp;quot;grace of the Lord Jesus be with you.&amp;quot; And that&#039;s it. That&#039;s one Rinthies.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, what a what a fun time we&#039;ve had with Paul today. Benito, do you have a favorite verse out of this that we did not talk about?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh definitely my favorite one was the one from the from the license plate we already talked about, 4:7. &amp;quot;You didn&#039;t do anything on your own, so why do you keep bragging? You start you stupid bragger.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So when all is said and done, we&#039;re gonna have to determine which Bible verses we would get on our license plates.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I think we can get there eventually, yeah. What about you, Chris? You have a you have a fave? I know we busted out a lot of really really good ones.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I do like The final exhortation of Paul, this is 16:13. Be alert, stand firm in the faith, act like a man, be strong, your every action must be done with love.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s mega good. That&#039;s a good one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But if you really wanted to have something that you could put up on that picture of a mountain. That says determination under it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Uh-huh.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Then you need to go to chapter nine, which– we didn&#039;t even talk about this. Chapter nine, Paul explains what a metaphor is to everybody. That&#039;s great.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Uh-huh.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because they didn&#039;t know. Because Paul goes, &amp;quot;hey, you know when God talks about not muzzling an ox, that&#039;s not really about an ox? Do you think it&#039;s about an ox?&amp;quot; But chapter 9 verse 24. &amp;quot;Don&#039;t you know that the runners in a stadium all race, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way to win the prize.&amp;quot; Which is like that&#039;s on the back of his No Fear shirt.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, for sure.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The greatest of these is No Fear. The greatest of these is Big Dogs.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so that is that&#039;s that&#039;s One Rinthies, baby. That&#039;s First Rinthies.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep, that&#039;s one. We only have one Rinthies left. And then we got a bunch of other shorter ones that we&#039;ll get to eventually when we feel like doing letters and theology some more.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ve got Rinthies 2: The Eye of Braxus.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Actually, I guess Rinthies 2 would be Through the Portal of Time. Don&#039;t @ me.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Any final thoughts on that one?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Paul&#039;s a hard one to like. Like, I think we went it&#039;s very much what we went through with Romans, in that we have like, half of this is good stuff.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Half of this is good stuff, and then half of it is Paul being like, &amp;quot;I mean you really should listen to me. I&#039;m Paul from the Bible.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure. And again you have, as we did with Romans, the specific issue of people in modern times pulling things out verses out of context and looking at them as if they&#039;re some kind of universal user guide to life as opposed to being a specific piece of advice to a specific church in a certain time that was having specific issues within it and so you end up with maybe some pretty sketchy behavior as a result of that. Plenty of stuff to like. Highly quotable.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Weird that the part that&#039;s actually about marriage is not the part that gets quoted at weddings. Actually not that weird considering what he says about marriage. Could you imagine? Like the someone gets up and it&#039;s like, &amp;quot;And now my cousin is going to do this reading from First Corinthians&amp;quot; and everybody&#039;s like, oh yeah, &amp;quot;love is patient.&amp;quot; But then instead they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;only get married if you&#039;re super horny. Okay, goodbye everyone.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I wish everyone was like me, St. Paul. But since you cannot have the love of Christ then I suppose it is okay if you get married.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah. Boy, that would have been something.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Congratulations are the meek.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Congratulations, you meek. Congratulations. Alright. Yeah, anyway. Hey, yeah, so we did it. That&#039;s First Corinthians. Let&#039;s do our final exhortation, what say?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, what are we gonna be talking about next week? Or wait, do we do we do that before or after?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We usually do that first. That&#039;s okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So what are we going to be talking about next week?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, as we said at the top of the show, St. Martin has ridden in on his white horse. That means we&#039;re officially in the holiday season, and sorry if you don&#039;t like it because Holiday content for the next seven or so weeks. So get ready. Even though it&#039;s–&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music: &amp;quot;Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)&amp;quot; by Darlene Love]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, there it is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s Christmas, baby.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Don&#039;t fight it. It&#039;s Christmas. It&#039;s happening. So what are we doing for Christmas?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; So we&#039;re gonna be dipping back into the Golden Legend for next week. And we&#039;re gonna read about the life of St. Nicholas. But also because we&#039;re still you, know looking at December Saints, we&#039;ll also take a quick look at the life of St. Lucy, which is fairly brief. Those two things together are actually pretty brief, so you guys can read those, but we&#039;ll have plenty of supplementary stories about St. Nicholas for next time. I understand St. Nicholas Day is the sixth, and so it seems like we&#039;re doing it a little bit early, but I promise when you see the rest of our holiday programming, it&#039;ll make sense to you. So yeah, Life of St. Nicholas, Life of St. Lucy. We&#039;ll post links to those for you guys to read. If you don&#039;t for some reason have your own copy of the Golden Legend that you can just bust off the shelf like me and Chris do.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you are the kind of person who enjoys this show when we talk about eye gougings and dismemberment: good news. In fact, probably every time we talk about the Golden Legend: good news.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, absolutely. So yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; May I interest you in St. Sebastian?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, or yeah, St. Lucy, if you want to talk about eye gouging: it&#039;s happening. It&#039;s it&#039;s coming, it&#039;s coming, baby. Yeah, so that&#039;s next week.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
In the meantime If you want to follow us, find us online. We&#039;ve got all number of places you can find us. In fact, there&#039;s a new one. We&#039;ve got a brand new place that you can find us online and follow our shenanigans thereupon. We&#039;re on Twitter now finally. We resisted it for a while and tried to just stick with #ApocryPals. Now we&#039;re officially [https://x.com/apocrypals @Apocrypals]. You can find us there, follow us there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here&#039;s what happened is Twitter is a bad website and no one should use it. So if you&#039;re not on Twitter, don&#039;t get on Twitter. It&#039;s a bad website. But somebody said &amp;quot;@Apocrypals,&amp;quot; and we were like, &amp;quot;we should probably get it before someone else gets it,&amp;quot; and they&#039;re like &amp;quot;I wanna throw puppies in the sun or something,&amp;quot; which is basically what is happening day in and day out on the bad website.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; On the bad website, yeah. So but we are there. Please follow us there. We&#039;ll cross-post any of our other content. If you&#039;re not on Tumblr and I know increasingly every day there are fewer and fewer people on Tumblr. So if you haven&#039;t been going there for our Tumblr content, we&#039;ll be put cross-posting it on Twitter as well so you can see images, links. We&#039;ll talk about holidays as they happen. We posted about St. Martin&#039;s Day and so on. So yeah, you can find us there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I mentioned the Tumblr. You can find us at [https://apocrypals.tumblr.com apocrypals dot tumbler dot com]. We post lots of supplemental material. We post every new episode there, links to readings, maps. We repost good Christian memes that people tag us in.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We actually do. There&#039;s a lot of good Christian memes that people like to tag us.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Every time I&#039;m looing through Facebook and I see a religious  meme or joke, I&#039;m like, &amp;quot;somebody&#039;s gonna send that to us.&amp;quot; And without fail, it happens every time. But we appreciate that. And so yeah, find us Twitter, Tumblr. Use #apocrypals when you post, or now you can just use @Apocrypals to tag us directly.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you enjoyed the show, you want to support the show, help us keep it going, you can go to ko fi dot com, [http://ko-fi.com/apocrypals K O dash F I dot com slash apocrypals]. You can find us. You can make a donation there. Just a little tip in increments of three dollars. As low as three, or we had a guy named Andrew, I won&#039;t point out his specific donation, but he gave us an incredibly generous donation recently, and we mega appreciate that. It helps us keep the show going, pays for hosting, any other resources and things that we use on this show. So we so we mega appreciate that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you want to help the show, you can&#039;t help can&#039;t help us monetarily. You can help us just by talking about the show online, on Twitter, in person, tell a friend, or you can leave us a rating and review on your podcast app of choice. Apple Podcasts especially is good. You can leave us five stars or you can write a quick review, doesn&#039;t have to be fancy. Those things help us be more visible. Either it helps us climb the charts or it helps us get featured or sometimes it just helps where we&#039;ll be associated with other Podcasts when people are looking like, you know, they look at a podcast and they see people who liked this one also liked that, right? Because they can look at what your history of reviews is and that kind of stuff helps the show gets seen.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If they&#039;re on iTunes, they&#039;re looking at Podifex, which is Francis&#039; podcast.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Podifex. Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is weirdly enough, it&#039;s him reviewing every episode of Babylon 5.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. It&#039;s strange. He&#039;s a man of many interests. You can&#039;t put him in a bottle.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s in Latin, though? So it&#039;s Babylon V?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Actually.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Anyway.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is that the dumbest joke I&#039;ve ever made on the show?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s, it&#039;s among. It&#039;s among them. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Please send in your ideas for what Pope Francis&#039;s podcast called Podifex is about.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And yeah, yeah. What am I forgetting? Oh yeah, hey, so yeah, if you wanna leave us a donation, that is great. But this week, if you want to do something else good with your money, some pretty wild and bad stuff has happened since our last episode. If you would like to be useful and helpful with your money in a positive way, maybe drop a few dollars to the [https://hias.org Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society], a group that does such good work that they made a horrible person do a horrible thing. And I hope you can use your force of good to maybe counteract some of that. We make jokes on this show about ancient and medieval anti-Semitism, but the fact is it&#039;s very much alive and well on both the left and the right, and it&#039;s rough, it&#039;s a tough time, and we need to show support for fellow human beings, regardless of whether they&#039;re different from us or not. And Hebrew Immigrant Ant Society is good because it helps not only show support for our Jewish friends, but also shows support for a very good cause in helping people seeking asylum and that kind of stuff. So maybe drop them some help this week.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Absolutely. So we will be back next time with the lives of St. Nicholas and St. Lucy. I can&#039;t believe we&#039;re doing St. Lucy and St. Nicholas like we&#039;re not gonna have enough to talk about with the most popular saint in the world.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; St. Lucy rules and also her life is only two pages long, so it&#039;ll be fine.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean yeah, that is true. I&#039;m just saying her life is only two pages long. Nicholas is gonna take a bit.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s true. It&#039;s true.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Alright. Everybody, have a great week. We&#039;ll be back with St. Nicholas and St. Lucie. Happy holidays! Until then, for Benito Cereno, I&#039;ve been Chris Sims. Benito, peace be with you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And also, with you!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music: &amp;quot;Modern Love&amp;quot; by David Bowie]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Episode_List&amp;diff=141</id>
		<title>Episode List</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Episode_List&amp;diff=141"/>
		<updated>2026-02-23T20:50:08Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: /* Episodes */&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;In each episode, [[Benito Cereno|Benito]] and [[Chris Sims|Chris]] read, watch or play something from the Bible (or Bible-adjacent) and talk about its history, authors, and contents. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
You can listen to all episodes at the show&#039;s [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com Libsyn page] or by subscribing through [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/apocrypals/id1366302177 Apple Podcasts]. [[Bonus Episodes|Bonus video episodes]] can all be seen on [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvsqJ485UTPgVIP1i-BTgMfSsmk4S7ouE Benito&#039;s YouTube channel].&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Episodes==&lt;br /&gt;
{| class=&amp;quot;wikitable sortable&amp;quot; style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
! Episode !! &amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;Date&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp; !! Title !! Subject !! Source !! Transcript&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/episode-0-ive-been-to-my-share-of-pizza-parties 0] || 2018-03-29 || [[I&#039;ve Been To My Share of Pizza Parties]] || nonspecific || || [[I&#039;ve Been To My Share of Pizza Parties (Transcript) | Yes]] &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/porky-party-the-book-of-acts 1] || 2018-04-08 || [[Porky Party]] || Acts || New Testament || [[Porky Party (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/2-one-weird-trick-the-book-of-daniel-with-apocrypha 2] || 2018-04-14 || [[One Weird Trick]] || Daniel as well as The Prayer of Azariah aka the Song of the Three Holy Children; Susanna; and Bel and the Dragon || Tanakh and Deuterocanon  || [[One Weird Trick (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/3-various-heresies-the-acts-of-peter-and-paul 3] || 2018-04-22 || [[Various Heresies]] || The Acts of Peter and The Acts of Peter and Paul || Apocrypha  || [[Various Heresies (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/4-wittgensteins-monster-the-book-of-isaiah 4] || 2018-05-06 || [[Wittgenstein&#039;s Monster]] || The Book of Isaiah || Tanakh || [[Wittgenstein&#039;s Monster (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/5-on-the-road-to-rome-pauls-letter-to-the-romans 5] || 2018-05-20 || [[On the Road to Rome]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Romans || New Testament || [[On the Road to Rome (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/6-fresh-prince-of-beliar-the-ascension-of-isaiah 6] || 2018-05-27 || [[Fresh Prince of Beliar]] || The Ascension of Isaiah &amp;amp; The Prayer of Manasseh || Pseudepigrapha and Deuterocanon  || [[ Fresh Prince of Beliar (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/7-neon-genesis-good-news-the-gospel-of-mark-and-secret-mark-0 7] || 2018-06-03 || [[Neon Genesis Good News]] || The Gospel of Mark and Secret Mark || New Testament and Apocrypha  || [[Neon Genesis Good News (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/8-whats-up-doctor-goodacre-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-one 8] || 2018-06-10 || [[What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre]] || The Gospel of Matthew, Part One || New Testament  || [[ What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/9-simon-peters-sweet-sixteen-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-two 9] || 2018-06-24 || [[Simon Peter&#039;s Sweet Sixteen]] || The Gospel of Matthew, Part Two || New Testament || [[Simon Peter&#039;s Sweet Sixteen (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/10-the-dude-hates-wizards-the-gospel-of-luke 10] || 2018-07-02 || [[The Dude Hates Wizards]] || The Gospel of Luke || New Testament || [[The Dude Hates Wizards (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/11-90s-vertigo-jesus-the-gospel-of-john-part-one 11] || 2018-07-09 || [[90s Vertigo Jesus]] || The Gospel of John, Part One || New Testament  || [[ 90s Vertigo Jesus (Transcript)| Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/12-whomst-was-at-the-tombst-the-gospel-of-john-part-two 12] || 2018-07-15 || [[Whomst Was At the Tombst?]] || The Gospel of John, Part Two || New Testament || [[ Whomst Was At the Tombst? (Transcript)| Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/11-90s-vertigo-jesus-the-gospel-of-john-part-one 13] || 2018-07-30 || [[Bonus Goat]] || The Deuterocanonical Book of Tobit || Deuterocanon  || [[Bonus Goat (Transcript)|Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/14-the-boy-related-eagle-plan-the-story-of-ahikar 14] || 2018-08-06 || [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan]] || The Story of Ahikar || Pseudepigrapha || [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan (Transcript)|Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/15-an-approximate-week-the-golden-legend-st-christopher-and-st-benedict 15] || 2018-08-13 || [[An Approximate Week]] || The Golden Legend: St. Christopher and St. Benedict || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/16-doamurder-west-virginia-the-book-of-genesis-part-1 16] || 2018-08-19 || [[Doamurder, West Virginia]] || The Book of Genesis, Part 1 || Tanakh || [[Doamurder, West Virginia (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/17-five-gallons-of-bread-the-book-of-genesis-part-two 17] || 2018-08-27 || [[Five Gallons of Bread]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Two || Tanakh  || [[Five Gallons of Bread (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/18-literally-and-figuratively-wrestling-with-god-the-book-of-genesis-part-three-0 18] || 2018-09-09 || [[Literally and Figuratively Wrestling With God]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Three || Tanakh || [[ Literally and Figuratively Wrestling With God (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/19-mbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbam-the-book-of-genesis-part-four 19] || 2018-09-23 || [[MBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBaM]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Four || Tanakh  || [[ MBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBaM (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/20-shalom-birdie-genesis-commentary-with-david-wolkin 20] || 2018-09-30 || [[Shalom Birdie (with David Wolkin)]] || The Book of Genesis || Tanakh  || [[ Shalom Birdie (with David Wolkin) (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/21-biblerella-the-acts-of-paul-and-thecla 21] || 2018-10-07 || [[Biblerella]] || The Acts of Paul and Thecla || Apocrypha  || [[Biblerella (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/22-oceans-two-the-book-of-judith 22] || 2018-10-15 || [[Ocean&#039;s Two]] || The Book of Judith || Deuterocanon  || [[Ocean&#039;s Two (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/23-dunking-on-satan-the-acts-of-pilate-and-the-gospel-of-nicodemus 23] || 2018-10-21 || [[Dunking on Satan]] || The Acts of Pilate and The Gospel of Nicodemus || Apocrypha  || [[Dunking on Satan (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/25-butt-stuff-dragon-the-testament-of-solomon 24] || 2018-10-29 || [[Butt Stuff Dragon]] || The Testament of Solomon || Pseudepigrapha  || [[Butt Stuff Dragon (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/25-one-rinthies-baby-first-corinthians 25] || 2018-11-14 || [[One Rinthies, Baby]] || First Corinthians || New Testament  || [[One Rinthies, Baby (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/26-some-other-christmas-man-the-lives-of-st-nicholas-and-st-lucy 26] || 2018-11-19 || [[Some Other Christmas Man]] || The Lives of St. Nicholas and St. Lucy || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/27-the-book-of-the-dynasty-of-gods-resisters-the-first-book-of-maccabees 27] || 2018-12-02 || [[The Book of the Dynasty of God&#039;s Resisters]] || The First Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/28-second-maccabees-second-furious-the-second-book-of-maccabees 28] || 2018-12-10 || [[Second Maccabees Second Furious]] || The Second Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/29-these-apocryphal-ravings-the-infancy-gospel-of-james 29] || 2018-12-16 || [[These Apocryphal Ravings]] || The Infancy Gospel of James || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/30-apples-and-oranges-the-legend-of-the-three-kings 30] || 2019-01-07 || [[Apples and Oranges]] || The Legend of the Three Kings by John of Hildesheim || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/31-yartzed-upon-a-distant-shore-the-book-of-jonah 31] || 2019-01-24 || [[Yartzed Upon a Distant Shore]] || The Book of Jonah || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/32-return-of-the-twelve-foot-volcel-lion-questions-answers 32] || 2019-02-03 || [[Return of the Twelve-Foot Volcel Lion]] || Questions &amp;amp; Answers || Listener questions  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/33-thicc-darkness-the-book-of-exodus-part-one 33] || 2019-02-10 || [[Thicc Darkness]] || The Book of Exodus, Part One || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/34-thorn-bushes-and-pushups-the-song-of-songs 34] || 2019-02-24 || [[Thorn Bushes and Pushups]] || The Song of Songs || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/35-down-in-the-donkey-hole-the-book-of-exodus-part-two 35] || 2019-03-03 || [[Down in the Donkey Hole]] || The Book of Exodus, Part Two || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/36-grazacham-the-life-of-st-patrick 36] || 2019-03-12 || [[GRAZACHAM!]] || Muirchu’s Life of Saint Patrick || Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/37-bigger-esther-the-book-of-esther-and-greek-esther 37] || 2019-03-20 || [[Bigger Esther]] || The Book of Esther and Greek Esther || Tanakh and Deuterocanon ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/38-sword-drill-online-bible-trivia-special 38] || 2019-03-31 || [[Sword Drill Online]] || Bible Trivia Special || Complete Book of Bible Trivia  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/39-rain-is-boy-water-the-book-of-enoch-part-one 39] || 2019-04-07 || [[Rain is Boy Water]] || The Book of Enoch, Part One || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/40-devil-got-a-hog-the-book-of-enoch-part-two 40] || 2019-04-19 || [[Devil Got a Hog]] || The Book of Enoch, Part Two || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/41-neo-mary-is-about-to-e-x-p-l-o-d-e-the-questions-of-bartholomew 41] || 2019-04-29 || [[Neo-Mary Is About To E X P L O D E]] || Questions of Bartholomew and The Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Bartholomew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/42-the-roasting-of-the-apostle-paul-second-corinthians 42] || 2019-05-06 || [[The Roasting of the Apostle Paul]] || Second Corinthians || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/43-why-prophets-so-nasty-the-book-of-jeremiah 43] || 2019-05-27 || [[Why Prophets So Nasty?]] || The Book of Jeremiah || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/44-terms-and-conditions-the-book-of-jeremiah-part-2 44] || 2019-06-23 || [[Terms and Conditions]] || The Book of Jeremiah, Part 2 || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/45-mummy-dust-and-skeleton-bones-the-book-of-ruth 45] || 2019-07-14 || [[Mummy Dust and Skeleton Bones]] || The Book of Ruth || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/46-ctrl-z-on-a-murder-the-acts-of-john 46] || 2019-08-09 || [[CTRL-Z On A Murder]] || The Acts of John || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/47-approximate-week-ii-the-quickening-the-syriac-infancy-gospel 47] || 2019-08-21 || [[Approximate Week II: The Quickening]] || The Syriac Infancy Gospel || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/48-the-almighty-ambush-bear-the-book-of-lamentations 48] || 2019-08-28 || [[The Almighty Ambush Bear]] || The Book of Lamentations || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/49-wajesus-the-first-second-and-third-epistles-of-john 49] || 2019-09-16 || [[Wajesus]] || The First, Second, and Third Epistles of John || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/50-the-terf-of-babylon-the-revelation-of-john-0 50] || 2019-10-02 || [[The TERF of Babylon]] || The Revelation of John || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/51-jesus-buffy-halloween-chick-tracts 51] || 2019-10-28 || [[Jesus, Buffy]] || Halloween Chick Tracts || Chick Tracts  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/51-apocrypals-chris-and-benito-the-book-of-ecclesiastes 52] || 2019-11-24 || [[Apocrypals Chris And Benito]] || The Book of Ecclesiastes || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/52-maccabees-3-elephant-drift-the-third-book-of-maccabees 53] || 2019-12-08 || [[Maccabees 3: Elephant Drift]] || The Third Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/54-our-favorite-murders-the-infancy-gospel-of-thomas 54] || 2019-12-22 || [[Our Favorite Murders]] || The Infancy Gospel of Thomas || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/55-the-parable-of-the-sexy-blood-baby-the-book-of-ezekiel-part-one 55] || 2020-01-12 || [[The Parable of the Sexy Blood Baby]] || The Book of Ezekiel, Part One || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/56-welcome-to-the-bone-zone-the-book-of-ezekiel-part-two 56] || 2020-01-26 || [[Welcome to the Bone Zone]] || The Book of Ezekiel, Part Two || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/57-we-holy-ghost-bro-the-life-of-xanthippe-polyxena-and-rebecca 57] || 2020-02-08 || [[We Holy Ghost, Bro?]] || The Life of Xanthippe, Polyxena, and Rebecca || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/58-blaise-your-dead-homie-the-lives-of-st-sebastian-st-blaise-and-st-agatha 58] || 2020-02-23 || [[Blaise, Your Dead Homie]] || The Lives of St. Sebastian, St. Blaise, and St. Agatha || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/59-source-of-the-flow-the-book-of-leviticus 59] || 2020-03-08 || [[Source of the Flow]] || The Book of Leviticus || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/59-joses-crust-the-acts-of-andrew-and-matthias 60] || 2020-03-22 || [[Joses Crust]] || The Acts of Andrew and Matthias || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/60-countless-large-gregs-the-second-book-of-enoch 61] || 2020-04-05 || [[Countless Large Gregs]] || The Second Book of Enoch || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/62-oh-the-jews-manatees-the-book-of-numbers 62] || 2020-04-19 || [[Oh, the Jews&#039; Manatees!]] || The Book of Numbers || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/63-wist-not-to-whom-ne-whither-the-lives-of-st-roche-and-st-guinefort 63] || 2020-05-06 || [[Wist Not To Whom Ne Whither]] || The Lives of St. Roche and St. Guinefort || Golden Legend, Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/64-spiritual-warfare-is-good-actually-bible-adventures-and-the-wisdom-tree-catalogue 64] || 2020-05-18 || [[Spiritual Warfare Is Good, Actually]] || Bible Adventures and the Wisdom Tree catalogue || Video Games  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/65-adonai-is-ichiban-the-book-of-deuteronomy 65] || 2020-06-02 || [[Adonai is Ichiban!]] || The Book of Deuteronomy || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/66-jesus-with-two-cool-ses-the-acts-of-thomas-and-his-wonderworking-skin 66] || 2020-06-14 || [[JeSuS With Two Cool Ses]] || The Acts of Thomas and his Wonderworking Skin || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/67-bad-things-to-call-your-mother-the-book-of-bartholomew 67] || 2020-06-28 || [[Bad Things to Call Your Mother]] || The Book of Bartholomew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/68-scent-of-a-jesus-the-first-second-and-third-apocryphal-apocalypses-of-john 68] || 2020-07-12 || [[Scent of a Jesus]] || The First, Second, and Third Apocryphal Apocalypses of John || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/69-thirst-corinthians-the-lives-of-st-mary-of-egypt-and-st-pelagia 69] || 2020-07-26 || [[Thirst Corinthians]] || The Lives of St. Mary of Egypt and St. Pelagia || Separate books  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xHQHK_SLX8 69 Secret] || 2020-08-28 || [[Secret 69]] || The Greater Questions of Mary || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/70-two-firkin-bored-the-letter-of-aristeas-0 70] || 2020-08-09 || [[Two Firkin Bored]] || The Letter of Aristeas || Pseudepigrapha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/71-approximate-week-chapter-3-parabellum-the-war-scroll 71] || 2020-08-23 || [[Approximate Week Chapter 3: Parabellum]] || The War Scroll || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/72-cold-brew-paul-pauls-letter-to-the-galatians 72] || 2020-09-06 || [[Cold Brew Paul]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Galatians || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/73-be-courageous-the-book-of-joshua 73] || 2020-09-20 || [[Be Courageous!]] || The Book of Joshua || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/74-howl-of-the-ostrich-the-books-of-micah-and-nahum 74] || 2020-10-04 || [[Howl of the Ostrich]] || The Books of Micah and Nahum || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/75-lazer-babies-the-apocalypse-of-peter 75] || 2020-10-18 || [[Lazer Babies]] || The Apocalypse of Peter || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/76-filling-the-room-the-life-of-st-martin 76] || 2020-11-01 || [[Filling the Room]] || The Life of St. Martin || Separate books  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/77-the-blessed-voltrons-the-lives-of-st-catherine-and-st-barbara 77] || 2020-11-15 || [[The Blessed Voltrons]] || The Lives of St. Catherine and St. Barbara || Golden Legend ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/78-maccabees-the-fourth-book-of-maccabees 78] || 2020-11-29 || [[MACCABEES]] || the Fourth Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/79-marys-christmas-the-infancy-gospel-of-pseudo-matthew 79] || 2020-12-13 || [[Marys Christmas]] || The Infancy Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/bonus-bill-bless-us-every-ted-christmas-gift-exchange-2020 79 Bonus] || 2020-12-22 || [[Bill Bless Us, Every Ted]] || Christmas Gift Exchange 2020 || The Joy of Friendship  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/80-the-deadliest-skambush-of-them-all-the-book-of-judges 80] || 2021-01-10 || [[The Deadliest Skambush of Them All]] || The Book of Judges || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/81-sometimes-its-just-sucky-pauls-letter-to-the-ephesians 81] || 2021-01-24 || [[Sometimes It&#039;s Just Sucky]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Ephesians || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/82-sedeqetelebab-the-book-of-jubilees 82] || 2021-02-07 || [[Sedeqetelebab!]] || The Book of Jubilees Pt 1 || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/83-speedrun-tactics-the-book-of-jubilees-part-2 83] || 2021-02-21 || [[Speedrun Tactics]] || The Book of Jubilees Pt 2 || Pseudepigrapha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/84-just-one-more-thing-the-life-of-st-columba 84] || 2021-03-07 || [[Just One More Thing]] || The Life of St. Columba || Hagiography  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/85-old-clootie-the-life-of-st-dunstan 85] || 2021-03-21 || [[Old Clootie]] || The Life of St. Dunstan || Golden Legend ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/87-god-junior-the-third-book-of-enoch-part-1 86] || 2021-04-04 || [[God Junior]] || The Third Book of Enoch (Part 1) || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/87-crisis-on-18000-earths-the-third-book-of-enoch-part-2 87] || 2021-04-18 || [[Crisis On 18,000 Earths]] || The Third Book of Enoch (Part 2) || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/88-a-miserable-pile-of-secrets-the-da-vinci-code-commentary 88] || 2021-05-09 || [[A Miserable Pile of Secrets]] || The Da Vinci Code, the film || Fiction  || [[A Miserable Pile of Secrets (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/89-2000-bc-the-first-book-of-samuel 89] || 2021-05-23 || [[2000 B.C.]] || The First Book of Samuel || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/90-worfin-the-lions-the-second-book-of-samuel-part-1 90] || 2021-06-06 || [[Worfin’ the Lions]] || The Second Book of Samuel (Part 1) || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt4B2OXgHN4 90.1] || 2021-06-20 || [[Double Chai: Rock Me, Asmodeus]] || Solomon and the Devil || Talmudic Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/90-the-me-in-this-story-is-you-the-second-book-of-samuel-part-2 91] || 2021-06-27 || [[The Me In This Story Is You]] || The Second Book of Samuel (Part 2) || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/92-slayer-of-men-conqueror-of-space-the-gospel-of-philip-the-gospel-of-mary-and-the-gospel-of-jesuss-wife-0 92] || 2021-07-11 || [[Slayer of Men, Conqueror of Space]] || The Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Mary, and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife || Apocrypha (Gnostic)  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HKZ-U4W7Ew 92 Bonus] || 2021-08-04 || [[Cephalo4: Protect Yr Neck]] || Cephalophores || Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/93-approximate-week-iv-oblivion-joseph-and-aseneth 93] || 2021-08-15 || [[Approximate Week IV: OblIVion]] || Joseph and Aseneth || Apocrypha (Tanakh)  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/94-little-martha-and-the-small-vandellas-the-lives-of-st-mary-magdalene-and-st-wilgefortis 94] || 2021-09-26 || [[Little Martha and the Small Vandellas]] || The Lives of St. Mary Magdalene and St. Wilgefortis || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/95-an-abyss-of-significant-depth-the-apocalypse-of-paul 95] || 2021-10-10 || [[An Abyss of Significant Depth]] || The Apocalypse of Paul || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/96-the-goku-of-judaism-stories-of-the-baal-shem-tov 96] || 2021-10-24 || [[The Goku of Judaism]] || Stories of the Baal Shem Tov || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbw3BxiTfKU Bonus] || 2021-11-16 || [[Guess the Persona-fied Bible Character]] || Persona 5 || Video Games ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/97-pretty-sus-lesbius-the-acts-of-andrew 97] || 2021-12-02 || [[Pretty Sus, Lesbius]] || The Acts of Andrew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/98-you-know-the-manger-christmas-chick-tracts 98] || 2021-12-23 || [[You Know, the Manger?]] || Christmas Chick Tracts || Chick Tracts  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/99-for-sale-baby-legs-not-attached-the-first-book-of-kings 99] || 2022-01-30 || [[For Sale, Baby Legs, Not Attached]] || The First Book of Kings || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/100-escape-from-flesh-island-the-gospel-of-judas 100] || 2022-03-05 || [[Escape From Flesh Island]] || The Gospel of Judas || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/101-the-apocrypals-solve-theodicy-the-book-of-job 101] || 2022-04-21 || [[The Apocrypals Solve Theodicy]] || The Book of Job || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/102-napalm-toots-the-lives-of-st-mary-of-bethany-and-st-margaret-of-antioch 102] || 2022-06-12 || [[Napalm Toots]] || The Lives of The Lives of St. Martha of Bethany and St. Margaret of Antioch || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/103-sucky-james-the-history-of-joseph-the-carpenter 103] || 2022-07-03 || [[Sucky James]] || The History of Joseph the Carpenter || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/104-previously-on-bible-the-epistle-to-the-hebrews 104] || 2022-08-01 || [[Previously, on Bible]] || The Epistle to the Hebrews || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/103-approximate-week-v-ravager 105] || 2022-08-12 || [[Approximate Week V: RaVager]] || El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron || Video Games  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/104-a-serious-goku-move-the-second-book-of-kings 106] || 2022-10-30 || [[A Serious Goku Move]] || The Second Book of Kings || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/107-hellmensch-stories-of-the-baal-shem-tov-vol-2 107] || 2022-11-13 || [[Hellmensch]] || Stories of the Baal Shem Tov || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin  || [[Hellmensch (Transcript) | Yes ]] &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/108-skip-this-one-the-book-of-hosea 108] || 2022-11-27 || [[Skip This One]] || The Book of Hosea || Tanakh  || [[  Skip This One (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/109-chris-and-benitos-bible-bonkers-the-didache 109] || 2023-10-11 || [[Chris and Benito&#039;s Bible Bonkers]] || The Didache || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/110-the-beastie-boys-worst-nightmare-the-lock-in-2014 110] || 2023-10-30 || [[The Beastie Boys&#039; Worst Nightmare (The Lock-In (2014))]] || The Lock-In (2014) || Fiction ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/111-all-skips-no-hits-1-chronicles 111] || 2024-08-09 || [[All Skips No Hits]] || 1 Chronicles || Tanakh || [[All Skips No Hits (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/112-approximate-week-vi-the-undiscovered-country 112] || 2024-08-17 || [[Approximate Week VI: The Undiscovered Country]] || Illuminator || Comics ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/113-jaoel-instant-messenger-the-apocalypse-of-abraham 113] || 2024-09-05 || [[Jaoel Instant Messenger]] || The Apocalypse of Abraham || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/114-sin-onyms-the-devils-argument-the-martyrdom-of-perpetua-and-felicity 114] || 2024-10-03 || [[Sin-onyms, The Devil&#039;s Argument]] || The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/115-hell-is-the-big-show-the-life-of-st-christina-the-astonishing 115] || 2024-10-27 || [[Hell Is The Big Show]] || The Life of St. Christina the Astonishing || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/116-its-his-birthday-be-nice-the-revelation-of-the-magi 116] || 2024-12-22 || [[It&#039;s His BIRTHDAY, Be Nice!]] || The Revelation of the Magi || Pseudepigrapha || &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/117-king-solomons-hog-the-second-book-of-chronicles-feat-aaron-higashi 117] || 2024-02-17 || [[King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi]] || 2 Chronicles || Tanakh || [[King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/bonus-biblical-mini-golf 118 Bonus] || 2025-05-08 || [[Bonus: Biblical Mini-Golf]] || Fairway to Heaven || Road Trip || &lt;br /&gt;
|}&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Sub-series==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
{| class=&amp;quot;wikitable sortable&amp;quot; style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
! Podcast !! Episode !! &amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;Date&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp; !! Title !! Transcript !! Wolverine Costume&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-01-dr-dan-mcclellan 1] || 2023-04-20 || [[Multipals 01: Dr. Dan McClellan]] || [[Multipals 01: Dr. Dan McClellan (transcript) | Yes]] || Brown and Tan&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-02-aaron-higashi 1] || 2023-06-23 || [[Multipals 02: Aaron Higashi]] || [[Multipals 02: Aaron Higashi (transcript) | Yes]] || Kimono&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-03-anne-thriault 3] || 2023-04-20 || [[Multipals 03: Anne Thériault]] || [[Multipals 03: Anne Thériault (transcript) | Yes]] || Hugh Jackman as the Music Man&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-04-tony-burke-and-janet-spittler 4] || 2023-08-20 || [[Multipals 04: Tony Burke &amp;amp;amp; Janet Spittler]] || [[Multipals 04: Tony Burke &amp;amp;amp; Janet Spittler (transcript) | Yes]] || Brown and Tan / Yellow Guy From Cartoon&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-05-dr-alexiana-fry 5] || 2023-12-13 || [[Multipals 05: Dr. Alexiana Fry]] || [[Multipals 05: Dr. Alexiana Fry (transcript) | Yes]] || Logan (2017) Suit&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-06-dr-justin-sledge 6] || 2023-12-13 || [[Multipals 06: Dr. Justin Sledge]] || [[Multipals 06: Dr. Justin Sledge (transcript) | Yes]] || &#039;90s Yellow&lt;br /&gt;
|}&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Dunking_on_Satan&amp;diff=504</id>
		<title>Dunking on Satan</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Dunking_on_Satan&amp;diff=504"/>
		<updated>2026-02-18T22:59:18Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/7262471/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
PIECES be with you, Theophil-OOZE, and get ready for the first installment of our two-part HELLoween SCAREtacular! This week, we&#039;re descending into HELL! And, uh, it&#039;s not actually that scary in the traditional sense, although the antisemitism of early Christian writings brings its own brand of horror. Either way, it&#039;s our long-awaited discussion of the Harrowing of Hell! Plus, an untold tale of Jesus&#039;s magic emotion-changing clothes!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion: The rehabilitation of Pilate, the Apostle&#039;s Creed, the Autobiography of Bruce Wayne, a brand-new miracle, St. Procla, the origin of Veronica, a revelation about twelve years of bleeding, a good way to repel evil spirits, a slightly less good way to repel evil spirits from Benito&#039;s childhood, devhellopment, the Bad Place, God&#039;s magic word, Habakuk&#039;s comeback, the Cure of Tiberius and the Death of Pilate, a secret zombie, Longinus, and a surprise appearance by the Antichrist.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Hymnal: &amp;quot;Highway to Hell&amp;quot; by AC/DC&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Offertory: If you enjoy the show, head to ko-fi.com/apocrypals and send us a love offering! We absolutely appreciate it!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Opening Verse==&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;quot;And while all the saints were rejoicing, behold Satan, the prince and chief of death, said unto Hell, &#039;Make thyself ready to receive Jesus, who boasteth himself that he is the Son of God.&#039;&amp;quot;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;mdash; The Gospel of Nicodemus 20:1&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Favorite Verses==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;The Jews say unto Nicodemus: Thou didst become his disciple and thou speakest on his behalf. Nicodemus saith unto them: Is the governor also become his disciple, that he speaketh on his behalf? did not Caesar appoint him unto this dignity? And the Jews were raging and gnashing their teeth against Nicodemus. Pilate saith unto them: Wherefore gnash ye your teeth against him, wherens ye have heard the truth?&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Gospel of Nicodemus V:2 &amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Who art thou that art sent by the Lord for our confusion? Who art thou that without all damage of corruption, and with the signs of thy majesty unblemished, dust and wrath condemn our power? Who art thou that art so great and so small, both humble and exalted, both soldier and commander, a marvelous warrior in the shape of a bondsman, and a king of glory, dead and living, whom the cross bears slain upon it?&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Gospel of Nicodemus XXII:1&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l482T0yNkeo Highway to Hell] by AC/DC&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Choice Quotes==&lt;br /&gt;
(Help fill this in by checking out the [[Dunking on Satan (Transcript)|transcript]].)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Apocrypha]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Butt_Stuff_Dragon&amp;diff=509</id>
		<title>Butt Stuff Dragon</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Butt_Stuff_Dragon&amp;diff=509"/>
		<updated>2026-02-18T22:49:42Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/7358072/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
Get ready for HAINTS AND SAINTS, Theophiloi! It&#039;s Halloween and things are getting wild spooky up in here as we diver into the testament of Solomon, a very wise man who likes two things: glorifying God and forcing demons to do menial labor. Meet several new costume options that you certainly won&#039;t have to spend all night explaining, including Ornias, Beelzeboul, Onoskelis, Astaroth, the 36 Elements of the Cosmic Ruler of the Darkness, our old pal Asmodeus, and Pteradrakun, who... well, you see the title of the episode, right? Plus: Solomon invents capitalism!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion: Benito explains himself, JC Go!, the Da Vinci Coders, St. Aspren, another preview of First Enoch, our plans for a purely hypothetical live show, MTV&#039;s Next, lacunae and vox nihili, The Lord Sabaoth, the Pentalpha, Slam Evil!, live-streaming a Hell House, Benito&#039;s favorite Ancient Greek words, continuity with Tobit, a numerology lesson about 644, &amp;quot;I Am Error,&amp;quot; a LOT of Hellboy talk, Hello the Hellhound, a solid Mary Marvel pitch.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Hymnal: The Monster Mash by Bobby &amp;quot;Boris&amp;quot; Pickett&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Offertory: If you enjoy the show, head to ko-fi.com/apocrypals and send us a love offering! We absolutely appreciate it!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Opening Verse==&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Take, O Solomon King, the gift which the Lord has sent thee, the highest Sabaoth. With it thou shalt lock up all demons of the earth, male and female, and with their help thou shalt build up Jerusalem.&amp;quot;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;mdash; The Testament of Solomon, Verse 5&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Favorite Verses==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;I am the worst of all, and our stars are in heaven. Seven stars humble in sheen, and all together. And we are called as it were goddesses.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Testament of Solomon, Verse 34 &amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8uvLHnrqdU The Monster Mash]  by Bobby Pickett&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Choice Quotes==&lt;br /&gt;
(Help fill this in by checking out the [[Butt Stuff Dragon (Transcript)|transcript]].)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Pseudepigrapha]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Ocean%27s_Two&amp;diff=500</id>
		<title>Ocean&#039;s Two</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Ocean%27s_Two&amp;diff=500"/>
		<updated>2026-02-18T22:48:31Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: /* Favorite Verses */&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/7183298/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
Get ready, Theophiloi, because it&#039;s time for a tightly plotted heist story about our favorite Deuterocanonical heroine, Judith! We&#039;ll be heading into a slice of the Apocrypha with some sharp commentary that cuts right to the good stuff. Get to listening, chop chop! Plus: Some very good and suggestions for improving Hanukkah that you can implement in your own celebrations!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion: The ironies (all of them), Doubting Tomax, a prelude to Martinmas, St. Isadore the Hedgehog, an extended digression about Simon Magus and Avril Lavigne, The RAMBAN, Antilebanon, the Cracker Barrel Master Mold, earth and water, the most boss flex in the entire Bible, getting captured on purpose, Alfred, cheese plots, a Comic-Con of soldiers, and whether Holofernes was just a foot guy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Hymnal: &amp;quot;Heads Will Roll&amp;quot; by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Offertory: If you enjoy the show, head to ko-fi.com/apocrypals and send us a love offering! We absolutely appreciate it!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Opening Verse==&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;For their mighty one did not fall by the hands of the young men, nor did the sons of the Titans strike him down, nor did tall giants set upon him, but Judith, daughter of Merari, with the beauty of her countenance, undid him.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 16:6&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Favorite Verses==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Look at their pride, and send your wrath upon their heads. Give to me, a widow, the strong hand to do what I plan. By the deceit of my lips strike down the slave with the prince and the prince with his servant; &amp;lt;u&amp;gt;crush their arrogance by the hand of a woman.&amp;lt;/u&amp;gt;&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 9:9-10 &amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;The mountains will be soaked with their blood, and the valleys will be filled with their corpses.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 6:4 &amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Then Judith said to them, &#039;Listen to me. I am about to do something that will go down through all generations of our people.&#039;&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 8:32&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;O Lord God of all might, look in this hour on the work of my hands for the exaltation of Jerusalem. 5 Now indeed is the time to help your heritage and to carry out my design to destroy the enemies who have risen up against us.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 13:4-5&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auzfTPp4moA Heads Will Roll] by Yeah Yeah Yeahs&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Choice Quotes==&lt;br /&gt;
(Help fill this in by checking out the [[ Ocean&#039;s Two (Transcript)|transcript]].)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Deuterocanon]]&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Maimonides]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Ocean%27s_Two&amp;diff=499</id>
		<title>Ocean&#039;s Two</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Ocean%27s_Two&amp;diff=499"/>
		<updated>2026-02-18T22:45:49Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/7183298/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
Get ready, Theophiloi, because it&#039;s time for a tightly plotted heist story about our favorite Deuterocanonical heroine, Judith! We&#039;ll be heading into a slice of the Apocrypha with some sharp commentary that cuts right to the good stuff. Get to listening, chop chop! Plus: Some very good and suggestions for improving Hanukkah that you can implement in your own celebrations!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion: The ironies (all of them), Doubting Tomax, a prelude to Martinmas, St. Isadore the Hedgehog, an extended digression about Simon Magus and Avril Lavigne, The RAMBAN, Antilebanon, the Cracker Barrel Master Mold, earth and water, the most boss flex in the entire Bible, getting captured on purpose, Alfred, cheese plots, a Comic-Con of soldiers, and whether Holofernes was just a foot guy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Hymnal: &amp;quot;Heads Will Roll&amp;quot; by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Offertory: If you enjoy the show, head to ko-fi.com/apocrypals and send us a love offering! We absolutely appreciate it!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Opening Verse==&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;For their mighty one did not fall by the hands of the young men, nor did the sons of the Titans strike him down, nor did tall giants set upon him, but Judith, daughter of Merari, with the beauty of her countenance, undid him.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 16:6&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Favorite Verses==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Look at their pride, and send your wrath upon their heads. Give to me, a widow, the strong hand to do what I plan. By the deceit of my lips strike down the slave with the prince and the prince with his servant; &amp;lt;u&amp;gt;crush their arrogance by the hand of a woman.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 9:9-10 &amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;The mountains will be soaked with their blood, and the valleys will be filled with their corpses.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 6:4 &amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Then Judith said to them, &#039;Listen to me. I am about to do something that will go down through all generations of our people.&#039;&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 8:32&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;O Lord God of all might, look in this hour on the work of my hands for the exaltation of Jerusalem. 5 Now indeed is the time to help your heritage and to carry out my design to destroy the enemies who have risen up against us.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 13:4-5&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auzfTPp4moA Heads Will Roll] by Yeah Yeah Yeahs&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Choice Quotes==&lt;br /&gt;
(Help fill this in by checking out the [[ Ocean&#039;s Two (Transcript)|transcript]].)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Deuterocanon]]&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Maimonides]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Butt_Stuff_Dragon&amp;diff=508</id>
		<title>Butt Stuff Dragon</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Butt_Stuff_Dragon&amp;diff=508"/>
		<updated>2026-02-18T22:45:29Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/7358072/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
Get ready for HAINTS AND SAINTS, Theophiloi! It&#039;s Halloween and things are getting wild spooky up in here as we diver into the testament of Solomon, a very wise man who likes two things: glorifying God and forcing demons to do menial labor. Meet several new costume options that you certainly won&#039;t have to spend all night explaining, including Ornias, Beelzeboul, Onoskelis, Astaroth, the 36 Elements of the Cosmic Ruler of the Darkness, our old pal Asmodeus, and Pteradrakun, who... well, you see the title of the episode, right? Plus: Solomon invents capitalism!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion: Benito explains himself, JC Go!, the Da Vinci Coders, St. Aspren, another preview of First Enoch, our plans for a purely hypothetical live show, MTV&#039;s Next, lacunae and vox nihili, The Lord Sabaoth, the Pentalpha, Slam Evil!, live-streaming a Hell House, Benito&#039;s favorite Ancient Greek words, continuity with Tobit, a numerology lesson about 644, &amp;quot;I Am Error,&amp;quot; a LOT of Hellboy talk, Hello the Hellhound, a solid Mary Marvel pitch.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Hymnal: The Monster Mash by Bobby &amp;quot;Boris&amp;quot; Pickett&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Offertory: If you enjoy the show, head to ko-fi.com/apocrypals and send us a love offering! We absolutely appreciate it!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Opening Verse==&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Take, O Solomon King, the gift which the Lord has sent thee, the highest Sabaoth. With it thou shalt lock up all demons of the earth, male and female, and with their help thou shalt build up Jerusalem.&amp;quot;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;mdash; The Testament of Solomon, Verse 5&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Favorite Verses==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;I am the worst of all, and our stars are in heaven. Seven stars humble in sheen, and all together. And we are called as it were goddesses.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Testament of Solomon, Verse 34 &amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8uvLHnrqdU The Monster Mash]  by Bobby Pickett&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Choice Quotes==&lt;br /&gt;
(Help fill this in by checking out the [[Butt Stuff Dragon (Transcript)|transcript]].)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Butt Stuff Dragon (Transcript)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Pseudepigrapha]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Butt_Stuff_Dragon_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1065</id>
		<title>Butt Stuff Dragon (Transcript)</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Butt_Stuff_Dragon_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1065"/>
		<updated>2026-02-18T22:39:32Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: Created page with &amp;quot;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;Chris Sims:&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039; &amp;quot;Take, O Solomon King, the gift which the Lord has sent thee, the highest Sabaoth. With it thou shalt lock up all demons of the earth, male and female, and with their help thou shalt build up Jerusalem.&amp;quot; The Testament of Solomon, verse 5.  [Music: &amp;quot;The Monster Mash&amp;quot; by Bobby Pickett]  &amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;C:&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039; Hello everyone, and welcome to Apocrypals. It&amp;#039;s the podcast where two non-believers read through the Bible and we try not to be jerks about it. My name is Chris S...&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&#039;&#039;&#039;Chris Sims:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Take, O Solomon King, the gift which the Lord has sent thee, the highest Sabaoth. With it thou shalt lock up all demons of the earth, male and female, and with their help thou shalt build up Jerusalem.&amp;quot; The Testament of Solomon, verse 5.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music: &amp;quot;The Monster Mash&amp;quot; by Bobby Pickett]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hello everyone, and welcome to Apocrypals. It&#039;s the podcast where two non-believers read through the Bible and we try not to be jerks about it. My name is Chris Sims, and with me as always is the other set of footprints, Benito Cereno. Benito, how are you today?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;Benito Cereno:&#039;&#039;&#039; Very spooky!&lt;br /&gt;
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[Music: &amp;quot;Thriller&amp;quot; by Michael Jackson]&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, happy Halloween!&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Happy Halloween to you as well. Blessed All Hallows Eve.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Very, very true. It is Halloween times, everybody. It is the time of haints, the time of spookums.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; For us, it&#039;s the time of demons.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. And Saints, it&#039;s Haints and Saints.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Haints and Saints.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Haints and Saints, baby. Yeah, because of course, all Hallow&#039;s Eve leading up to All Saints Day. Some of the Catholic kids that I know on All Saints Day, they extend the costume drama element of Halloween by dressing up as their favorite saint on November 1st and that&#039;s an actual thing. I don&#039;t know. Shout out to us if you were a Catholic kid who did the same thing. Let us know if you dressed up as Saint Isidore because you&#039;re an internet person.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So are you gonna just throw yourself into a bush and just like scream whenever you see an attractive person?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I might. You don&#039;t control my life. Actually, several years ago for Halloween, I actually went as Saint Peter of Verona, mostly because of how he&#039;s depicted in art. Like he was a martyr, as so many saints are, but he&#039;s usually depicted with a knife or an axe in his head. So I cobbled together a thing where I was dressed in monks&#039; robes and had an axe in my head. And that was my costume, probably, I don&#039;t know, seven years ago or something.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I remember that.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I remember seeing pictures of that.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that was... well, I was gonna say that was a year where I had to explain my costume to everyone, but that is literally every year. Except last year; I was Frankenstein last year. That was pretty straightforward. Pretty much I&#039;m one of those where I have to explain my costume every year. And in fact, that feels like such a metaphor for my entire life, constantly having to explain what I&#039;m talking about or what I&#039;m doing or why I&#039;m reading the book I&#039;m reading in public or whatever. So it&#039;s a weird, great feeling to have all the time. Anyway, hey Chris, what are we what are we doing today?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well it&#039;s Halloween.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it is.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If people remember, last week we read about the harrowing of hell. We read the Gospel of Nicodemus, aka the Acts of Pilate, where Jesus went down to hell and dunked on Satan.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that did happen.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Super hard. Why is Satan crying?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because he just got dunked on.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But this week, I was a little disappointed in the Halloween aspects of that reading.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But this week, this might be the best section of Bible we have read.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Of Apocrypha, I should say.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hey, look, man, it&#039;s all Bible.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s all Bible.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It doesn&#039;t matter if it&#039;s not canon. That doesn&#039;t mean it&#039;s not Bible.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is certainly the most wild. Which if people remember any of the other apocryphal books we&#039;ve read, should be saying something.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we&#039;re what twenty five episodes into this show now, basically, and we have seen some very wild things. We&#039;ve seen talking dogs, talking lions, demons making a man fly. We&#039;ve seen talking statues, we&#039;ve seen bowing statues, man-eating seals. Some of those do not compare to the sights that await us within the Testament of Solomon. But speaking of saints though. Good timing. Very good news coming out today. It was just announced that the Vatican is releasing a game this is not made up as far as I know.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If it&#039;s a goof, then it is not one that we have come up with.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, yeah, this is not a goof on our part. 100% not our goof. It is called JC Go. It is Pokemon Go, but for Saints, which is probably the most us thing that there could be. Did you play Pokemon Go, Chris? Were you were you a PoGo kind of guy?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I did.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I did. Because it was beautiful in that first couple weeks to live in a world where Pokemon were real.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And I know that with Let&#039;s go Pikachu and Let&#039;s Go Eevee coming out soon. a lot of people have jumped back on. I have not jumped back on.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I know some people who have been playing continuously, which is very cool. Like I have an IRL friend who every time I see her at a restaurant or something, she&#039;s definitely got the Pokemon app open. But I know that there are some others, I know our friend Tracy Shepherd still plays Pokemon Go. Very cool. Shout out to people who are dedicated to things and don&#039;t just rise and fall with fads. That&#039;s what I say. But JC Go sounds good to me. I didn&#039;t do Pokemon Go. Sarah did Pokemon Go and like on the first week I had to drive her around to places, but I never really did it. And so I might get this one. I might do this one.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is from Eurogamer, which is an actual video game news site So this is legit.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah, yeah. I&#039;m pretty sure it&#039;s not a goof, yeah. JC GO is a saintly version Pokemon Go devised by the Vatican, which tasks you with collecting famous religious figures to join your evangelization team. And they source an Italian newspaper here.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, I have a lot of questions right at the start. Devised by the Vatican implies that Francis is coding.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which I find hard to believe.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Or there&#039;s a team of Swiss guard guys sitting around and like...&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Da Vinci&#039;s Coders!&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, they&#039;re they&#039;re Swiss coders sitting around a LAN cafe.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The game is running on the Da Vinci Code!&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; They&#039;re in their big poofy yellow and blue pants and their helmets and they&#039;re just sitting there and they are typing like crazy getting that sweet code in there ready for you to hunt down Saint Isidore.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The other thing that got me about this article is, I actually think this is nice, it has microtransactions.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But, you get in-game money by donating to charity, which is actually pretty cool. That&#039;s a nice little thing.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that extremely rules actually. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do you think Christopher&#039;s in there?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Man, you know he is. You know saying Christopher is in there.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do you think Christopher is in there and appears as a 12-foot-tall werewolf?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I am skeptical about that element of it, I have to be honest.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I really hope, because all we see is... who is this?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Antipas. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; ...Antipas that we have a screenshot of here.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then it&#039;s not in English, let&#039;s see here. This is in Spanish, which is weird. I would have guessed it was in it would be in Italian.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, I mean, Frances.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well sure I guess.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If he&#039;s the one doing the code.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Then there&#039;s the blessed Jesus Emilio Paramarillo– Paramio, sorry. These are not what I would have considered like A-tier Bible characters and saints, but it&#039;s just a couple of sample screenshots here, in which it does it looks like Pokemon Go.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I wanna know if like when Saint Sebastian shows up, is he gonna be riddled with arrows?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That would be cool. Like i will they appear as they do in iconography? That would be well...&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Let&#039;s talk about Lucy. Is Lucy gonna be carrying her own eyes?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; How else would you know?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Got a couple of comments from some listeners, very good and faithful listeners. One relating to our Paul and Thecla episode regarding the idea that in Spanish speaking countries Tecla is venerated as saint of computers because of because the word Tecla is also the word for a keyboard key. Someone pointed out, not just someone, I should say, Twitter user @PonderStruck, cool name, pointed out that we have a similar situation in English speaking countries where, get ready for this Chris, Saint Aspren is invoked against headaches. So there is a Saint Aspren, A-S-P-R-E-N, who is a first century bishop of Naples, but because of a homophone of his name is invoked against headaches and migraines especially. So there&#039;s a there&#039;s the example I should have thought of when I was talking about a fictional Saint Keyboard. Doesn&#039;t exist.&lt;br /&gt;
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Speaking of keyboards, our next comment comes from, mentioned previously, comes from Father Stephen Vrazel, who is a Priest in Mobile, Alabama. And like I know that this is wrong. I know this is incorrect, and I&#039;m sure there are statistics that somebody is ready to toss out at me in response to this, but just completely going by my gut, right? Just going by my gut it feels like being a Catholic priest in Mobile, Alabama has got to be somewhat similar to being a snowmobile salesman in Tucson, Arizona, right? A little bit. I don&#039;t know. But maybe, maybe Father Stephen Vrazel brings &#039;em in because he also plays the keytar. We mentioned him because of that very cool fact. And in fact, you can find him on Twitter @KeytarCatholic. You should follow him. He&#039;s a cool guy. He commented, regarding the harrowing of hell, as we discussed last week in our Gospel of Nicodemus episode, that there is actually an ancient homily that is typically read on Holy Saturday, Huddle House Saturday, that is a dialogue, responsive reading maybe, between Adam and Jesus as Jesus comes in. And we will for sure post a link to that on our Tumblr so you can check it out, as well as another link he gave on the history of the composition of that. It is way older than I would have guessed based on reading it. So it&#039;s very cool, very interesting. So thank you, Father Stephen. Rock on.&lt;br /&gt;
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Final comment. You guessed it. It wouldn&#039;t be a comment section without a note from our friend of the show, Ben Rowe. Speaking of whom, hopefully, it&#039;s October. hopefully you guys are listening to the Scream Scene podcast. Getting your spook&#039;em knowledge on about historical scary movies. It&#039;s a good time to listen to that show. Good show. Very smart. Here&#039;s what Ben says. This was in regard to one of your question questions, Chris, from last week. And this is one of my favorite my favorite comments I get from Ben are the ones where he points out something that I definitely should have known. Those are always my favorite ones. This is one of those, falls into that category. Should have mentioned this. So he says, &amp;quot;early on in today&#039;s episode Chris expresses how weird it is that heaven existed in the religious belief before Jesus. He points out how Jacob saw it and everything, but that it apparently was sitting empty with no one in it, and that&#039;s strange. Maybe you guys hit on it later in the episode.&amp;quot; Spoilers, we don&#039;t. &amp;quot;But I think it&#039;s important to remember that while we think of heaven as a place you go when you die, no one in a Hellenistic context would have thought that. Honestly, the big differentiator of Christianity compared to any other contemporary religion more than any other factor.&amp;quot; Oh, &amp;quot;it&#039;s the big differentiator.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Heaven is where God lives. That&#039;s all it really is, and that&#039;s what it is in the Old Testament and in other beliefs of the time. Mount Olympus, Asgard, etc. The afterlife is basically the same in all these traditions, whether it&#039;s Hades or Hell or Sheol. It&#039;s just that grey, shadowy, waiting room, limbo realm. Only if you were the greatest of the great could you aspire to anything more, not necessarily a good person, but a doer of great deeds, a heroic person. Then you get to the Elysian Fields or Valhalla, but that&#039;s not for anyone who isn&#039;t a capital H hero. In Judaism, there&#039;s Enoch who&#039;s risen up to hang with God in heaven, and that&#039;s it. [Elijah.] But Christianity is the first major religion to come along and say the only criteria for getting into heaven, if you&#039;re following Paul and not James, is belief in Christ. So it&#039;s not weird that heaven was empty, because heaven was empty because heaven wasn&#039;t for us. That&#039;s the big selling point, because now it is.&amp;quot; So thank you, Ben, for that very good comment that I absolutely should have thought of since we were especially looking at hell in a Hellenistic context anyway. So hopefully that answered your question.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean except that Enoch was there.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, Enoch was in heaven. Enoch and Elijah were waiting for them in heaven when they got up there.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So it wasn&#039;t just where God lives.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right, well I mean it&#039;s...&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Enoch was there.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it was God and the angels and then like two dudes for a thousand years, two thousand years.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s even weirder than if it was just God.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; You&#039;re correct. Yeah, it&#039;s God and his two human friends.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s God, his two bros, and then a bunch of flying four-headed monsters.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And dudes covered in eyes with six sets of wings.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, and that feeling you&#039;re feeling? Hang on to that. The feeling of a regular dude who gets brought up into heaven and suddenly there&#039;s all those things around him. That&#039;s what that&#039;s what first Enoch is about. So just hang on. Hang on to that, because we&#039;ll get there. Maybe episode 50. That&#039;ll be our episode 50 extravaganza. We&#039;ll finally do First Enoch.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;ve always said that if we ever get popular enough to do a live episode, then our live episode is gonna be Revelation.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, that&#039;s yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because I feel like that&#039;s the best one to do in front of a crowd. We don&#039;t want to do like Psalms or Leviticus in front of people.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No. No, probably not. Don&#039;t want to lay out like here&#039;s all of these specific mosaic laws, everyone. Nah, probably not that.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But I&#039;m kind of feeling like, yeah, we might need to do First Enoch for a special occasion, as much as I want to get there. Immediately.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah, yeah. This that we did today is a little bit, it&#039;s definitely more in the ballpark of what we did today than what we&#039;ve done in the past.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That is a good segue.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that is a good segue, because let&#039;s get into it, because that&#039;s that&#039;s it for, Comment Corner. Very very cool, helpful comments from listeners. We appreciate it. You can always hit us up. On Twitter is usually the best way. Ask us questions on our Tumblr as well. Using #Apocrypals on Twitter is the easiest way for us to find you if you can&#039;t find us and tag us directly. Yeah, let&#039;s talk about Testament of Solomon.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is not canon.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, no, it sure isn&#039;t. Not for anybody.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I feel like I know why. Usually I have to ask you like why something was not considered canon or not like included. I do think I know why this one wasn&#039;t.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, do you have a specific reason or is it just kind of a general sensation you have about it?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, I mean, even for me as a casual reader, it&#039;s very clearly, very clearly not of the time of Solomon.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; True, yes.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s that I think is probably thing one.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s a good, that&#039;s a very good instinct to follow up on.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The second, and I think probably more important, strike against it is that there&#039;s a dragon who does butt stuff.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, the butt stuff dragon is really something. You don&#039;t really that&#039;s not something you expect in a Pauline letter for example.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we thought it was weird when there was like a pool, like a lake that could heal you. Cause an angel stirred it up.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s like 18 degrees less weird than a dragon who shows up and goes, &amp;quot;I&#039;m into butt stuff.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yes, there&#039;s quite a gap. There&#039;s quite a gap. Yeah, also just the general fact that this is a book of &amp;quot;how to do magic&amp;quot; is probably a good reason it&#039;s not in official Bible.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s definitely a book about a man just chilling with demons. There&#039;s very little plot in this book. It&#039;s mainly just Solomon. It&#039;s an episode of Next MTV&#039;s next with demons.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. It&#039;s the official Marvel handbook to demons. It lets you know all their vital stats and history.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;What&#039;s up? My name is Ornias. I&#039;m an Aquarius. I love sucking thumbs and strangling virgins. And also, don&#039;t fall asleep around me!&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.Wow. It is like Next when you put it in the back.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s exactly like Next.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Wow. And he&#039;s like &amp;quot;Next! You go cut some go cut some bricks. I gotta see another demon.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Except for instead of saying &amp;quot;next,&amp;quot; he glorifies God&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Or he summons the angel to whom you are weak and has that angel carry you out by your ear.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; He kinda does some Pokemon battling.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like he&#039;s putting together his demonic Pokedex in this story, really.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and there are some angels who are super effective against particular demons.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you&#039;re a strangle demon Then you might be weak against Uriel.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly. Yeah. So let&#039;s talk a little bit about where this came from. The answer is nobody knows. And I&#039;m gonna give you the vaguest sense of information about anything that could be known about this. So this book was written sometime between the first century and the fifth century CE. And that is about as much as people can narrow it down. There are arguments. Some say that it&#039;s probably from the early third century, but it incorporates elements from a first century document.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Some scholars argue that it might be contemporary with the Christian writer Lactantius, because the demonology bears some similarities to the famous Institutiones Divinae of Lactantius. Lactantius was a writer who lived around the same time as Constantine the Great and I believe he did some work with him as well. So maybe that would be around 300 CE. So maybe?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Early scholars really thought it was either super early or super late, and now people are thinking maybe somewhere in the middle, so probably early to late third century CE, maybe. The original document, probably written in Greek, except maybe not, possibly of some kind some Semitic origin. Especially for the segment that&#039;s the list of decans, which we&#039;ll get to what that means. So that might have an origin somewhere else outside of Greece, but could be that the whole thing is maybe from Galilee, or maybe it&#039;s Egypt, or maybe from Asia Minor. The work is either a Jewish composition with Christian interpolations, which will stand out like a sore thumb. Chris definitely, I know you notice those as well.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean, spoiler warning, there&#039;s a part where Solomon is talking about how one day Jesus is gonna show up and get crucified by &amp;quot;the Jews.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s not subtle the parts that are Christian. But it could also be a Christian work that incorporates Jewish material. So the author might be an ethnically Jewish Christian, might be Greek, might be Egyptian? It could be a composite work. It&#039;s definitely there are some patches, there are some inconsistencies in some places, but it definitely features elements of Jewish mysticism, Christian philosophy, Greek mythology pops up in a handful of places, Egyptian astrology is in there. Other stuff. Demon and angel names from who knows where. We&#039;ve got all sorts of names in here that don&#039;t show up anywhere else. Yeah, who knows?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The only the only thing people are less certain of than when it was written was who wrote it. We know it definitely wasn&#039;t Solomon. It was definitely written well over a thousand years after actual Solomon. The work certainly suffered during the copying process. The scribes were a little bit asleep at the wheel here. The version we read on the esoteric archive has some notes in the margins and will occasionally mention when there are lacunae, lacuna is a gap in the text, and it&#039;ll let us know when there&#039;s like a part missing. And those gaps are sometimes just because literally the paper is missing from the manuscripts that we have.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So there&#039;s that, but there&#039;s also a large number of what&#039;s called a vox nihili, which literally means the &amp;quot;voice of nothing,&amp;quot; but what that means is it&#039;s just a nonsense word. Like it look it doesn&#039;t mean anything. It&#039;s just it&#039;s gibberish. And there&#039;s a large number of those throughout here that are made note of where it&#039;s just like, &amp;quot;this is not a word.&amp;quot; It&#039;s usually because the scribe wasn&#039;t paying attention or they couldn&#039;t read what they were copying or whatever. So there&#039;s a large number of nonsense words. There&#039;s a large number of places where I feel very certain Chris and I, as we&#039;re going through it, we&#039;re just gonna go I don&#039;t know what this means. Like I literally cannot parse what this sentence means. And so it&#039;s very strange in a lot of places aside from the fact that there are talking lions, and talking dogs and headless guys and that kind of stuff.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Aw, spoiled it. You spoiled it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sorry.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The return of talking dogs, everybody.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Return of talking dogs and talking lions and dragons. We got it all. This one&#039;s got everything.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It really does truly it can be said.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. The book is working within a long tradition of the idea of Solomon having the power to control demons. That stuff is mentioned as early as Josephus in his Antiquities, so that is legit first century. Roughly contemporary to this, we&#039;ve got the Talmud. The Babylonian Talmud has the very famous story of Solomon and Ashmedai, which is Solomon and Asmodeus, which I really super wanted to cover today, but I know we&#039;re not gonna have time, so we&#039;re gonna have to do it on another episode, but it&#039;s a very similar story where Solomon commands Asmodeus to build the temple for him. It&#039;s an awesome story that we&#039;ll definitely cover another time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And you remember Asmodeus, right, everybody?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. From Tobit. He&#039;ll show up again today too. Spoilers again.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; He shows up and there&#039;s continuity.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; There is continuity between this book and Tobit, which I appreciate. And then there&#039;s many, many later stories in the medieval Arab tradition. So Solomon as a ruler of demons or jinns is very popular in Arabic stories, including Tales of Sinbad and that kind of stuff. And of course this is one of the earliest works of demonology that is going to be copied in various grimoires and things throughout the Middle Ages and later, where you get catalogs of demons and their powers and what they do and how you invoke them and how you control them and that kind of stuff. And many of those are also tied to Solomon. The lesser key of Solomon probably being the most famous example of those. So this is part of a grand tradition. It&#039;s the beginning of that tradition, but it&#039;s pulling from other like different mystical and astrological traditions as well. So yeah, Let&#039;s get in it. Let&#039;s get into it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I would love nothing more. So things get weird pretty quick.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. Out the gate.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We have our introduction that&#039;s like, &amp;quot;hey everybody, you know that temple in Jerusalem? Did you know it was built by demons?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Because it was.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It was. And again, that&#039;s a longstanding tradition that predates this book. And the question is, how did that come to be? Well, if you guessed it involved thumbsucking, you&#039;re right. And that&#039;s weird. Why did you guess that?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here&#039;s why it had to be demons and not dudes. Because there were a bunch of dudes trying to build this temple, and just demons just kept messing with &#039;em. And one guy comes to Solomon. And he says, &amp;quot;Hey, I&#039;m having a real hard time building this temple. Cause a demon shows up and takes half my food and half my money, and also then sucks my thumb.&amp;quot; And Solomon does not, despite his legendary wisdom, go, &amp;quot;Hey, that just sounds like a weird dude.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s not really demon stuff to like take money, like take half your paycheck and a sandwich.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right, like it&#039;s definitely that&#039;s an insult to injury. That&#039;s a that&#039;s a dog in the manger kind of thing, right? Demons don&#039;t need money. So taking half of his money, that&#039;s just cruelty. That is how you know it&#039;s a demon. But Solomon knows it&#039;s a demon because there are physical effects on this worker. This is Solomon&#039;s favorite worker. He&#039;s the son of the master workman. And Solomon gives him double food and double wages of everyone else. He should be healthy and fat and happy. But the fact that he&#039;s wasting away every day, he knows that there&#039;s something supernatural going on. And yeah, it turns out it&#039;s because this demon, Ornias, is sucking his life force out through his thumb every night. He takes his money, takes his food, &amp;quot;he takes hold of my right hand and sucks my thumb, and lo, my soul is oppressed, and so my body waxes thinner every day.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I feel like the weirder thing is the thumb sucking.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, I would say yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this is like something the Yule lads would do.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is, yeah. If you told me that there was a Yule lad called Thumbsucker, I&#039;d be like, you know what? There&#039;s so many of those, I don&#039;t have them all memorized. Sure, maybe you&#039;re right. Thumbsucker, he comes on St. Thorlax Day and he just he sucks your life force out through your thumb. Sure. Could be.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is there any like reason for this? Or is it just something weird that demons do?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I think it&#039;s just something weird that specifically this demon does. Like, This is not something I&#039;m familiar with from another source.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, I mean look, we&#039;ve talked about how feet aren&#039;t always feet.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. No...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is this thumb a thumb? I guess.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I believe it is. I have I currently have no reason not to think so, but yeah, who man, who knows?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean I don&#039;t know why they would use a metaphor, cause they get pretty explicit about some demon activities later on.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s true. I mean I feel like maybe they wouldn&#039;t have self-censored in this instance cause they don&#039;t do that much later on. So yeah, anyway. Solomon goes to pray, he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;What do I do about this demon? How can I deliver?&amp;quot; And this is this whole thing, I should point out, is first person perspective of Solomon and every single time refers to himself as &amp;quot;I Solomon.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;When I Solomon heard this.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s very much, &amp;quot;I&#039;m Solomon, by the way. I&#039;m not some dude in 300 CE. I&#039;m definitely Solomon.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So he goes to pray, and here we get the first mention of the name Lord Sabaoth, which Chris, you asked me about that. The name Sabaoth which is from the Hebrew word &amp;quot;Saba&#039;ot&amp;quot; and it just means &amp;quot;of hosts.&amp;quot; So if you&#039;ve ever seen the Lord of hosts, because it usually goes along with either the word Yahweh or Elohim, one of the names of God. So it&#039;s usually Yahweh Saba&#039;ot, right? So it&#039;s usually going to be Lord of Hosts. So this is his role as the commander of the angelic armies or whatever. You know, if you&#039;re going with the polytheistic Israelites, then this would be the war god aspect, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So this is this is the same root word as Sabbath, then?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, it is not.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay. Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sorry. Yeah, this is a word that comes from a word that means army. Anyway, so St. Michael, the Archangel, Ccmes to him. He brings him a ring. This is the seal of Solomon, which is a very important element in the Solomon, the demon queller story tradition. Here, in this version, the Seal of Solomon is what they call a Pentalpha in this version of the text, which is that&#039;s a pentagram or a pentacle, sometimes it&#039;s called. Pentalpha is a cool name because it makes you realize that a five-pointed star is actually five capital A&#039;s stuck together.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Very true.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Very true.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; So in this...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I hadn&#039;t ever thought of that before.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So in this version, in this book, the Seal of Solomon is a pentagram. It&#039;s a five-pointed star. In later traditions, it becomes a hexagram, the six-pointed star, which we know today as the Star of David, which has its origins in the six-pointed star as a symbol for Solomon. I don&#039;t know why it gets called the Star of David instead of the Star of Solomon like it should, but whatever. Yeah, there&#039;s a whole lot of stuff about the history of the Star of David. It was not originally a purely Jewish symbol, and it was only when it started getting picked up as a symbol by Zionists in the 1800s, blah blah blah. We don&#039;t have time for that. But anyway, it should be called the Star of Solomon. David, uncool to take your son&#039;s thing. But anyway, here it&#039;s five-pointed.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And so it&#039;s a signet ring, right? So like the ring that you would use to place your royal seal on a thing by plunging it in wax and it&#039;s like a stamp that you wear on your hand and that&#039;s what it is here too except instead of imprinting into wax, Solomon is imprinting his godly power into demon flesh, and he does that throughout the entire book, sometimes by throwing the ring at people.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sometimes he throws the ring at people. I assume that since it is a ring, whenever he is not specified as throwing it, he is just straight punching them.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I imagine it&#039;s a lot like the Phantom, how the Phantom punches people with his skull ring and it leaves a skull imprint on their face. I think...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh so you&#039;re saying he slams evil.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, Solomon slams evil and it leaves the five pointed star on them and then they&#039;re in his control. And that&#039;s basically what happens. Yeah, he summons, well actually he gets the ring, once he gets it from Michael, the archangel, he gives it to the boy, the worker who was plagued by Ornias, and he says, &amp;quot;Go find the demon when he shows up to you, throw this ring at him, when it stamps onto his chest, tell him that Solomon wants to see him. And then come follow him, bring me back the ring, and we&#039;ll get this taken care of.&amp;quot; And so he does it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Pretty boss move, by the way.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. There&#039;s a number of boss moves in here on both sides. Both sides of the coin, human and demon, in my estimation. But yeah, so it works. Ornias comes to Solomon and Solomon&#039;s like &amp;quot;Who are you? What are you doing? Why are you here?&amp;quot; And so this sets up the pattern of things that we&#039;re going to learn about each of these demons. He asks them, &amp;quot;what&#039;s your sign?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s not a joke.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Literally, &amp;quot;What&#039;s your sign?&amp;quot; And Ornias is like, I&#039;m an Aquarius.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; He&#039;s an Aquarius. Yeah. Some of them are not going to be actual stars, some of them are gonna say the moon, some of them are gonna say specific parts of the moon, some are gonna say the planet Venus. It&#039;s gonna happen. And sometimes it&#039;ll be constellations, sometimes it&#039;ll say star but it means constellation. The word for star and constellation were often the same. It&#039;s usually it&#039;s usually talking about constellations when it asks what&#039;s your star. But yeah, he&#039;s an Aquarius, and we see we get a little bit of what he does. There is a lacuna here, there&#039;s a gap. &amp;quot;Those who were consumed with desire for the noble virgins upon earth, dot dot dot, these I strangle.&amp;quot; That seems like a very important yada yada yada in the middle there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean, I think you can get it from that. You got it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you do not follow the advice of Saint Benedict&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Mm-hmm.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Or St. Thecla.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Or Paul, who was never horny.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Never.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not once.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not like Simon Magus. That&#039;s how you know he&#039;s not Simon Magus. Simon Magus was super horny, Paul not horny at all.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Horny: not even once.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s what Paul says. Then Ornias is gonna show up and strangle you to death.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, more like Hornias. There it is, did it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is kind of a trend among the demons.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Strangling?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s a lot of strangling and there&#039;s a lot of don&#039;t be horny.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like if you thought Thecla was pro-abstinence, was True Love Waits?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This book is True Love Waits or you are going to die. This book is straight up a Baptist Church Hellhouse.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Oh man, it&#039;s very Hell House. Speaking of Halloween. Oh boy. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We should go to one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We should go. That should be a very special episode. We will live stream our reactions to a Hell House. All right. So yeah, he comes in different forms. Sometimes he&#039;s a beautiful woman, sometimes he&#039;s a lion.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Same, same.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Extremely same.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We all have different aspects of our personalities, you know?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we do. We learn that he&#039;s the offspring of the archarchangel Uriel, and so that&#039;s true. We see the different demons have different origins. Some of them are the children of angels, and so implying a connection with like the Nephilim that we saw in Genesis, the giants and the offspring of humans and angels. Sometimes they&#039;re just children of angels. Sometimes they&#039;re children of other demons. Sometimes they have other stranger origins, like one that we&#039;re gonna get to pretty soon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, there&#039;s definitely a couple in here that are like &amp;quot;I am the child of a human woman and an angel man.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, for sure.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And that again: wild.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So basically the Testament of Solomon is kind of like the world&#039;s first urban fantasy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Kinda, yeah, a little bit. And so yeah, this really sets the pattern because then once he learned all these things, when he hears the name of the Archangel, he knows, &amp;quot;ah, this is how I can tame this demon.&amp;quot; And so he seals him, i.e. he slams evil, and then he gets him to start cutting stones for the temple, and he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Hey, I have this idea for indentured servitude, workforce, free labor, free labor.&amp;quot; Then he says, wait a second, &amp;quot;Let&#039;s get some more demons. Bring me the king of the demons.&amp;quot; Oh, actually, hold on. I&#039;m skipping. I&#039;m skipping the appearance of Uriel.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You&#039;re skipping a little bit because before that we get Onoskelis.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, I want to talk about these whales for a second, because I don&#039;t know what is going on. So...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, there&#039;s a lot of Not knowing what&#039;s going on in this, but do talk about the whales.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so he prays to Uriel. He says, Uriel, come help me. Uriel comes, and when he comes, Uriel summons whales. Or possibly sea monsters, right? It could be Behemoth and Leviathan coming up. Because the word for whale and the word for sea monster is the same. And I don&#039;t know what this means. &amp;quot;He cast his destiny upon the ground, and that destiny made subject to him the great demon.&amp;quot; So this version that we&#039;re reading, we&#039;re reading the public domain 1890s translation of this. However, the version on the esoteric archives has footnotes that include snippets of a 1980s translation that you would think would make things a lot clearer, but the alternative translation of this bit is &amp;quot;He withered up their species and cast his fate to the ground,&amp;quot; which does not clarify what happens with the whales to me. Anyway, Uriel commands Ornias to cut the stones. Great. But then he sends Ornias to go get the prince of all the demons. So Ornias takes the finger ring and he goes to get Beelzeboul, which is just, you know, a variant of Beelzebub or possibly the original name. It&#039;s hard to say, right? Beelzebub we know related to the name Baal, meaning Lord, and so Beelzebub&#039;s Lord of the Flies, which might be a goof on the name Beelzeboul, which might mean Lord of the Heavenly Realms. Who knows?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But anyway, Beelzeboul is here. He&#039;s the Prince of the Demons. Hhe definitely seems to be conflated with Satan in this work. Because Satan is not otherwise mentioned. But Beelzebub is the key guy. And yeah, Beelzeboul comes to him because Solomon called him and he says, &amp;quot;hey, bring me some other demons. Also are their girl demons.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah. Solomon specifically goes, &amp;quot;Are there girl demons? And can you describe like what they look like very slowly?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And so...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I need to cast my destiny on the ground real quick.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I see what you did. And so, yeah, Beelzeboul goes off at high speed, and he brought to him Onoskelis, who had &amp;quot;a very pretty shape and the skin of a fair-hued woman.&amp;quot; That&#039;s not really what it says. &amp;quot;She had a fair complexion, but her legs were those of a mule. The name Onoskelis means donkey legs.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But I mean Solomon&#039;s into it. Like don&#039;t act like Solomon&#039;s not into it, because he very clearly is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; He is. He&#039;s very interested in this. And so we get our first explicitly non-human looking demon here with Onoskelis who&#039;s got donkey legs, which, just a quick side note. So from ancient Greek I have like three favorite words that I really like. And like one of them is &amp;quot;asideros,&amp;quot; which means &amp;quot;not made of iron.&amp;quot; Because I find it very funny that they had to have a word to describe things that are not made of iron. That&#039;s one of my favorite.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It does seem very specific.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Or actually very nonspecific, because it&#039;s literally anything that&#039;s not iron. So I like that one. I also like the word &amp;quot;pankakes,&amp;quot; which is the specific form of a word that means completely evil. But I like it because one time my college roommate went to IHOP and embarrassed himself by ordering a short stack of pankakes. And so when I saw that Greek word later, I was like &amp;quot;It&#039;s pancakes.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s weird because pancakes are the opposite of evil.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; As we as we know from Hellboy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We do know that. You eat those pancakes, you&#039;ll never end up in pandemonium. Pancakes, they&#039;re more like pankales, they&#039;re all good. But then my third favorite word from Ancient Greek is &amp;quot;hemionos,&amp;quot; and so &amp;quot;onos,&amp;quot; we see here, is the Greek word for donkey. And you can probably...&amp;quot;heme&amp;quot; is like hemi, like hemisphere, right? It means half. And so the Greek word for mule is hemionos. It literally means half-ass. And that is one of my top three favorite Greek words, because that makes me laugh. So anyway, that was just my Benito&#039;s Greek Corner for you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So do we want to talk about what Onoskelis is into? Because she&#039;s very specific.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, she likes men, but she&#039;s got a type.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; She has a type.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; She... and again, this is not us goofing. This is specifically and explicitly in the text that we are talking about.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; She likes black dudes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; She does. Or possibly guys with honey-colored skin, which could still just could be fairer skinned black dudes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The translation that we have is dark-skinned.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, &amp;quot;above all with those of a dark skin, I consort with men in the semblance of a woman.&amp;quot; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And she also likes caves.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; She lives in a golden cave.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Ravines. Strangling.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Strangling men with a noose. Something about worms that doesn&#039;t make any sense. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I do like the verbiage here, which is when she talks about strangling men, &amp;quot;I sever them utterly by many calamities and I waste away the beauty of virgin women and estrange their hearts.&amp;quot; Which is pretty good. That&#039;s good language.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s some good. So here&#039;s a bit I wanted to call attention to here. So Solomon questioned her, &amp;quot;I Solomon, questioned her about her birth, and she replied &#039;I was born of a voice untimely, the so-called echo of a man&#039;s ordure dropped in a wood.&#039;&amp;quot; Now, Chris, you&#039;re a really smart guy, and you&#039;re an exceptional writer. You know all the best words.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I do.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;b:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do you know what ordure means? Is this one you have encountered in your day-to-day?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I have encountered it before.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But in a place I&#039;m not proud of.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is that I used to review the Anita Blake comics.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh wow.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; ...commonly on my website at the time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And so I know that one of the things that happens later in the series, because I was told about it, is that Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; ...later gets like sexy powers. Like she can really turn you into a non-Paul, if you know what I mean.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And that is referred to as the ordure.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s weird because the word ordure means a poop.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh no wait, wait, wait, wait sorry I got that confused. I got that completely... I&#039;m gonna cut that all out. I&#039;m gonna cut that all out, because I did get that confused. If somebody was like... it&#039;s like, it&#039;s like. I remember what it was now. This is just for you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Somebody was like, &amp;quot;Whatever the word is, more like &#039;ordure&#039;.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Ah, I see.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s something like it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I see. I gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah, so an ordure is a poop.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I&#039;ve only seen that in fantasy novels.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s a very fantasy novel word.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is. It is. It&#039;s also an 1890s &amp;quot;doing my best to bowdlerize for my Victorian era audience translation.&amp;quot; Including, like we see later, the part where he leaves the sexy part in Latin, which is my favorite move. So this particular demon was born when a man did a boom boom and it made an echo in the woods, and then there&#039;s suddenly a there&#039;s a donkey leg demon from that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is not the last time that someone will be born of butt-noises.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s true. You are not wrong.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s kind of a recurring theme.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; In this completely bonkers book.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep. Anyway, Onoskelis? Her star is the moon. That&#039;s a star. Why not?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, why not?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then and the angel that frustrates her is named Joel.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, Onoskelis is a real uptown girl.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Onoskelis is a real uptown girl.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; She&#039;s been living in her uptown world.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And now she&#039;s spinning hemp for ropes. Next demon. Hey, we know this one. Asmodeus, Asmodeus, Asmodeus, Asmodeus, Asmodeus, Asmodeus, Asmodeus, Asmodeus, oh oh, Asmodeus.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;Both:&#039;&#039;&#039; Rock me Asmodeus!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039;  Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Our returning demon champion.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Who&#039;s like, yo, what&#039;s up? I&#039;m Asmodeus. Really like strangling dudes on their wedding nights. So that more virgins will waste away.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Lots of concern about virgins wasting away in this book.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, these widow virgins who have no recourse but to just pine until they are nothing but a voice. Redounding on the wind.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Redounding?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Redounding, yeah. It&#039;s bouncing back, echoing.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, that&#039;s also not a word that I know.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sounds like maybe a word you made up.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I didn&#039;t. It&#039;s related to the word redundant. Anyway, so yeah, we get Asmodeus and yeah, we got some continuity here with Tobit because he definitely talks about showing up, killing dudes on their wedding night, plots &amp;quot;against the newly wedded, so that they may not know one another. And I sever them utterly by many calamities,&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s not the only bit of continuity with Tobit, either.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, it sure isn&#039;t.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s like a Roy Thomas footnote in this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Asmodeus goes, &amp;quot;oh, but I don&#039;t like fish.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, well also he specifically mentions Raphael, who is our boy from Tobit. What angel are you frustrated by? &amp;quot;By Raphael, the archangel that stands before the throne of God. But the liver and gall of a fish put me to flight when smoked over ashes of the tamarisk.&amp;quot; And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Hey man, what fish is that?&amp;quot; It&#039;s called Glanos, and that is a catfish. And this is good to know because Chris, you know this. Listeners may not know this. I&#039;m getting married. In fact, I&#039;m getting married on Friday. I will be married by the time this episode comes out. I might be dead by Asmodeus, possibly.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I hope not.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I hope not too because look, between you and me and the Theophiloi, I retrieved my True Love Waits card from the stack in the Georgia Dome. It&#039;s time to rip it up, man. It&#039;s been long enough. It&#039;s time to go, and I don&#039;t want to be strangled to death by Asmodeus. So I&#039;m very glad to learn that the solution is cooking up some catfish. Because your boy loves catfish.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I mean it&#039;s delicious.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Catfish is very good. I enjoy it a great deal. And especially since I don&#039;t eat red meat anymore. I can no longer eat of the beasts of the field. I can only eat the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea. It&#039;s very important that I eat catfish because I can&#039;t have ribs, you know? So it&#039;s all chicken wings and catfish for your boy. So good to know. Anyway, Asmodeus, you&#039;ve heard of him.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, you know him.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; He lives in the Big Dipper, by the way.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so when you&#039;re looking up at the stars at night, trying to find your way, that&#039;s Asmodeus that you are looking up at. Also, this is where things start to get mega-Lovecraftian, where like all these demons are like straight up, &amp;quot;I am from space.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Of course, you know, you have to understand that like the cosmology of the time would be that space is basically like there&#039;s a big black globe around us and these stars are stuck on them like a Lite-Brite or something.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, I know, but still.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, I know, I know you know, but yeah, straight up, they&#039;re from space. There&#039;s some space Flight going on. He talks to demons about like, &amp;quot;Hey man, what are you doing?&amp;quot; It&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Oh yeah, I just fly around space until I get tired and fall to the earth.&amp;quot; That&#039;s where shooting stars come from. Anyway, let&#039;s not spoil this book as we keep doing.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so who do we have next?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well we get Beelzeboul. He gets his actual interview here.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And by the way, all these demons, when they show up? They get different jobs building the temple that do not seem to fit their skill sets.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, yeah, I think Solomon is specifically assigning them jobs that they do not like in order to weaken their powers, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That is capitalism.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah it is. He does not want the worker to rise up and seize the means of production and so he does specifically put them in irons which makes them weak. One says please don&#039;t put me in water and he&#039;s like why don&#039;t you go? make some clay by stomping around in water. Yeah, he specifically in the case of Asmodeus, he leaves the fish that hurts him smoking nearby because Asmodeus is so strong, and so he was able to frustrate his unbearable malice in this way.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But yeah, then Beelzeboul comes back, and this is where we can see him strongly identified with Satan and here we can see this is again very non-canonical but hugely believed by everyone, even today, story about Satan being that he was the first angel in the first heaven, but now he&#039;s fallen, now he&#039;s the demon. He&#039;s the Lord of the demons, right? The idea that Satan was originally the most beloved of the angels: bompletely non-canonical, but we can see it goes back at least this far. That probably deserves a Satan watch drop, but we&#039;re not gonna do that because it&#039;s all Satan. It&#039;s all Satan all the time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, there&#039;s a lot of Satan in this book.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And he also mentions his son, and I love this, I love this, I love this so much. He goes, I too have a child and he haunts the Red Sea, and on any suitable occasion he comes up to me again, being subject to me, and reveals to me what he has done, and I support him. That is a good dad. Good job, Beelzeboul. That is A+ parenting.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean, look. I&#039;m not picking sides here and I&#039;m not telling people what and who they should worship. That is for each individual to decide. I will say that of the dads we&#039;ve discussed in our journey through Bible, one of them is very supportive of his son who is the Red Sea.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Mm-hmm.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And the other one sent his son to die a horrible death on the cross.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, he might have specifically explicitly forsaken his son, perhaps.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, but I mean as we know that was a good thing.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It was the good kind of forsaking. But I love this line because Solomon says, &amp;quot;Beelzeboul, what is thy employment?&amp;quot; And he says, he looks him dead in the eye and says, &amp;quot;I destroy kings,&amp;quot; which is an incredibly dope flex. That is very good. It could also mean &amp;quot;I destroy people by means of tyrants.&amp;quot; It could mean that, but eh. &amp;quot;I destroy kings,&amp;quot; the dopest possible thing to say to Solomon straight into his face. And &amp;quot;I ally myself with foreign tyrants,&amp;quot; which that&#039;s a weird thing to say because foreign relative to whom? You know? Like what does that mean?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well I mean I was about to say relative to Solomon, but I mean probably not in the third century.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah, who knows? But yeah, wicked sins, evil heresies, lawless deeds. And he says, &amp;quot;Bring me your child who&#039;s in the Red Sea.&amp;quot; And he goes, &amp;quot;No, I&#039;m not gonna do that. And I&#039;m not gonna tell you his name.&amp;quot; He comes up later. But hey, here&#039;s another demon. Here comes Ephippas. Ephippas.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I believe Baelzebub also says at this point, cause I wrote this down: There&#039;s not four demons, but there&#039;s like four fallen angels, and that&#039;s it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you thought all the demons are fallen angels, nope, just four of them.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The rest of them are like angel and human babies.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Or who knows? What they might come they might come from a poop echo. So like...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Could be.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Could be.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s just like &amp;quot;Now tell me about this son from the sea.&amp;quot; And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;No, no, I&#039;m not gonna do that. I&#039;m not gonna do it. He&#039;ll come to thee by any command and we&#039;ll tell you openly.&amp;quot; It&#039;s like, okay. We&#039;ll deal with that later. We&#039;ll deal with that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So here&#039;s an interesting thing, because this is something that comes up that&#039;s going to come up a lot throughout this book. He so he says, &amp;quot;Tell me what by what angel thou art frustrated,&amp;quot; and he says, &amp;quot;By the holy and precious name of the Almighty God, and I&#039;m not going to be able to do it. Called by the Hebrews by a row of numbers, of which the sum is six forty-four, and among the Greeks it is Emmanuel.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I definitely had some questions.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right, so that&#039;s actually backwards because Emmanuel is the Hebrew name, but if you spell Emmanuel in Greek... so okay, so here&#039;s the thing you need to know. In ancient Greece, numerals, well depending on the time and depending on the place, but generally speaking The numerals were the different letters of the alphabet. Not quite like Roman numerals, although there was a system that was much more similar to Roman numerals. But rather the standard ancient Greek alphabet is 24 letters long, but there are a couple of archaic letters: digamma, koppa, so on. If you add them in it gets you 27 letters and then the first nine letters in order are used for the units, the one place, one the numbers one through nine. And then you use the next nine digits to represent 10, 20, 30, 40, and so on. And then the last nine digits are 100, 200, 300, 400, etc. And so, if you, in the Greek alphabet, spell out the name Emmanuel, the way it&#039;s spelled in Greek which would be Amannewel, which has an Omicron in there, an O in there, and you put the numeric values of each of those letters and add them up, you get 644. And so the number 644 recurs throughout this work as a holy number that will repel demons. This is actually very similar to the method by which the number of the beast, 666, is arrived at. That one involves a more of a mishmash of Hebrew numerology, but it has to do with spelling. If you spell out the name Nero Caesar, and then you add up those letters, you get 666, but we&#039;ll talk about that in our Revelation episode whenever we happen to do that. But in this case, if you spell out Emmanuel, add up the numeric values of the letters, it adds up to 644. I promise it works. If this is not a Christian document, this part is certainly a Christian interpolation. Because the name Emmanuel, although it originates in Isaiah, is definitely a name used for Jesus. And so that would...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You might have heard of it at Christmas time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; You might have heard of him, yeah. Beelzeboul is sent off to cut some marble and he says, &amp;quot;Hey man, tell me a cool thing about what it&#039;s like in space.&amp;quot; And Beelzeboul says, &amp;quot;If you burn gum and incense, bulb of the sea, and nard,&amp;quot; here&#039;s nard again, &amp;quot;and saffron, light seven lamps in an earthquake&amp;quot;, which is weird, might also mean just seven lamps in a row, &amp;quot;thou wilt firmly fix thy house.&amp;quot; And if you&#039;re pure, if you&#039;re richly pure, light them at the dawn in the sun, you can see the dragons that pull the chariot of the sun. Did you know that&#039;s why the sun moves? Because there are dragons. That pull the sun.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, but I mean those aren&#039;t the dragons we&#039;re concerned with. He shows up later.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, there are there are plenty of other dragons.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So I believe it&#039;s at this point that we get the seven deadly enemies of man?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s another one in between there who it&#039;s... who cares? Like there&#039;s another quick one who&#039;s a spirit of ashes, he burns fields and houses. Anyway, but yeah, let&#039;s get to the seven sisters here.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;And I glorify God afresh,&amp;quot; that&#039;s how every part of this starts, &amp;quot;who gave me this authority and ordered another demon to come before me and there came seven spirits, females, bound and woven together, fair in appearance and comely.&amp;quot; Solomon, very into these demon ladies. It&#039;s like [https://theartofcoop.bigcartel.com Coop&#039;s] drawing &#039;em, I think.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like Solomon&#039;s the original Coop.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, for sure. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;And I, Solomon, seeing them, questioned them and said, &#039;Who are ye?&#039; But they, with one accord, said with one voice, &#039;We are of the thirty-three elements of the cosmic ruler of the darkness.&#039;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right, which is weird. This is an inconsistency because the elements of the cosmic ruler we get later, there&#039;s thirty-six of them and they don&#039;t include these seven.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh don&#039;t worry.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ll get to them.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we will. So I&#039;m just saying my point is this is evidence that maybe this is a bit of a patchwork because this is a for real inconsistency in the text.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Benito, would you like to know who these seven sisters are?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I would. Please tell me.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;And the first said, &#039;I am Deception.&#039; The second said, &#039;I am Strife.&#039; The third, &#039;I am Klothod, which is battle.&#039; The fourth, &#039;I am Jealousy.&#039; The fifth, &#039;I am Power,&#039; the sixth, &#039;I am Error,&#039; the seventh, &#039;I am worst of all, and our stars are in heaven, seven stars humble in sheen and all together, and we are called as it were goddesses. We change our place all and together, and together we live, sometimes in Lydia, sometimes in Olympus, sometimes in a great mountain.&#039; That is dope.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very dope.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That is the coolest thing.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I love that you get to them all and they&#039;re like, oh, these are bad things. And the last one doesn&#039;t even say her name. She&#039;s just like, I&#039;m the worst of them all.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, super good. Now, a thing that stuck out to me about this. Do you know about &amp;quot;I am Error&amp;quot;?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;I am Error&amp;quot;?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Via the Richard Matheson book about clumsy vampires? No.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;I am Error&amp;quot; is a very famous piece of dialogue from Zelda 2.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It was thought to be a mistranslation, like a famous mistranslation. But it&#039;s actually completely on purpose because it&#039;s a joke among the programmers because there&#039;s one guy named Error and one guy named Bug.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Ah, right. Okay, okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And so, if you go to this village in Zelda 2 and you just talk to this dude, all he says is, &amp;quot;I am Error.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Nice.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And so there&#039;s a book about like translations and stuff that&#039;s called &amp;quot;I Am Error,&amp;quot; named for this character. The thing is, I don&#039;t, as far as I know, we might be the first people to connect that to the Testament of Solomon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Where one of the seven deadly enemies of man shows up and says that herself. So if you were wondering if Zelda 2, the Adventure of Link for the Nintendo Entertainment System was in fact a satanic document, it is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Hey guys, that&#039;s the show. It&#039;s Zelda 2 plus a piece of Jewish pseudepigrapha from the 3rd century CE. Tying them together. Tell your friends. Apocrypals. TM. TM. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Later they all kind of get like that&#039;s their kind of intro verse.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then they start in on the posse cut.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And they all sort of explain who they are. And my favorite bit of this is when Strife shows up and she goes, &amp;quot;I am Strife, strife of strifes.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Come on. Very good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know, I think that we should meet her man-to-man and quite literally face-to-face.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh yeah. Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Deep cut cable reference, everybody.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; There it is. And yeah, they mention all sorts of angels here that do not exist anywhere else except in like documents that copy from this. You know, other works inspired by this. And maybe, maybe some of these appear in like Enoch or something. But we get angel names like Baruchiachel, Lamechalal, Marmarath, Balthial, and so on. And then here we actually get Asteraoth, which Astaroth is usually a demon name. He&#039;s Hellboy&#039;s uncle.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep, and also the final boss of Ghouls and Ghosts.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you want to get another NES reference there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Speaking of Hellboy, I always forget to mention this. Hellboy encounters Asmodeus in probably my favorite single issue of Hellboy, Hellboy: the Bride of Hell. And it includes some stuff similar to thi, but it&#039;s more based on that story of Solomon and Ashmedai which has Solomon taming Asmodeus to build the temple and includes the twist where Asmodeus gets a hold of the ring and that kind of stuff. We&#039;ll cover that story in a later episode, but if you want to see a story that&#039;s based on lore very similar to what we&#039;re reading right now, Hellboy and the Bride of Hell is a very cool one that features Asmodeus as a spooky lion guy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I feel like there&#039;s a lot of Hellboy content in this episode, like pancakes, Asmodeus.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s appropriate. Also, Hellboy&#039;s the best. You guys should be reading Hellboy if you&#039;re not.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I mean it&#039;s quite a good comic book.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very good. We get a reference to canonical Bible here. Error says, &amp;quot;I&#039;ll make you make mistakes like you did before when you killed your brother.&amp;quot; And that&#039;s from First Kings chapter 2, that&#039;s a real thing. Solomon executed his brother in order to ascend to the throne. So ouch. And some stuff about necromancy here. And then we get a bit of foreshadowing.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s how wild this book is, is that we can just go, &amp;quot;yeah, there&#039;s some stuff about necromancy.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, there&#039;s some necromancy stuff. A little bit of foreshadowing about locusts here. We&#039;ll see, Solomon makes some locust-based mistakes later on. Yeah, so we got we got those seven sisters, which by the way, the reference is to the Pleiades, right? So much of this is astrological. So when you hear Seven Sisters, your thought should be the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters. And then we get a series of pretty wild ones here. We get Envy, who is a dude without a head, and he is a Fletcher Hanks nightmare.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, yes, that is, I mean, of course I also thought this, but this is straight up the dude who shows up in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stardust_the_Super_Wizard Stardust].&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it is. He has no head, but he&#039;s envious of people who have heads, and so he&#039;ll eat your head through his neck stump. He&#039;ll take your head and then eat it through his neck stump.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And there is a great moment here where Solomon goes &amp;quot;Hey, how can you talk though?&amp;quot; Like that&#039;s what he has a problem with. All of the stuff you&#039;ve seen, he doesn&#039;t know how this demon who has no head can talk.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That is what needs to be explained in this document.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;I&#039;m all voice. I&#039;m all voice, baby. I&#039;ve inherited the voices of many men. I steal their voices when I eat their heads through my shoulders.&amp;quot; And he makes people mute, including children. When people are mute, it&#039;s because this guy smashed their heads when they were children. How&#039;d he find them? He followed the sound of their voice, because he doesn&#039;t have a head to see. He travels by his other senses. He says here &amp;quot;by my feelings,&amp;quot; which is very funny, but like he uses his other senses to move about and he can follow the sound of your voice and he&#039;ll make you mute. &amp;quot;I grasp in all instant a man&#039;s head, and with my hands, like a sword, I cut it off, and I put it on myself.  And in this way, by means of the fire which is in me, through my neck it is swallowed up. &amp;quot;It is I that sends grave mutilations and incurable on men&#039;s feet and inflicts sores.&amp;quot; Yeah, there&#039;s a weird pun here about crossroads and s blisters on your feet. Because the crossroad is enodia, which is the thing that literally means like in the road, but that&#039;s also the word also means blister. So I don&#039;t know. There&#039;s some puns here, and then yeah, well tell me about this fire. What&#039;s this demon fire? And the demon fire comes from the day star, that&#039;s really Venus. That&#039;s the morning star, which is also the evening star, right? The morning star and the evening star are both Venus. And so he talks about a fire demon that people call Elburion, but that&#039;s not his real name, but he&#039;s worshipped like a god. And he gets power that way. But he can&#039;t tell him his real name. I don&#039;t know, strange, another demon comes then. Looks like a giant dog.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and Solomon&#039;s like, &amp;quot;huh. A dog.&amp;quot; And the dog goes, &amp;quot;that&#039;s right!&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And Solomon&#039;s like, &amp;quot;what? A talking dog?&amp;quot; And yes, that&#039;s right, everybody. We are back with a talking dog. Our second talking dog. But this is this is like [https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Destructo Destructo]. He&#039;s a bad talking dog.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this is not Heavy the Heaven Hound. This is definitely a bad one. His name is Staff. His name is Staff or Rot.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Bad name. I think we should call him Dem-o.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Dem-o, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Or Hell-o!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hell-o, yeah. Hell-o the Hellhound. Yeah, and he sees his frenzied men by the larynx and just it&#039;s more strangling. It&#039;s all strangling all the time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I was thinking about that and then I realized that like you know, it&#039;s old times. They hadn&#039;t really invented a bunch of different ways to kill people.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Now it&#039;s like I shoot people. Well, okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Like I mean that&#039;s the demon Garth Ennis came up with. Multiple times.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Or I electrocute them with car batteries. Okay, well&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And like you could stab somebody back in old times. But like that means that you know the action figure has to come with an accessory and you don&#039;t want to get into like okay well how come none of these demons stabbed Solomon with their swords?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because I feel like a sword could beat a ring. Don&#039;t need to worry about that if all they do is strangle. Ring beats hands.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s like a production code era horror movie where all the monsters strangle people. The Wolf Man strangles people, the Mummy strangles people, because they can&#039;t do anything else. Anyway, the giant dog shows Solomon where some emeralds are that he could build the temple out of. Yeah, we got the headless demon, the hound, it was so huge. There&#039;s so many, I feel like maybe we need to kind of give the reader&#039;s digest version of some of these.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well there&#039;s a phrase of... he shuts one demon up in a skin bottle?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that comes...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; ...which is a completely bonkers phrase.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s near the end. We&#039;ll get to that. Let&#039;s look at this dragon...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this is in verse sixty-one. I wish it had been eight verses later.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, in that good-good number. A little bit before that I should say there is a female demon who is basically a Medusa head. She&#039;s a flying head with disheveled hair, and she does what Lilith does. She strangles babies.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, basically everything you&#039;ve seen in Castlevania comes from this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, more or less. But yeah, let&#039;s look at this dragon. So he doesn&#039;t get a name. He&#039;s called the winged dragon. The Greek word is pterodrakun.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Pterodrakun. Which is... rad. I almost swore.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very cool. The pterodrakun, like pteradactyl.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And what we learn about him is that he chambers not with many women, but only a few that are of fair shape, which possess the name of xuli. What does that mean? I don&#039;t know. There&#039;s an alternative translation that maybe it means touxylou, or maybe it means from the woods, or from wood, actually. Xylou would be wood. Completely unclear. Anyway, he chambers with some women. &amp;quot;And I pair with them in the guise of a spirit winged in form, coitum habens per nates.&amp;quot; Just, you guys, we all know what that means.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I was already excited when the dragon showed up and was like, &amp;quot;yeah, I just like, I just basically get the hottest ladies around.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That was good. Then when I looked over at the footnote to find out why he was speaking Latin.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Maybe coi-tum, you guys can hear that and you can figure out, coitus, what that is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Butt stuff.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Maybe in this case, yeah, nates is a word for your butt cheeks.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; For the butt, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is specifically the cheeks in case you&#039;re wondering. It&#039;s the... and yeah, so here we go. This is the butt-stuff dragon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I love the idea of some dude in the 1800s reading this and just turning beet red and then being like, &amp;quot;well, I can&#039;t not put it in there.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I can&#039;t leave it out, but you if you put it in Latin, that&#039;s how you are a little bit more modest about it. I mean that&#039;s the strategy. &amp;quot;She on whom I have leapt goes heavy with child, and that which is born of her becomes eros.&amp;quot; Which is a little bit strange and a little bit confusing, but she had a baby that either is Eros, I don&#039;t know if he&#039;s actually supposed to be like the Greek Eros, this is where Cupid comes from, or if it&#039;s a just a demon who&#039;s also named Eros, who has very similar powers and abilities, because he shows up at the end. Eros comes back up at the very end to haunt Solomon. &amp;quot;But since such offspring cannot be carried by men, the woman in question breaks wind.&amp;quot; Yeah, so she had fart baby.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Uh-huh.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; From the butt stuff.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; From the butt stuff.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah, I think if I had to guess probably that line could probably also mean that she died, but this translation is straight up, yeah, she breaks wind. So yeah, it&#039;s our butt stuff dragon. What else do we have here?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I wasn&#039;t I wasn&#039;t kidding.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I don&#039;t make things up when we talk about Bible.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, there&#039;s no goofs. Zero percent goofs on this show.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There is no need.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No need for goofs.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We can just play it straight and the material will carry it. Let&#039;s see, then we get Enêpsigos, who is another female demon who&#039;s got multiple forms, including changing into the Greek god Kronos. That&#039;s weird.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s weird.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Let&#039;s see. Who else do we have that we want to talk about here?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, when we get to verse 72, we get some dudes who show up.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We get the 36 decans here.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s right. And they say, with one voice, &amp;quot;We are the 36 elements, world rulers of this darkness.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music: &amp;quot;Bring da Ruckus&amp;quot; by Wu-Tang Clan]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That was basically the only 10 seconds of 36 Chambers I can play on the show.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Nice. Really good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s the Wu-Tang demons?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s 36. 36, and they&#039;re the decans, and what decans are, they are the constellations that appear on the horizon. And they&#039;re called decans because there&#039;s a new one every ten days. And you if you do that math, 36 times 10 gets you 360, which is approximately a year. And so that&#039;s the idea. This is the bit that is thought to be Egyptian in origin, because there&#039;s definitely some Egyptian astrology going on here with these. We definitely do not have time to go through these 36 demons. But each one causes like a different illness, and you usually can drive them off with a name that you either say or you write down and then affix the piece of paper to you. One of &#039;em, the coolest one, you write his name on a stack of fig leaves and then you stack them up and you and then you spell his name backwards by taking a leaf. away and then he&#039;ll go away.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Then he goes back to the fifth dimension.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, exactly. It&#039;s a very it&#039;s a very Myxzptlk kind of situation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, all 36 get names.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; They do.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; All 36 get like file cards. Like full-on G.I. Joe file cards with their specialty and their weakness.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and then each one...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I love it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s very good. Some of them cause malaria. That&#039;s a weird thing. They call it the tertian or the hemitertian fever, that&#039;s malaria, if you see that come up. Yeah, each one causes a different illness and things. The 36 decades, that&#039;s a large portion. There&#039;s like 130 sections or verses, I guess we&#039;re calling them, but they&#039;re 130 sections, and that takes up a lot. The 36 guys get up to get us up to like 106.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And there&#039;s I mean, and you&#039;ve heard of some of them, I&#039;m sure. There&#039;s the RZA. Yeah. GZA.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; The Ghostface Killer.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Inspectah Deck. He&#039;s like the head. They form like Voltron and he&#039;s the head.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Big Baby Jesus. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Dirt McGirt.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Dirt McGirt.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Johnny Blaze.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Tony Starks. Then, after that, we get a queen from the south who is a witch, and she comes to be impressed by Solomon&#039;s great wisdom and his mastery over the demons. And what happens is we get this segment where there&#039;s a father and a son and they&#039;re mad at each other, but then Ornias starts laughing and Solomon&#039;s like, &amp;quot;why are you laughing?&amp;quot; He says, &amp;quot;It&#039;s because I&#039;ve seen the future and I know that son is gonna die and this dad is going to feel bad about being so mad at his son.&amp;quot; And that turns out to be true. And he says, &amp;quot;How do you know this?&amp;quot; And he says, &amp;quot;We demons, we fly up into the firmament.&amp;quot; So the firmament, again, would be the inside of the giant dome that surrounds the earth on which the stars are affixed, right? &amp;quot;We fly up in the firmament, fly among the stars, we hear what the angels and God are saying, and we fly around and listen to all these things. And either we make something bad happen to people or we transform ourselves in such a way to appear to them and be worshipped.&amp;quot; And he says, &amp;quot;What we do is we basically go up there, but there&#039;s nowhere to rest, so we fly around until we get tired, then we fall down like lightning, and this is where falling stars come from, because real stars don&#039;t fall, because they&#039;re affixed to the heavens, just like the sun and the moon are.&amp;quot; Obviously. That&#039;s science. And then the son does die, just like Ornias predicted, and so the queen from the south is amazed.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Then we get this next section where the king of the Arabians writes a letter to Solomon and says, &amp;quot;Hey man, please help me out. We have this killer wind. Please do something about it.&amp;quot; And so this is where we get the demon in the bottle.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Come, come, come on in, let me out.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, demon in the bottle. Tony Stark is there speaking of Tony Starks. He sends a young man out with a wineskin or a flask here, and he tells him, &amp;quot;Go out, look for this wind demon, and when you see him, hold the ring up to the mouth of the flask, and the demon will fly in to the flask, and you&#039;ll know he&#039;s in there because it will inflate like a balloon. And then seal it with the ring and bring him back.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This book&#039;s like the origin of every fetish.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, there is an inflation thing going on here, huh?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and like the half donkey lady?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s a lot, I guess is what I&#039;m saying.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Strangling while thinking about noble virgins... Anyway, so the young man brings the flask full of wind demon back, and we find out that the wind demon is Ephippas, who Beelzeboul mentioned way earlier in the text. And here we see who can tame Ephippas? &amp;quot;The only ruling God, he that is born of a virgin, crucified by the Jews on a cross, whom the angels and archangels worship, he doth frustrate me, and feebles my great strength, which has been given to me by my father, the devil.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And we learned that Ephippas is very strong. He can move mountains, he can do whatever. And what problem Solomon is having is that he can&#039;t place the cornerstone on the temple. Like the temple&#039;s very nearly done, but there&#039;s a huge cornerstone that he wants to be the final piece, but it&#039;s too heavy for his men to lift. And so he tells Ephippas, the wind demon, &amp;quot;Hey man, if you can move mountains, why don&#039;t you put this stone in?&amp;quot; And he goes, &amp;quot;I will do that, and also, tell you what, if you summon my friend at the bottom of the Red Sea, we&#039;ve got something else we can do for you.&amp;quot; And he goes, &amp;quot;Okay.&amp;quot; And so he does not let Ephippas out of the wineskin, which is the amusing imagery to me, that there is this flask dancing around and described as like the bottom of the flask basically being like little legs carrying him around and then I thought he was gonna open it, right, and that the wind was gonna come out and the wind was gonna put the stone in place, you know what I mean? But instead you get a little bottle picking up this enormous stone and carrying it, walking on its little legs like a broom from the Sorcerer&#039;s Apprentice. And he puts the cornerstone in place.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And then we finally solve the mystery of who&#039;s at the bottom of the Red Sea. Because he goes down there and we find out that he&#039;s a demon called Abezithibod. And he was a descendant of the archangel, which, I mean, Beelzeboul said he&#039;s his son, but I guess if Beelzeboul was an archangel, I don&#039;t know. But what we learn about him is he was the one who hardened Pharaoh&#039;s heart against Moses, although the Bible, canon Bible, specifically says that it was God who did that. But here we see that Abezithibod is the one who... Every time I say it, I think of that episode of Brooklyn 99 where they talk about Ahmadinejad and they call him call him Armin Jibijab. I keep thinking that every time I think of Abezithibod. And he was the one that gave Iannes and Iambres — get those guys another mention, gosh, we just had those guys last week who are the evil, the evil wizards that Moses and Aaron did wizard battle with — he was the one that gave them their powers. He fought against Moses, and he was captured in the Red Sea. When the Red Sea closed back up, he was somehow pinned under this giant column. I don&#039;t know why there was a pillar in the Red Sea, but there was. It&#039;s made of some kind of purple material that we do not know because we cannot properly translate the word. But it&#039;s made of some kind of secret purple stuff.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; My favorite prince album.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Secret Purple.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Secret Purple. And so Ephippas and Abezithibod together use their strength to carry this giant pillar from the bottom of the Red Sea, and they bring it to the temple, but instead of placing it down, they hold it up. And so the pillar is held aloft in the air. And it&#039;s continually held there because Solomon&#039;s like, great, stay there. So these two incredibly powerful demons are trapped holding this column within the temple. And I should point out we did gloss over a lot of stuff, but there is a point where one of the demons does prophesy the destruction of the temple, which is coming. Of course we know, multiple times.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But then we get here at the end, there is a beautiful woman, a woman of the Shunammites, which is a reference to Song of Solomon. The woman in Song of Solomon is described as being a Shunammite. And so he wants to marry this woman. But the priests of the Shunammites say, &amp;quot;Yeah, you&#039;ve got to worship Moloch and the great god Raphan, and you have to make sacrifices to them.&amp;quot; And Solomon says, &amp;quot;I&#039;m not gonna do that. That&#039;s a terrible thing.&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;Look, man, it&#039;s easy.&amp;quot; And so they put five locusts in his hand. And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;You don&#039;t have to sacrifice a major thing. Just crush up these locusts in your hand.&amp;quot; And here we see Eros, here he is, comes back. Here&#039;s the butt baby, the butt baby of the dragon. Puts the grasshoppers in his hand, crush &#039;em, and then you&#039;ll have the you&#039;ll have the woman of the Shunamites. And he does it, and that was very dumb because the Spirit of God departs from him. He&#039;s weak and foolish and he loses control of all of the demons. And yeah, so he leaves with the warning &amp;quot;wretch that I am, followed her advice, the glory of God departed from me, and my spirit was darkened, and I became the sport of idols and demons. And that&#039;s why I wrote this testament. So you can feel pity for me, and also don&#039;t do what I did. Don&#039;t crush a locust. Just do those push-ups. Throw yourself in some brambles. Leave those Shunammites alone.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, don&#039;t don&#039;t crush up the locusts, but do summon demons and use them to build things.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That was not a problem.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; You make them subject to you. You don&#039;t make yourself subject to them. That&#039;s that&#039;s the trick.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s the best thing. Because as we all know, like you can never get into trouble as long as you know you can just quit anytime you want to.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is God-endorsed slavery in this case.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Jiminy Christmas.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean it is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I mean it&#039;s demons, it doesn&#039;t count.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, yeah, I mean sure. I&#039;m just saying. So I mean that&#039;s it. That&#039;s the Testament of Solomon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Completely wild.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Very wild.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Completely wild.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and I&#039;m sorry if we glossed over your favorite demon, if you&#039;re really into a particular one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean let&#039;s let&#039;s be real here, your favorite demon is Pterodrakun.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like that&#039;s who your favorite demon is. That&#039;s who there&#039;s gonna be fan art of.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, or someone just wants to draw that giant dog doing a strangle. I don&#039;t know. Maybe. Yeah, anyway...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Just draw the giant dog doing a strangle, and then Sonic&#039;s there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And they&#039;re just besties.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And they&#039;re just inflated with the spirit of Ephippas, the wind demon from Arabia. Yeah, why not?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hey Benito, did you have a verse?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Nope. Did you have one?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Pretty much just the seventh sister saying, &amp;quot;I am the worst of all, and our stars are in heaven, seven stars humble in sheen and all together, and we are called as it were goddesses.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There have been a lot of extremely dope ways for people to announce themselves in Bible.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s maybe number one. That&#039;s number two behind Jesus knocking people over with one word.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s a pretty good one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That is a strong flex.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;I&#039;m Strife, strife of strife.&amp;quot; Ah, so good. They just do a one-by-one verse, they all come in.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like the whole bit about &amp;quot;I&#039;m Deception, I&#039;m Strife&amp;quot; is like really fun in a super fable-ish Billy Batson-y sort of way.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, oh for sure. Yeah, man.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Wy aren&#039;t there I mean we all look we all know the seven deadly enemies of men. They&#039;re the seven deadly sins.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Kind of. Kind of.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean kind of.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, but more or less. You got it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; They didn&#039;t have lust in there until like 1990.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and then one of the other ones is different too. Like gluttony is something else, I think. They cut gluttony and lust.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Gluttony&#039;s still in there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Really?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Maybe one of the original ones wasn&#039;t gluttony.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, maybe. There&#039;s two of them. I know lust is one of them because that&#039;s the obvious one, but one of the other ones is changed to something else too. I can&#039;t I can&#039;t remember off the dome.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But like Mary Marvel should absolutely fight these guys, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh yeah. Mary Marvel should fight...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Mary Shazam now, I guess.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Ugh. Ugh.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I don&#039;t like it either.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But yes, she should actually be there. She should fight those seven sisters. Absolutely, I endorse that. Just pull that from the Testament of Solomon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Alright, so that&#039;s it for the Testament of Solomon, and that means it&#039;s it for Halloween, everybody. Happy Halloween!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Happy Halloween!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Were you scared this time?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I was. I was scared that we could not possibly cover 60 demons in a span of one episode.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I was scared that there&#039;s a lot that I&#039;m gonna have to cut out when I&#039;m editing this show and we&#039;re talking about dragons doing butt stuff.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah, it&#039;s true.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039;  We&#039;re never gonna get that oh so clutch Pontifex retweet.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s true.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If we don&#039;t have that clean tag. He&#039;s just not gonna listen.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;re keeping that clean tag for Pontifex, we&#039;re keeping that clean tag for your moms, because I know one person told us they said if we didn&#039;t cuss on the show, they would show it to their mom. And so it&#039;s for you. I hope your mom&#039;s listening. I hope your mom&#039;s not listening to this episode.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean, you know, we didn&#039;t write it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s true. This is Bible. It&#039;s Bible.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is Bible.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We didn&#039;t make up the Bible.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We did not. Even though in this particular instance it might sound like we did.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So what are we doing next week now that Halloween is over, now that we have honored all the saints?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, as I mentioned, I&#039;m getting married, I&#039;m getting married, and you can&#039;t have a wedding, you can&#039;t have an a Christian or even ethnically Christian wedding without First Corinthians. So we gotta do those Pauline epistles eventually. We can&#039;t ignore them forever. We gotta get back to canon. We&#039;ve done very much Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha in the last couple weeks. So we&#039;re gonna get back to the New Testament. We&#039;ve done all of the narrative stuff. Now we gotta hit those epistles. So we&#039;re gonna hit First Corinthians. The one you&#039;ve heard at every wedding you&#039;ve ever been to.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and we will be using the version that&#039;s in the HCSB. If you do have the Bible in Hell, there are 21 chapters. It&#039;s true. So you are Keanu Reeves or Rachel Weisz.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And we have already covered Third Corinthians, so it&#039;s important that we go back and hit the first one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So that is what we&#039;re gonna be doing next week in honor of your nuptials.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Thanks, man.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And congratulations. I&#039;m very I&#039;m very happy for you and Sarah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I appreciate it very much.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I can tell you, marriage is great. Love being married.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Good. I&#039;ll take that as a recommendation. Five stars on Yelp for Marriage from Chris Sims.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I would six stars even. You know what? Seven stars, because that&#039;s the most number of stars.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; The most number of stars.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; In the meantime, where can everybody find us? Online.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you want to find us online, you want to find links, images, supplemental material, essays, maps, that kind of stuff, including recently images of Paul and Thecla, images of Judith and Holofernes. I haven&#039;t posted them yet, but I&#039;m gonna post images of the Harrowing of Hell. We&#039;re gonna have some images of these demons coming up. We&#039;re gonna have that link to the homily about the harrowing of hell. All that stuff you can find on our Tumblr at [https://apocrypals.tumblr.com/ apocrypals dot tumbler dot com]. There you can also ask us questions, which we usually answer on the Tumblr, but occasionally some of those questions make it onto the show. So head over there and look for us, find our stuff there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Also, if you like the show, you want to support us monetarily, help us keep the show going, hit us up at [https://ko-fi.com/apocrypals K O dash F I dot com slash apocrypals]. That&#039;s [https://ko-fi.com/apocrypals kofi dot com slash apocrypals]. There you can leave us a donation in increments of three dollars. It can be as little as three, it could be as much as three million if you so felt, if you really like the show.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If however you can&#039;t or don&#039;t want to support us monetarily, you can help us out by leaving us a review on your podcast app of choice, whether Apple Podcasts or Stitcher or Google Play or Spotify or whatever. I don&#039;t think Spotify has reviews and comments, but who knows? Leave us a rating and review. You can just give us the rating. It&#039;s real easy. Just click the number of stars that you think it should be. Seven stars is not an option, but we&#039;ll accept five. It&#039;s fine. Leave a review if you want. Reviews are better. They help us get featured more. Help us climb the top of that Christian comedy podcast, so choice, and it gets us ever closer to that clutch Pontifex retweet.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
You can also just talk about us on Twitter and other social media using #ApocryPals on Twitter. That way we can find you. Usually we&#039;ll retweet people who post about that or if you have a question, you can hit us up that way. You can also find me on Twitter @Benito_Cereno. I&#039;m there. I tweet quite a lot. You can also find me on Instagram at the same name. You can find me on Tumblr at [https://tumblr.com/benito-cereno Benito-Cereno]. Those are my main ones. Chris, what about you?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You can find all of my stuff by going to [https://the-isb.com T H E  dash I S B dot com]. If you are still in a Halloween mood, then boy do we have some comics for you that we actually wrote, not just Hellboy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s true. We didn&#039;t write Hellboy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We did not write Hellboy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, but comics that we wrote.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, I write a comic that is very irregularly published called Dracula the Unconquered. It&#039;s pretty much what I would do if I was writing Hellboy. S the fourth issue of that, which is about Dracula and his assistant Thalia meeting Carmilla, a famous vampire from the novel of the same name, is out now and the first three issues are on sale for a dollar each. The new issue&#039;s two dollars. That means you can get ninety-six pages of full color adventure comics that I have written for a mere five bucks. That&#039;s a good deal.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s a steal, honestly.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I have paid more money than that for less pages of bad comics.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s true. I certainly have.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Fewer pages, I should say.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Recently, I feel like I have.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, same. Same, buddy. Same.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But also if you like Benito and me, which of course you do, why would you not? We&#039;re we&#039;re the most lovable Bible podcasters there are. We both have stories, me with my writing partner Chad Bowers in this year&#039;s Army of Darkness Halloween special. And kinda spooky, not quite in the same vein, is Infinity Wars: Sleepwalker. Chad and I are writing that for Marvel Comics. It&#039;s great. If you want to know what the insides the Infinity Stones are like, read that book. I can tell you in number three, we introduce a new character to the Marvel Universe, uh, and she is great. You&#039;re gonna love her, and you&#039;re gonna love what she does. So read that. In the meantime, you know, Benino, you said people can talk about us on Twitter and Tumblr. That&#039;s always great because we can see that. But I would say if you do like the show just tell one person that you think might like it. Tell a friend who might enjoy the show, that you like listening to Apocrypals. Because I think a personal recommendation goes a long way. And that is a technique I am stealing from Tyler Mahan Coe of Cocaine and Rhinestones, a very good podcast about the history of country music.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Nice. Yeah. You tell one friend, and then they&#039;ll tell one friend.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And then eventually seven people listen.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s the goal. We want seven, seventy times seven. It sounds impossible, but I feel like we can get there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We want a number of listeners that are uncountable like the stars in the heavens. Like the descendants of Abraham.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Absolutely. Grains of sand upon the seashore. That&#039;s what we want. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; These are the days of our lives. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Indeed. That&#039;s what we want.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Alright, so next week, 1 Corinthians, everybody, we will be patient and we will be kind when you join us for that. Until then, we hope you&#039;ve enjoyed our very good Halloween special about demons and King Solomon. Benito, happy Halloween and peace be with you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And also vith you, Bleh! &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music: &amp;quot;The Monster Mash&amp;quot; by Bobby Pickett]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Benito and Chris continue singing Monster Mash...]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Episode_List&amp;diff=140</id>
		<title>Episode List</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Episode_List&amp;diff=140"/>
		<updated>2026-02-18T22:39:15Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: /* Episodes */&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;In each episode, [[Benito Cereno|Benito]] and [[Chris Sims|Chris]] read, watch or play something from the Bible (or Bible-adjacent) and talk about its history, authors, and contents. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
You can listen to all episodes at the show&#039;s [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com Libsyn page] or by subscribing through [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/apocrypals/id1366302177 Apple Podcasts]. [[Bonus Episodes|Bonus video episodes]] can all be seen on [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvsqJ485UTPgVIP1i-BTgMfSsmk4S7ouE Benito&#039;s YouTube channel].&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Episodes==&lt;br /&gt;
{| class=&amp;quot;wikitable sortable&amp;quot; style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
! Episode !! &amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;Date&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp; !! Title !! Subject !! Source !! Transcript&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/episode-0-ive-been-to-my-share-of-pizza-parties 0] || 2018-03-29 || [[I&#039;ve Been To My Share of Pizza Parties]] || nonspecific || || [[I&#039;ve Been To My Share of Pizza Parties (Transcript) | Yes]] &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/porky-party-the-book-of-acts 1] || 2018-04-08 || [[Porky Party]] || Acts || New Testament || [[Porky Party (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/2-one-weird-trick-the-book-of-daniel-with-apocrypha 2] || 2018-04-14 || [[One Weird Trick]] || Daniel as well as The Prayer of Azariah aka the Song of the Three Holy Children; Susanna; and Bel and the Dragon || Tanakh and Deuterocanon  || [[One Weird Trick (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/3-various-heresies-the-acts-of-peter-and-paul 3] || 2018-04-22 || [[Various Heresies]] || The Acts of Peter and The Acts of Peter and Paul || Apocrypha  || [[Various Heresies (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/4-wittgensteins-monster-the-book-of-isaiah 4] || 2018-05-06 || [[Wittgenstein&#039;s Monster]] || The Book of Isaiah || Tanakh || [[Wittgenstein&#039;s Monster (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/5-on-the-road-to-rome-pauls-letter-to-the-romans 5] || 2018-05-20 || [[On the Road to Rome]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Romans || New Testament || [[On the Road to Rome (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/6-fresh-prince-of-beliar-the-ascension-of-isaiah 6] || 2018-05-27 || [[Fresh Prince of Beliar]] || The Ascension of Isaiah &amp;amp; The Prayer of Manasseh || Pseudepigrapha and Deuterocanon  || [[ Fresh Prince of Beliar (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/7-neon-genesis-good-news-the-gospel-of-mark-and-secret-mark-0 7] || 2018-06-03 || [[Neon Genesis Good News]] || The Gospel of Mark and Secret Mark || New Testament and Apocrypha  || [[Neon Genesis Good News (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/8-whats-up-doctor-goodacre-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-one 8] || 2018-06-10 || [[What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre]] || The Gospel of Matthew, Part One || New Testament  || [[ What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/9-simon-peters-sweet-sixteen-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-two 9] || 2018-06-24 || [[Simon Peter&#039;s Sweet Sixteen]] || The Gospel of Matthew, Part Two || New Testament || [[Simon Peter&#039;s Sweet Sixteen (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/10-the-dude-hates-wizards-the-gospel-of-luke 10] || 2018-07-02 || [[The Dude Hates Wizards]] || The Gospel of Luke || New Testament || [[The Dude Hates Wizards (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/11-90s-vertigo-jesus-the-gospel-of-john-part-one 11] || 2018-07-09 || [[90s Vertigo Jesus]] || The Gospel of John, Part One || New Testament  || [[ 90s Vertigo Jesus (Transcript)| Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/12-whomst-was-at-the-tombst-the-gospel-of-john-part-two 12] || 2018-07-15 || [[Whomst Was At the Tombst?]] || The Gospel of John, Part Two || New Testament || [[ Whomst Was At the Tombst? (Transcript)| Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/11-90s-vertigo-jesus-the-gospel-of-john-part-one 13] || 2018-07-30 || [[Bonus Goat]] || The Deuterocanonical Book of Tobit || Deuterocanon  || [[Bonus Goat (Transcript)|Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/14-the-boy-related-eagle-plan-the-story-of-ahikar 14] || 2018-08-06 || [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan]] || The Story of Ahikar || Pseudepigrapha || [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan (Transcript)|Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/15-an-approximate-week-the-golden-legend-st-christopher-and-st-benedict 15] || 2018-08-13 || [[An Approximate Week]] || The Golden Legend: St. Christopher and St. Benedict || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/16-doamurder-west-virginia-the-book-of-genesis-part-1 16] || 2018-08-19 || [[Doamurder, West Virginia]] || The Book of Genesis, Part 1 || Tanakh || [[Doamurder, West Virginia (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/17-five-gallons-of-bread-the-book-of-genesis-part-two 17] || 2018-08-27 || [[Five Gallons of Bread]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Two || Tanakh  || [[Five Gallons of Bread (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/18-literally-and-figuratively-wrestling-with-god-the-book-of-genesis-part-three-0 18] || 2018-09-09 || [[Literally and Figuratively Wrestling With God]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Three || Tanakh || [[ Literally and Figuratively Wrestling With God (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/19-mbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbam-the-book-of-genesis-part-four 19] || 2018-09-23 || [[MBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBaM]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Four || Tanakh  || [[ MBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBaM (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/20-shalom-birdie-genesis-commentary-with-david-wolkin 20] || 2018-09-30 || [[Shalom Birdie (with David Wolkin)]] || The Book of Genesis || Tanakh  || [[ Shalom Birdie (with David Wolkin) (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/21-biblerella-the-acts-of-paul-and-thecla 21] || 2018-10-07 || [[Biblerella]] || The Acts of Paul and Thecla || Apocrypha  || [[Biblerella (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/22-oceans-two-the-book-of-judith 22] || 2018-10-15 || [[Ocean&#039;s Two]] || The Book of Judith || Deuterocanon  || [[Ocean&#039;s Two (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/23-dunking-on-satan-the-acts-of-pilate-and-the-gospel-of-nicodemus 23] || 2018-10-21 || [[Dunking on Satan]] || The Acts of Pilate and The Gospel of Nicodemus || Apocrypha  || [[Dunking on Satan (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/25-butt-stuff-dragon-the-testament-of-solomon 24] || 2018-10-29 || [[Butt Stuff Dragon]] || The Testament of Solomon || Pseudepigrapha  || [[Butt Stuff Dragon (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/25-one-rinthies-baby-first-corinthians 25] || 2018-11-14 || [[One Rinthies, Baby]] || First Corinthians || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/26-some-other-christmas-man-the-lives-of-st-nicholas-and-st-lucy 26] || 2018-11-19 || [[Some Other Christmas Man]] || The Lives of St. Nicholas and St. Lucy || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/27-the-book-of-the-dynasty-of-gods-resisters-the-first-book-of-maccabees 27] || 2018-12-02 || [[The Book of the Dynasty of God&#039;s Resisters]] || The First Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/28-second-maccabees-second-furious-the-second-book-of-maccabees 28] || 2018-12-10 || [[Second Maccabees Second Furious]] || The Second Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/29-these-apocryphal-ravings-the-infancy-gospel-of-james 29] || 2018-12-16 || [[These Apocryphal Ravings]] || The Infancy Gospel of James || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/30-apples-and-oranges-the-legend-of-the-three-kings 30] || 2019-01-07 || [[Apples and Oranges]] || The Legend of the Three Kings by John of Hildesheim || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/31-yartzed-upon-a-distant-shore-the-book-of-jonah 31] || 2019-01-24 || [[Yartzed Upon a Distant Shore]] || The Book of Jonah || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/32-return-of-the-twelve-foot-volcel-lion-questions-answers 32] || 2019-02-03 || [[Return of the Twelve-Foot Volcel Lion]] || Questions &amp;amp; Answers || Listener questions  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/33-thicc-darkness-the-book-of-exodus-part-one 33] || 2019-02-10 || [[Thicc Darkness]] || The Book of Exodus, Part One || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/34-thorn-bushes-and-pushups-the-song-of-songs 34] || 2019-02-24 || [[Thorn Bushes and Pushups]] || The Song of Songs || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/35-down-in-the-donkey-hole-the-book-of-exodus-part-two 35] || 2019-03-03 || [[Down in the Donkey Hole]] || The Book of Exodus, Part Two || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/36-grazacham-the-life-of-st-patrick 36] || 2019-03-12 || [[GRAZACHAM!]] || Muirchu’s Life of Saint Patrick || Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/37-bigger-esther-the-book-of-esther-and-greek-esther 37] || 2019-03-20 || [[Bigger Esther]] || The Book of Esther and Greek Esther || Tanakh and Deuterocanon ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/38-sword-drill-online-bible-trivia-special 38] || 2019-03-31 || [[Sword Drill Online]] || Bible Trivia Special || Complete Book of Bible Trivia  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/39-rain-is-boy-water-the-book-of-enoch-part-one 39] || 2019-04-07 || [[Rain is Boy Water]] || The Book of Enoch, Part One || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/40-devil-got-a-hog-the-book-of-enoch-part-two 40] || 2019-04-19 || [[Devil Got a Hog]] || The Book of Enoch, Part Two || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/41-neo-mary-is-about-to-e-x-p-l-o-d-e-the-questions-of-bartholomew 41] || 2019-04-29 || [[Neo-Mary Is About To E X P L O D E]] || Questions of Bartholomew and The Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Bartholomew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/42-the-roasting-of-the-apostle-paul-second-corinthians 42] || 2019-05-06 || [[The Roasting of the Apostle Paul]] || Second Corinthians || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/43-why-prophets-so-nasty-the-book-of-jeremiah 43] || 2019-05-27 || [[Why Prophets So Nasty?]] || The Book of Jeremiah || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/44-terms-and-conditions-the-book-of-jeremiah-part-2 44] || 2019-06-23 || [[Terms and Conditions]] || The Book of Jeremiah, Part 2 || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/45-mummy-dust-and-skeleton-bones-the-book-of-ruth 45] || 2019-07-14 || [[Mummy Dust and Skeleton Bones]] || The Book of Ruth || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/46-ctrl-z-on-a-murder-the-acts-of-john 46] || 2019-08-09 || [[CTRL-Z On A Murder]] || The Acts of John || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/47-approximate-week-ii-the-quickening-the-syriac-infancy-gospel 47] || 2019-08-21 || [[Approximate Week II: The Quickening]] || The Syriac Infancy Gospel || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/48-the-almighty-ambush-bear-the-book-of-lamentations 48] || 2019-08-28 || [[The Almighty Ambush Bear]] || The Book of Lamentations || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/49-wajesus-the-first-second-and-third-epistles-of-john 49] || 2019-09-16 || [[Wajesus]] || The First, Second, and Third Epistles of John || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/50-the-terf-of-babylon-the-revelation-of-john-0 50] || 2019-10-02 || [[The TERF of Babylon]] || The Revelation of John || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/51-jesus-buffy-halloween-chick-tracts 51] || 2019-10-28 || [[Jesus, Buffy]] || Halloween Chick Tracts || Chick Tracts  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/51-apocrypals-chris-and-benito-the-book-of-ecclesiastes 52] || 2019-11-24 || [[Apocrypals Chris And Benito]] || The Book of Ecclesiastes || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/52-maccabees-3-elephant-drift-the-third-book-of-maccabees 53] || 2019-12-08 || [[Maccabees 3: Elephant Drift]] || The Third Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/54-our-favorite-murders-the-infancy-gospel-of-thomas 54] || 2019-12-22 || [[Our Favorite Murders]] || The Infancy Gospel of Thomas || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/55-the-parable-of-the-sexy-blood-baby-the-book-of-ezekiel-part-one 55] || 2020-01-12 || [[The Parable of the Sexy Blood Baby]] || The Book of Ezekiel, Part One || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/56-welcome-to-the-bone-zone-the-book-of-ezekiel-part-two 56] || 2020-01-26 || [[Welcome to the Bone Zone]] || The Book of Ezekiel, Part Two || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/57-we-holy-ghost-bro-the-life-of-xanthippe-polyxena-and-rebecca 57] || 2020-02-08 || [[We Holy Ghost, Bro?]] || The Life of Xanthippe, Polyxena, and Rebecca || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/58-blaise-your-dead-homie-the-lives-of-st-sebastian-st-blaise-and-st-agatha 58] || 2020-02-23 || [[Blaise, Your Dead Homie]] || The Lives of St. Sebastian, St. Blaise, and St. Agatha || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/59-source-of-the-flow-the-book-of-leviticus 59] || 2020-03-08 || [[Source of the Flow]] || The Book of Leviticus || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/59-joses-crust-the-acts-of-andrew-and-matthias 60] || 2020-03-22 || [[Joses Crust]] || The Acts of Andrew and Matthias || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/60-countless-large-gregs-the-second-book-of-enoch 61] || 2020-04-05 || [[Countless Large Gregs]] || The Second Book of Enoch || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/62-oh-the-jews-manatees-the-book-of-numbers 62] || 2020-04-19 || [[Oh, the Jews&#039; Manatees!]] || The Book of Numbers || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/63-wist-not-to-whom-ne-whither-the-lives-of-st-roche-and-st-guinefort 63] || 2020-05-06 || [[Wist Not To Whom Ne Whither]] || The Lives of St. Roche and St. Guinefort || Golden Legend, Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/64-spiritual-warfare-is-good-actually-bible-adventures-and-the-wisdom-tree-catalogue 64] || 2020-05-18 || [[Spiritual Warfare Is Good, Actually]] || Bible Adventures and the Wisdom Tree catalogue || Video Games  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/65-adonai-is-ichiban-the-book-of-deuteronomy 65] || 2020-06-02 || [[Adonai is Ichiban!]] || The Book of Deuteronomy || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/66-jesus-with-two-cool-ses-the-acts-of-thomas-and-his-wonderworking-skin 66] || 2020-06-14 || [[JeSuS With Two Cool Ses]] || The Acts of Thomas and his Wonderworking Skin || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/67-bad-things-to-call-your-mother-the-book-of-bartholomew 67] || 2020-06-28 || [[Bad Things to Call Your Mother]] || The Book of Bartholomew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/68-scent-of-a-jesus-the-first-second-and-third-apocryphal-apocalypses-of-john 68] || 2020-07-12 || [[Scent of a Jesus]] || The First, Second, and Third Apocryphal Apocalypses of John || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/69-thirst-corinthians-the-lives-of-st-mary-of-egypt-and-st-pelagia 69] || 2020-07-26 || [[Thirst Corinthians]] || The Lives of St. Mary of Egypt and St. Pelagia || Separate books  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xHQHK_SLX8 69 Secret] || 2020-08-28 || [[Secret 69]] || The Greater Questions of Mary || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/70-two-firkin-bored-the-letter-of-aristeas-0 70] || 2020-08-09 || [[Two Firkin Bored]] || The Letter of Aristeas || Pseudepigrapha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/71-approximate-week-chapter-3-parabellum-the-war-scroll 71] || 2020-08-23 || [[Approximate Week Chapter 3: Parabellum]] || The War Scroll || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/72-cold-brew-paul-pauls-letter-to-the-galatians 72] || 2020-09-06 || [[Cold Brew Paul]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Galatians || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/73-be-courageous-the-book-of-joshua 73] || 2020-09-20 || [[Be Courageous!]] || The Book of Joshua || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/74-howl-of-the-ostrich-the-books-of-micah-and-nahum 74] || 2020-10-04 || [[Howl of the Ostrich]] || The Books of Micah and Nahum || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/75-lazer-babies-the-apocalypse-of-peter 75] || 2020-10-18 || [[Lazer Babies]] || The Apocalypse of Peter || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/76-filling-the-room-the-life-of-st-martin 76] || 2020-11-01 || [[Filling the Room]] || The Life of St. Martin || Separate books  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/77-the-blessed-voltrons-the-lives-of-st-catherine-and-st-barbara 77] || 2020-11-15 || [[The Blessed Voltrons]] || The Lives of St. Catherine and St. Barbara || Golden Legend ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/78-maccabees-the-fourth-book-of-maccabees 78] || 2020-11-29 || [[MACCABEES]] || the Fourth Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/79-marys-christmas-the-infancy-gospel-of-pseudo-matthew 79] || 2020-12-13 || [[Marys Christmas]] || The Infancy Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/bonus-bill-bless-us-every-ted-christmas-gift-exchange-2020 79 Bonus] || 2020-12-22 || [[Bill Bless Us, Every Ted]] || Christmas Gift Exchange 2020 || The Joy of Friendship  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/80-the-deadliest-skambush-of-them-all-the-book-of-judges 80] || 2021-01-10 || [[The Deadliest Skambush of Them All]] || The Book of Judges || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/81-sometimes-its-just-sucky-pauls-letter-to-the-ephesians 81] || 2021-01-24 || [[Sometimes It&#039;s Just Sucky]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Ephesians || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/82-sedeqetelebab-the-book-of-jubilees 82] || 2021-02-07 || [[Sedeqetelebab!]] || The Book of Jubilees Pt 1 || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/83-speedrun-tactics-the-book-of-jubilees-part-2 83] || 2021-02-21 || [[Speedrun Tactics]] || The Book of Jubilees Pt 2 || Pseudepigrapha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/84-just-one-more-thing-the-life-of-st-columba 84] || 2021-03-07 || [[Just One More Thing]] || The Life of St. Columba || Hagiography  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/85-old-clootie-the-life-of-st-dunstan 85] || 2021-03-21 || [[Old Clootie]] || The Life of St. Dunstan || Golden Legend ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/87-god-junior-the-third-book-of-enoch-part-1 86] || 2021-04-04 || [[God Junior]] || The Third Book of Enoch (Part 1) || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/87-crisis-on-18000-earths-the-third-book-of-enoch-part-2 87] || 2021-04-18 || [[Crisis On 18,000 Earths]] || The Third Book of Enoch (Part 2) || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/88-a-miserable-pile-of-secrets-the-da-vinci-code-commentary 88] || 2021-05-09 || [[A Miserable Pile of Secrets]] || The Da Vinci Code, the film || Fiction  || [[A Miserable Pile of Secrets (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/89-2000-bc-the-first-book-of-samuel 89] || 2021-05-23 || [[2000 B.C.]] || The First Book of Samuel || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/90-worfin-the-lions-the-second-book-of-samuel-part-1 90] || 2021-06-06 || [[Worfin’ the Lions]] || The Second Book of Samuel (Part 1) || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt4B2OXgHN4 90.1] || 2021-06-20 || [[Double Chai: Rock Me, Asmodeus]] || Solomon and the Devil || Talmudic Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/90-the-me-in-this-story-is-you-the-second-book-of-samuel-part-2 91] || 2021-06-27 || [[The Me In This Story Is You]] || The Second Book of Samuel (Part 2) || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/92-slayer-of-men-conqueror-of-space-the-gospel-of-philip-the-gospel-of-mary-and-the-gospel-of-jesuss-wife-0 92] || 2021-07-11 || [[Slayer of Men, Conqueror of Space]] || The Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Mary, and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife || Apocrypha (Gnostic)  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HKZ-U4W7Ew 92 Bonus] || 2021-08-04 || [[Cephalo4: Protect Yr Neck]] || Cephalophores || Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/93-approximate-week-iv-oblivion-joseph-and-aseneth 93] || 2021-08-15 || [[Approximate Week IV: OblIVion]] || Joseph and Aseneth || Apocrypha (Tanakh)  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/94-little-martha-and-the-small-vandellas-the-lives-of-st-mary-magdalene-and-st-wilgefortis 94] || 2021-09-26 || [[Little Martha and the Small Vandellas]] || The Lives of St. Mary Magdalene and St. Wilgefortis || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/95-an-abyss-of-significant-depth-the-apocalypse-of-paul 95] || 2021-10-10 || [[An Abyss of Significant Depth]] || The Apocalypse of Paul || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/96-the-goku-of-judaism-stories-of-the-baal-shem-tov 96] || 2021-10-24 || [[The Goku of Judaism]] || Stories of the Baal Shem Tov || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbw3BxiTfKU Bonus] || 2021-11-16 || [[Guess the Persona-fied Bible Character]] || Persona 5 || Video Games ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/97-pretty-sus-lesbius-the-acts-of-andrew 97] || 2021-12-02 || [[Pretty Sus, Lesbius]] || The Acts of Andrew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/98-you-know-the-manger-christmas-chick-tracts 98] || 2021-12-23 || [[You Know, the Manger?]] || Christmas Chick Tracts || Chick Tracts  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/99-for-sale-baby-legs-not-attached-the-first-book-of-kings 99] || 2022-01-30 || [[For Sale, Baby Legs, Not Attached]] || The First Book of Kings || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/100-escape-from-flesh-island-the-gospel-of-judas 100] || 2022-03-05 || [[Escape From Flesh Island]] || The Gospel of Judas || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/101-the-apocrypals-solve-theodicy-the-book-of-job 101] || 2022-04-21 || [[The Apocrypals Solve Theodicy]] || The Book of Job || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/102-napalm-toots-the-lives-of-st-mary-of-bethany-and-st-margaret-of-antioch 102] || 2022-06-12 || [[Napalm Toots]] || The Lives of The Lives of St. Martha of Bethany and St. Margaret of Antioch || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/103-sucky-james-the-history-of-joseph-the-carpenter 103] || 2022-07-03 || [[Sucky James]] || The History of Joseph the Carpenter || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/104-previously-on-bible-the-epistle-to-the-hebrews 104] || 2022-08-01 || [[Previously, on Bible]] || The Epistle to the Hebrews || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/103-approximate-week-v-ravager 105] || 2022-08-12 || [[Approximate Week V: RaVager]] || El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron || Video Games  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/104-a-serious-goku-move-the-second-book-of-kings 106] || 2022-10-30 || [[A Serious Goku Move]] || The Second Book of Kings || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/107-hellmensch-stories-of-the-baal-shem-tov-vol-2 107] || 2022-11-13 || [[Hellmensch]] || Stories of the Baal Shem Tov || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin  || [[Hellmensch (Transcript) | Yes ]] &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/108-skip-this-one-the-book-of-hosea 108] || 2022-11-27 || [[Skip This One]] || The Book of Hosea || Tanakh  || [[  Skip This One (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/109-chris-and-benitos-bible-bonkers-the-didache 109] || 2023-10-11 || [[Chris and Benito&#039;s Bible Bonkers]] || The Didache || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/110-the-beastie-boys-worst-nightmare-the-lock-in-2014 110] || 2023-10-30 || [[The Beastie Boys&#039; Worst Nightmare (The Lock-In (2014))]] || The Lock-In (2014) || Fiction ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/111-all-skips-no-hits-1-chronicles 111] || 2024-08-09 || [[All Skips No Hits]] || 1 Chronicles || Tanakh || [[All Skips No Hits (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/112-approximate-week-vi-the-undiscovered-country 112] || 2024-08-17 || [[Approximate Week VI: The Undiscovered Country]] || Illuminator || Comics ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/113-jaoel-instant-messenger-the-apocalypse-of-abraham 113] || 2024-09-05 || [[Jaoel Instant Messenger]] || The Apocalypse of Abraham || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/114-sin-onyms-the-devils-argument-the-martyrdom-of-perpetua-and-felicity 114] || 2024-10-03 || [[Sin-onyms, The Devil&#039;s Argument]] || The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/115-hell-is-the-big-show-the-life-of-st-christina-the-astonishing 115] || 2024-10-27 || [[Hell Is The Big Show]] || The Life of St. Christina the Astonishing || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/116-its-his-birthday-be-nice-the-revelation-of-the-magi 116] || 2024-12-22 || [[It&#039;s His BIRTHDAY, Be Nice!]] || The Revelation of the Magi || Pseudepigrapha || &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/117-king-solomons-hog-the-second-book-of-chronicles-feat-aaron-higashi 117] || 2024-02-17 || [[King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi]] || 2 Chronicles || Tanakh || [[King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/bonus-biblical-mini-golf 118 Bonus] || 2025-05-08 || [[Bonus: Biblical Mini-Golf]] || Fairway to Heaven || Road Trip || &lt;br /&gt;
|}&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Sub-series==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
{| class=&amp;quot;wikitable sortable&amp;quot; style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
! Podcast !! Episode !! &amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;Date&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp; !! Title !! Transcript !! Wolverine Costume&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-01-dr-dan-mcclellan 1] || 2023-04-20 || [[Multipals 01: Dr. Dan McClellan]] || [[Multipals 01: Dr. Dan McClellan (transcript) | Yes]] || Brown and Tan&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-02-aaron-higashi 1] || 2023-06-23 || [[Multipals 02: Aaron Higashi]] || [[Multipals 02: Aaron Higashi (transcript) | Yes]] || Kimono&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-03-anne-thriault 3] || 2023-04-20 || [[Multipals 03: Anne Thériault]] || [[Multipals 03: Anne Thériault (transcript) | Yes]] || Hugh Jackman as the Music Man&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-04-tony-burke-and-janet-spittler 4] || 2023-08-20 || [[Multipals 04: Tony Burke &amp;amp;amp; Janet Spittler]] || [[Multipals 04: Tony Burke &amp;amp;amp; Janet Spittler (transcript) | Yes]] || Brown and Tan / Yellow Guy From Cartoon&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-05-dr-alexiana-fry 5] || 2023-12-13 || [[Multipals 05: Dr. Alexiana Fry]] || [[Multipals 05: Dr. Alexiana Fry (transcript) | Yes]] || Logan (2017) Suit&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-06-dr-justin-sledge 6] || 2023-12-13 || [[Multipals 06: Dr. Justin Sledge]] || [[Multipals 06: Dr. Justin Sledge (transcript) | Yes]] || &#039;90s Yellow&lt;br /&gt;
|}&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Dunking_on_Satan_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1064</id>
		<title>Dunking on Satan (Transcript)</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Dunking_on_Satan_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1064"/>
		<updated>2026-02-13T21:17:28Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&#039;&#039;&#039;Chris Sims:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;And while all the saints were rejoicing, behold Satan, the prince and chief of death, said unto Hell, &#039;Make thyself ready to receive Jesus, who boasteth himself that he is the Son of God.&#039;&amp;quot; The Gospel of Nicodemus, chapter 20, verse 1.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music &amp;quot;Highway to Hell&amp;quot; by AC/DC]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hello everybody and welcome to Apocrypals. It&#039;s the podcast where two non-believers read through the Bible and we try not to be jerks about it. My name is Chris Sims. With me as always, the other set of footprints, Benito Cereno. Benito! How are you today?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;Benito Cereno:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;m very good here in part one of our Spook-tober-fest Spook-tacular Boo-nanza.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s a scary one today.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I was terrified to my very marrow while reading this chilling story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Spoiler warning, at the end of this show, you&#039;re gonna turn around and you&#039;re gonna have thriller eyes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Everyone&#039;s got thriller eyes at the end of this one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s the trick: everyone has thriller eyes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Except one person who doesn&#039;t. Because if everybody has thriller eyes then what&#039;s scarier than a person who has regular person eyes?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly. Yeah, we&#039;re reading this week the Gospel of Nicodemus, aka The Acts of Pilate. AKA the Harrowing of Hell, the Descent to Hell. Yeah, as part one of our two-part Spooktoberfest. I don&#039;t know Chris, did you find it particularly spooky? Were you spooked with this one?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I did not.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean you and I have had the conversation before about how I have a very specific idea of Halloween monsters.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Dracula: Halloween monster.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Wolfman: Halloween monster. Godzilla: not a Halloween monster.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Satan? Debatable.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But we don&#039;t really get any... Here&#039;s the thing I&#039;ve noticed about the Bible is that there&#039;s very rarely any suspense about who&#039;s gonna win that would make... that is necessary for horror.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because it&#039;s mostly spoiler warning, this book&#039;s mostly Satan getting owned hard by Jesus.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s kind of how it goes. Like, it&#039;s not until relatively modern things that people are like, hey, what if Satan had a chance? Because yeah, like, you know, prior to that the idea is like, this guy is a scrub who just gets dunked on by Jesus all the time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Jesus humiliates Satan in front of all his boys for like ten chapters.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is pretty great, honestly.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then the other thing is the fact that the actual Harrowing of Hell is honestly it&#039;s a thing that&#039;s tagged on to the larger work, which is the Acts of Pilate, which is basically an expansion of the trial of Jesus from the Gospel of Luke. It&#039;s expanded on to give larger roles to Annas and Caiaphas, to Nicodemus, and to Joseph of Arimathæa. There&#039;s a couple of bonus miracles in there, but it&#039;s basically like a forensic investigation where it&#039;s like step by step going through like debunking any kind of objection someone might have to the miracle of the passion and resurrection and ascension for that matter. There&#039;s not a lot of spooky atmosphere despite the fact that a significant portion of the book is set in Hell, wherein Hell itself is a speaking sentient character. You might expect more spookiness out of that, but alas. But this is a significant work that had a lot of influence on especially medieval thought and so we wanted to cover it and since it&#039;s a major one about Hell that seemed like a good time for it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This also seems like the next logical step in terms of the rehabilitation and recontextualization of Pilate.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because we talked about over the course of the four gospels. Pilate becomes a much softer character because the story had to be made palatable to Roman audiences. And so if the chief Roman is the guy who crucifies Jesus, that&#039;s pretty tough.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But by this point, you know, we see him up to John, where he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;I don&#039;t really want to do this. I think Jesus is great, actually.&amp;quot; And then this is the next like takes that a step further of &amp;quot;what if Pilate had his own gospel?&amp;quot; Which is weird.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I mean, yes, this is absolutely a major step in the rehabilitation of the character of Pilate, where it&#039;s made very clear that he&#039;s not the bad guy in this situation, and his hand was forced by the multitudes of the Jewish nation who I will apologize in advance, do not come out looking great in this story. Again, there&#039;s not really gonna be a medieval narrative about the resurrection in which Jewish people come out looking good. It&#039;s just not gonna happen, so I hope no one has their hopes up about that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here&#039;s the thing about the Harrowing of Hell. We&#039;ve talked about it for months because the Harrowing of Hell is a thing that I am very familiar with, like an idea that I&#039;m very familiar with. And I had kind of always thought it was just Jesus going down to Hell and kind of like, you know, picking everybody up, you know, putting like getting them in the van. So they can drive up to heaven. Not quite. Instead, what happens is Jesus goes down to Hell and hey, all of the great figures of Jewish history? They&#039;re actually Christians. They actually convert to the worship of Jesus and the cross specifically.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I mean again, you know, from a Christian perspective, it&#039;s necessary, but from like a more outside perspective, it&#039;s not a great look, you know?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, not the best?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not the best.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so yeah, the Harrowing of Hell is an idea that it&#039;s not... Well, it&#039;s not in the Bible directly. There are a couple of verses that are considered to be allusions to the idea. For example Ephesians 4:9 says that &amp;quot;Christ descended into the lower parts of the earth.&amp;quot; 1 Peter 4:6 says that &amp;quot;good tidings were proclaimed to the dead.&amp;quot; And so these were both taken as canonical elements that were seen as proof of the idea that on Saturday, on Holy Saturday, aka Huddlehouse Saturday, Jesus, the ghost of Jesus, descended into Hell, or at least limbo, depending on the particular you know, doctrine that you&#039;re believing, or Sheol or the Grave, or Hades, or however you want to think about it, some land of the dead, some waiting room of the dead, where the patriarchs and the other holy people of the Old Testament era, the pre-Jesus era, are being contained. The idea that Jesus went down there and brought them up to heaven is a common idea even though it&#039;s not explicitly in the Bible. So that&#039;s what when we say the Harrowing of Hell, the word harrowing it&#039;s originally a farming term, like digging, tearing up the earth, but it comes to mean just kind of like, you know, the destruction or the looting, I guess you can think of it that way, of Hell. And yeah, I mean it does pop up in serious places despite not being explicitly canon. Including, Chris, you know, you mentioned the Apostles&#039; Creed is a main place where you see it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this is where I became familiar with it because as I&#039;ve mentioned before, when I was a teenager, I was baptized Presbyterian. And one of the things that we did in the church I was a member of was we would say the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostles%27_Creed Apostles&#039; Creed] every week. Now you didn&#039;t do this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No. No, the church I went to, I went to a Southern Baptist church. Creeds were not really a thing.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Let me tell you. Let me tell you, this is not going to go over well in a Southern Baptist church.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Specifically because part of it includes the line, I believe in the Holy Catholic Church.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. But that&#039;s I mean that is lowercase-c Catholic and not Catholic.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sometimes lowercase-c Catholic.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I mean the word Catholic just means universal, right? So because like the H-O-L in there is the same as in the word like holistic, right? So it means whole or everything. So the word Catholic means the universal church, the Church of Everyone.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The Church of Universal Truth.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yes. But yeah, it&#039;s technically a lowercase-c Catholic when you say the Holy Catholic Church and the Communion of Saints and so on.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That was all explained to me in my extremely Protestant confirmation classes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But if you&#039;re not familiar with it, the Apostles&#039; Creed is used in a variety of churches. I think the version that we had is according to my memory, it&#039;s and according to Wikipedia, it&#039;s the one from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Because we say you know, &amp;quot;I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,Born of the Virgin Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven,And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead,&amp;quot; a phrase that you have probably heard.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The line about He &amp;quot;Was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead&amp;quot; that was another thing that was explained to me in those confirmation classes as the Harrowing of Hell, as Jesus going down to Hell, getting everybody who... It seems like a very complicated process. That heaven exists. Jacob saw it. Isaiah saw it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Allegedly. But Nobody went there until Jesus came down to get &#039;em. Like he could have just gotten Adam. Could have just gotten Abraham anytime.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But that was, at least in the church that I grew up in, absolutely doctrine.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That was the explanation for that line that we affirmed our belief in literally every week.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And I am always fascinated by the idea of stuff that is definitely apocryphal, but also definitely doctrine.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. That&#039;s the sweet spot for this show, I think. I really like hitting on that stuff where I&#039;m trying to drive home like, this is apocryphal in the sense that it&#039;s not in the canon, but nevertheless people absolutely believe in this thing and or did at least and it has had a major influence on the religion as we know it today. Like that, for me, those moments are the best moments of this show because I like to really show people like the Bible is not just the Bible, right? It&#039;s a bunch of things. It&#039;s a whole like miasma of texts and traditions and that kind of stuff. So yeah, this is a really nice one. And it is a part of the reason why I wanted to cover this book as early as we have, you know, before we&#039;ve even done Exodus, you know.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But yeah, so reference to the Harrowing of Hell is also in the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasian_Creed Athanasian Creed], which, that&#039;s a different one. I don&#039;t know the exact quote, but I know it&#039;s in there somewhere. It&#039;s named after Athanasius of Alexandria.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But yeah, so let&#039;s talk a little bit here about the Gospel of Nicodemus, which it&#039;s, speaking of, a mishmash of texts, Gospel of Nicodemus is definitely that, because there&#039;s not even like consistent versions, because there&#039;s some other versions with more and more things tacked on to it, right? The text as a whole, probably written around the fourth, the mid-fourth century CE. The title, Gospel of Nicodemus, it picks up in the Middle Ages somewhere. The whole story is very popular, like we were saying, it influenced legends and ideas of the Passion and the Resurrection. Little details from this get picked up later on. And the popularity of it can be proven by the wide variety of languages that it&#039;s available in. That&#039;s always a clue. That&#039;s something– the more copies of it we have extant and the more languages it&#039;s in, a better idea we have of how far and wide it was distributed. And so we have the original of this, which is Greek, in copies there&#039;s Coptic, there&#039;s version, there&#039;s many various Latin versions, which would be the latest ones.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But the book is broken up into at least three distinct sections that almost certainly have different authors. You&#039;ve got chapters one through eleven, which is the trial part that&#039;s very heavily based on [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2023&amp;amp;version=NRSVUE Luke chapter 23], which we covered in [[The Dude Hates Wizards | our Luke episode]]. Feel free to jump back and listen to that one. Then you&#039;ve got chapters 12 through 16, which are the bit with the resurrection. And then the part that really got us into it today, the kind of the epilogue, aka the descensus ad infernos, or inferos, the descent to the lower parts, aka the descent into Hell, which is not in the Greek version. You might be able to guess from the Latin title if you can distinguish Latin from Greek. I don&#039;t know. I don&#039;t know who can do that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I can&#039;t. Still.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, well, descensus ad infernos is definitely Latin, so...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I only know the difference because you have a specific Latin tone of voice that you use.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, sure. That&#039;s fair. Yes, I definitely have spent some time workshopping my Latin accent. But even then some Latin texts add an additional story called the Cura sanitatis Tiberii, which means the cure of Tiberias, which is actually not included in the M.R. James version of this book that we posted online and that Chris read and that I read also. So good news, I&#039;ll be supplementing this episode with the story of the cure of Tiberias at the end. I have a version. It&#039;s not available in a modern English version and I, despite my ability, I did not take the time to translate it myself. I have a different version that is this story, but it&#039;s a later version with some extra details added in. So we&#039;ll get to that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very upsetting to me that you don&#039;t put any effort into this show.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I know. Don&#039;t think I didn&#039;t consider it. Don&#039;t think I didn&#039;t consider like translating this like five page story from Latin that has no modern English version. But I&#039;m sorry. I&#039;m sorry guys, I didn&#039;t mean to let you down. Anyway, so the early parts, the pre-Harrowing of Hell parts in the book are generally known as the Acta Pilati, the Acts of Pilate, which is, or in Greek that would be the Proxes Pilatu. And that&#039;s a common title for a number of things. In fact, we&#039;ve already on this show featured another bit of text that is also known as the Acts of Pilate, but that are not the same as this. In the [[Various Heresies | Acts of Peter and Paul episode]], in Peter and Paul, there&#039;s a bit where it just out of nowhere, someone&#039;s like, &amp;quot;by the way, I have this letter from Pilate that he wrote to the Emperor Claudius.&amp;quot; And it&#039;s just a short little paragraph wherein Pilate is like, &amp;quot;here&#039;s what happened.&amp;quot; And that&#039;s also called the Acts of Pilate. And in fact, the The M.R. James version of this document affixes that to the end of this one as well. But there&#039;s other versions of writings known by the name Acts of Pilate, which include ones mentioned, but maybe not extant, but mentioned by church fathers such as Justin Martyr, Tertullian... There was apparently a so-called heathen version, that is an anti-Christian version that was distributed during the persecution against Christians during the era of the Emperor Maximin, he would have been one of the last non-Christian emperors described by Eusebius, another important Christian author of the relatively early days. And so there&#039;s a couple of different things known as the Acts of Pilate, which are not the same as this one. And this one, in fact, might have been written intentionally in order to refute that the anti-Christian version of the Acts of Pilate that were being distributed.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Otherwise, this one that we have here was written with the purpose of giving Christian audiences, those sweet details about Jesus that they&#039;re just hungry for. It&#039;s like I need to know more about this. Please tell me more. And so we get we get this expanded version. It also is intended to strengthen faith in the resurrection because, like I said, it&#039;s kind of written as almost a forensic investigation where point by point the high priests say, what about this? And then someone whether it&#039;s Nicodemus or Joseph or a couple of zombie boys at the end, they&#039;ll pop up and they say, &amp;quot;hey, no, here&#039;s what really happened.&amp;quot; And so the idea is it&#039;s supposed to strengthen your faith in the resurrection. Also just general edification. It&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Here&#039;s another new version of the most important part of the Jesus story.&amp;quot; And so yeah, so that&#039;s what&#039;s going on. That and you can see why it might be popular, because it does take and expand on an important story and adds some additional zazz to it. And then of course you get Hell at the end.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So The thing is, I found the first half of this book to be incredibly boring.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure. I could see that. Because I mean partly because it is a repeat of stuff we&#039;ve already seen for the most part. There is new stuff and we&#039;ll try and focus on that new stuff and the important bits of that. But yes, it will seem very familiar because it is definitely a story we have read four times before now.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you&#039;re gonna come in here with a gospel, you need to start up with some new stuff. You need to do it Thomas style.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well we&#039;ll see how interested... oh you&#039;re talking about the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;m talking about the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, I was gonna say like I don&#039;t know that you&#039;re necessarily going to find the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas less boring to read, but we&#039;ll see. We&#039;ll see. Yeah, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, sure. Very much of interest in that book, for sure.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, exactly. Like that&#039;s what I&#039;m talking about. I want werewolves. I want Jesus making weird little homunculi. That&#039;s the stuff that I want if you&#039;re gonna come in here with the gospel. New info.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We don&#039;t get anything. We get a lot of new stuff in this one, but we don&#039;t get it till halfway through.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like, there was a moment reading this where I was like, did Benito get the wrong book?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &#039;Cause you were waiting for the Hell stuff, right? And I kept having to tell you I was like, no man, it&#039;s in it&#039;s two parts, you have to get to the second part.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So finally, finally, I got to that second part. But do we know you said this book had likely what three different authors?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; At least, at least.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do we know anything about them?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No. No. And that&#039;s not uncommon, right? It&#039;s actually way less common for us to know anything about the author the way that we probably know something about the author of the Acts of Paul, the fact that we know that he was a priest who got in trouble for writing his Paul fan fiction. Like assuming that information is true, like it&#039;s very unusual for us to know even that much, because usually these things are fully anonymous or pseudonymous or they&#039;re assembled from various texts like this one is and they&#039;re just different, or they&#039;re from oral traditions or whatever and it&#039;s just impossible to have any real information because obviously you&#039;re trying to– if you want your writing to have any legitimacy or any kind of cachet, you want it to seem like it has apostolic authority, right? That&#039;s why books make canon in the New Testament is because they&#039;re believed earnestly to have a connection to an apostle either first or second hand, right? That&#039;s how you end up in the New Testament canon, is because an apostle wrote you or the friend of an apostle wrote you, right? And so if you want your book to be distributed, you&#039;ve got to give it that apostolic feeling, which is why this gets associated with Nicodemus. But yes, this was definitely not written by Nicodemus. This would have been written, you know, mid-fourth century at the earliest.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well that&#039;s another thing, is like Nicodemus there&#039;s nothing in here that implies that Nicodemus wrote it. Like Nicodemus is a character.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; He is a character. It does say, actually, you&#039;re right. The early parts, the framing device says that what is happening here is that this is a translation from Hebrew into Greek of the records of Pontius Pilate. Because it&#039;s supposed to be like these are the court records and they were they were held, you know, in among Pilate&#039;s papers. And that&#039;s what this framing device, which is a probably a later addition, and not every manuscript has this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But so &amp;quot;Ananias, the Protector, of praetorian rank, learned in the law, did from the divine scriptures recognize our Lord Jesus Christ and came near to him by faith and was accounted worthy of holy baptism: and I sought out the memorials that were made at that season in the time of our master Jesus Christ, which the Jews deposited with Pontius Pilate, and found the memorials in Hebrew, and by the good pleasure of God I translated them into Greek for the informing of all them that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ: in the reign of our Lord Flavius Theodosius, in the seventeenth year, and of Flavius Valentinianus the sixth, in the ninth indiction,&amp;quot; the Latin has &amp;quot;the eighteenth year of Theodosius, when Valentinian was proclaimed Augustus.&amp;quot; So that would be that would be 425 AD, so you can see that that frame is definitely a later addition. But there the idea is that these are the actual official records from the trial of Jesus and they were in Hebrew and this is just a Greek translation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But there is a part somewhere that does attribute at least some of this. Ah, here we go. &amp;quot;These be the things which after the cross and passion of the Lord Nicodemus recorded and delivered unto the high priest and the rest of the Jews: and the same Nicodemus set them forth in Hebrew.&amp;quot; So they were the papers of Pilate as written down by Nicodemus. So.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Who is a character in them.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Who is a character. Yes, he is a character. He pops up a couple different times throughout. Yeah, there&#039;s greatly expanded role for him. And for Joseph of Arimathea, both of whom are basically briefly mentioned. Nicodemus, you know, gets the famous scene where he&#039;s secretly studying with Jesus at night. And Joseph of Arimathea is basically only mentioned to say that he gave Jesus his tomb. And so they both get expanded roles here.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean honestly it&#039;s like how The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne was actually written by Alan Brennert.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. That&#039;s weird. Weird how that happened. I feel like they shouldn&#039;t have been able to call it an autobiography then.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Also kind of weird how Nicodemus marries Catwoman. In this story as well.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, but it&#039;s really great. That was it&#039;s Earth 2 Nicodemus though. That&#039;s how that&#039;s how you&#039;re able to get away with it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So yeah, we start with the trial. We&#039;ve got the chief priests, we&#039;ve got the scribes, we got Annas and Caiaphas, who of course we know from Bible. And then we&#039;ve got a bunch of other guys who are not mentioned in Bible as far as I know. &amp;quot;Somne, Dothaim, Gamaliel, Judas, Levi, Nepthalim, Alexander, Jairus, and the rest of the Jews.&amp;quot; Nepthalim, that&#039;s just Naphtali, that&#039;s one of the twelve sons of Israel and as is Levi of course. Judas is like the John, well, no, John is the John of this time, but Judas is a very common name that everybody has. So yeah, a lot of these would be repeat names for sure.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
They come to Pilate and they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;hey man, this guy sucks. Can we do something about that?&amp;quot; And Pilate&#039;s like, &amp;quot;who is he? What is he doing?&amp;quot; You know this, it&#039;s not anything new here, right? Their their main charge is that he heals somebody on the Sabbath. And of course that, you know, that&#039;s against the law, but to try and make it to try to sell it to Pilate, they&#039;re focusing on the seditious aspect of it, right? He says he&#039;s the king and whatever. &amp;quot;What evil deeds does he do?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;He is a sorcerer, and by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils, he casteth out devils, and they&#039;re all subject unto him.&amp;quot; And Pilate&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Hmm, that&#039;s what Asclepius does,&amp;quot; Asclepius being the Greco-Roman god of healing.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Okay, so here&#039;s the first bit that we really get. He&#039;s like, alright. The first new bit, and they say, &amp;quot;Go ahead and bring Jesus in.&amp;quot; And so they send out a messenger. And when he sees Jesus, he worships him, the messenger, and he takes out his handkerchief. And he lays it on the ground for Jesus to walk on, so Jesus doesn&#039;t walk on the ground. And the Jews are like, &amp;quot;what are you doing?&amp;quot; And Pilate&#039;s like, &amp;quot;What is this? You&#039;re embarrassing me. Like the whole point is that this guy is getting charged for falsely claiming to be a king and here you are, you&#039;re laying your handkerchief on the ground for walk on it like he is a king. What are you doing?&amp;quot; And and the messenger&#039;s like, &amp;quot;I&#039;m just doing what I saw people do. Like, I got sent out to Jerusalem and I was there and I saw Jesus on the donkey and everybody there was laying down the palm branches for him to walk on and they&#039;re all shouting Hosanna and all of this stuff.&amp;quot; So he was there on Palm Sunday is the idea. And so he&#039;s just replicating what he saw.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And it&#039;s got a bit where he actually gives the Hebrew and then he&#039;s like, What does that mean in Greek? And then they translate it. So wasn&#039;t wasn&#039;t expecting that. And yet there are a couple of parts where they actually bust out some Hebrew which feels surprising to me for something from as relatively late a date as this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And so we got that first bit with the messenger showing reverence to Jesus as if he&#039;s a king. But then we get the first actual like miraculous thing when Jesus actually comes in. Jesus comes in and there&#039;s there&#039;re ensigns, they&#039;re called, but these would be the standard bearers, the guys who hold the pole and at the top of the pole would be the standards which would include carvings, images, could be of people, usually an eagle among the Romans, but these are signs of power, especially military power. Like the standard bearer&#039;s job is to help rally people during battle, right? You always look to the standard. You would know where your group is, where your legion is, but as long as the standard&#039;s moving forward, you know to keep moving forward and so on. So there&#039;s gonna be these guys standing around the court of Pilate holding these standards that are going to have carved busts on the top of them. And when Jesus enters in, all of the busts bow in front of Jesus.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s right, it&#039;s a new miracle everybody.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, a new miracle. Jot it down in your miracle logs that I assume you&#039;re all keeping. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exclusive.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. It&#039;s a Nicodemus exclusive miracle. None of those other guys have this one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which also, this is the fanfic part of it, right? Because Pilate sees a miracle. Pilate sees inanimate objects come to life and begin worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. Well, but the thing is, at first he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Why&#039;d you guys do that? Why&#039;d you guys dip your standards down to Jesus? Like that&#039;s not cool. That&#039;s not what&#039;s happening here right now. Like first the messenger and now this.&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;no man, we didn&#039;t do this. We&#039;re Greeks? Why would we show reverence to him?&amp;quot; And so he was like, &amp;quot;Let&#039;s go get some new standard bears, please. Can we get some that are stronger than these guys who are obviously so weak they just drooped? Drooped their standards.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I actually really did like this because Pilate goes, &amp;quot;Hey, you guys did it wrong.&amp;quot; Pilate is very skeptical of this miracle. He&#039;s like, &amp;quot;hey, you guys did it wrong. I&#039;m gonna get some new dudes who can actually do their jobs. By the way. If Jesus walks by and these dudes in the standards do not bow, I&#039;m going to have you all executed.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is a pretty... he runs a tight ship, does old Pontius Pilate.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;I have sworn by the safety of Caesar that if the standards bow not when Jesus entereth in, I will cut off your heads.&amp;quot; And so, but of course, even with these new burliest possible standard bears, they do bow again and the messenger puts his handkerchief down again, so it&#039;s not a great look for either Pilate or the high priest in this case.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Then in the next bit we get a repeat of Pilate&#039;s wife, who is mentioned briefly in the Gospels as having premonitions in her dreams about Jesus that he&#039;s innocent, and we get we get a repetition of that. Although we get the added detail where Pilate says, &amp;quot;You know that my wife feareth God and favoreth rather the customs of the Jews?&amp;quot; So that&#039;s interesting, because it almost seems to– it doesn&#039;t quite say that she&#039;s Jewish, but that she&#039;s very–&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; She&#039;s into it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; She&#039;s into it. She&#039;s very into it. And so of course, you know, we&#039;ve talked about before, Pilate&#039;s wife, who later in other works gets the name Procula, is venerated as a saint in some churches. And part of it is because she tries to talk Pilate out of prosecuting Jesus because she has these dreams and she believes that he&#039;s innocent, right? And so, but of course, you know, the priests reply, &amp;quot;Didn&#039;t we say he&#039;s an evil wizard? Who sends people evil dreams? Obviously wizards.&amp;quot; And so, &amp;quot;behold, he hath sent a vision of a dream unto thy wife.&amp;quot; But yeah, and then we get, you know, some questioning of Jesus a little bit like we&#039;ve seen in Luke.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Then we&#039;ve got a new added charge, the specific charge, to try to disprove that Jesus was born of virgin birth, they have the charge that he came of fornication, which in this case, nearly positive they just mean he was born out of wedlock is the idea. And so to counter that charge, there are 12 witnesses who are there to say he couldn&#039;t have been born out of wedlock. Mary was married to Joseph when Jesus was born. Which almost seems counterproductive to the point if you&#039;re trying to prove that he&#039;s God, but I guess in this case they&#039;re really just trying to pr disprove this particular criminal charge. And the priests try to say, &amp;quot;we can&#039;t listen to these witnesses because they&#039;re converts and we don&#039;t listen to converts.&amp;quot; Pilate was like, &amp;quot;what do you mean converts?&amp;quot; He&#039;s like, &amp;quot;they&#039;re Greeks. And now they&#039;re Jewish. And so we don&#039;t like them. Don&#039;t care.&amp;quot; So we get all these names. We get these twelve guys. Lazarus, Asterius, Antonius, Jacob, Amnes, Zenas, Samuel, Isaac, Phineas, Crispus, Agrippa, and Judas. Are these supposed to be anybody else from any other story? Who knows? These are again very common names all of them. So and they say, &amp;quot;no, we&#039;re not converts. We were born Jewish and we definitely were there when we saw Joseph and Mary get engaged and then married, so no.&amp;quot; And Pilate was like, &amp;quot;look, we got twelve witnesses. Let them swear.&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;no, we don&#039;t swear. That&#039;s against the Jewish law to swear. But we you know, pinky promise.&amp;quot; So that&#039;s an added bit with these witnesses.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;no, still please put him unto death.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;And Pilate commanded the whole multitude to go out, saving the twelve men, which said he was not born of [fornification... fornic.. fornification...] fornication. And he commanded Jesus to be set apart. Pilate saith unto them, For what cause do they desire to put him to death?&amp;quot; And the twelve guys on Jesus&#039; side, they say, &amp;quot;They have jealousy because he healeth on the Sabbath day.&amp;quot; There probably not jealousy as in like they&#039;re so jealous of what he... not envy, but rather they have ill will toward him because of him healing on the Sabbath day. &amp;quot;Pilate saith, &#039;For a good work, do they desire to put him to death?&#039;&amp;quot; And they say, &amp;quot;Yay, yeah.&amp;quot; So again, not a good look, not a good look for Annas and Caiaphas and the others. And we get Pilate affirming that what Jesus did was good, actually. And so he comes out, he swears before the sun that he finds no fault in him. And you know more stuff from the trial that we&#039;ve seen before.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I feel like if you don&#039;t know how this ends... I mean there&#039;s, you know, you can go back to our episodes, you can, you know the Bible is always a good place to look. You could just like exist in Western civilization and probably figure out where this one&#039;s going.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So we do eventually get Nicodemus. He does pop up. Chapter five. He&#039;s finally here.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I do want to say, it is incredibly wild to me that there is no moment of Pilate going &amp;quot;Hey, I did see this guy perform an actual factual miracle. I did see inanimate objects come to life. Are you sure you want Barabbas?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &#039;Cause statues came alive.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure. Although, you know, of course, if the charge is that he&#039;s an evil wizard, then that doesn&#039;t necessarily you know, doesn&#039;t necessarily acquit him of that particular charge.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well as we all know, being an evil wizard is not illegal in ancient Rome, because Simon Magus was just doing all kinds of evil wizard stuff.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Obviously in at least one of those versions, the Emperor was on his side.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, chapter five we get Nicodemus come in to testify. He gives you know examples of Moses and his famous wizard battle against Jannes and Jambres, who are... those are the apocryphal, traditional names given to the wizards of Pharaoh. So he talks about that wizard battle, and they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;yeah, of course you&#039;re defending Jesus because you&#039;re his disciple.&amp;quot; And Nicodemus is like, &amp;quot;yeah, but is Pilate also his disciple? Because Pilate just said he was innocent,&amp;quot; which: pretty good dunk.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Also, I love that Nicodemus&#039;s strategy here is &amp;quot;Maybe Jesus is a wizard, but as we all know, wizard battles are super dope.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Pretty much. Okay, here&#039;s one here&#039;s one of my favorite lines. Yeah, &amp;quot;the Jews say unto Nicodemus, &#039;Thou dost become his disciple and thou speakest on his behalf.&#039; Nicodemus saith unto them, &#039;Is the governor also become his disciple that he speaketh on his behalf? Did not Caesar appoint him unto this dignity?&#039; And the Jews were raging and gnashing their teeth against Nicodemus. Pilate saith unto them, &#039;Wherefore gnash ye your teeth against him, whereas you have heard the truth?&#039;&amp;quot; So I what I need is for one of our very good listeners who like to do some Photoshops for us, Lucas Brown, Dave Lartigue, one of you guys. Or someone else, I don&#039;t care. Someone please take that Hannibal Burris meme. Where he&#039;s saying, &amp;quot;why are you booing me? I&#039;m right.&amp;quot; And I need you to change it so that it says, &amp;quot;wherefore gnash ye your teeth against me, whereas you have heard the truth.&amp;quot; Someone please make that happen because I need it. I laughed very much when I read that line because I was like, it sounds so familiar. It&#039;s so familiar.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very good.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; t&#039;s very good.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Then we get some witnesses, greatest hits, Jesus&#039; greatest hits, we get the guy who was paralyzed that Jesus raised from his mat, of course. If I recall correctly, he&#039;s the one that was healed on the Sabbath, and so he&#039;s the one he&#039;s getting charged against. Then we get a certain woman named Bernice or Berinique, Veronique, in Latin Veronica. Which is a name that this is another example of something from an apocryphal work that becomes part of real religion. The Veronica story is a major deal.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I had this one when I was a kid, because basically her deal is that Jesus took her and Betty out on a date on the same night.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And they all shared a milkshake. The name Veronica, yeah, even like one of the stations of the cross has to do with Veronica. This is one of the earliest mentions of her name. Here she&#039;s associated with the woman who had the bleeding disease that was healed by touching the hem of Jesus&#039; garment.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you don&#039;t recall, this was a woman who bled for twelve years.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; She was never not on her period, basically, for twelve years.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No. No.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I mean that&#039;s what it was. That&#039;s not a joke, Chris. That&#039;s what it was.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is that what it was?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. That&#039;s what it was.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I thought it was just like a wound.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, it was no it was menstrual bleeding.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh. Alright then.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That was not a goof.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Bible&#039;s wild.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, Bible&#039;s wild. But anyway, here she gets the name Veronica, which Which yeah, you can see comes from the Greek name Berenike, which it&#039;s actually a Macedonian name, I guess. It means the bearer of Nike, victory. And so that form Berenike becomes Beronike, which in Latin becomes Veronica, and that&#039;s where that name comes from. Although there&#039;s going to be more with the development of the character of Veronica because the station of the cross, does not have to do with the fact that she&#039;s the woman with the bleeding disease, but rather famously that she saw Jesus carrying his cross on the way to Skull Mountain and she handed him her handkerchief and he wiped his face and when she took it away it had his face still on it like a perfect image of Jesus&#039; face kind of like the shroud of Turin but a handkerchief. And so there is more of that we&#039;ll get back to at the end of the episode. There comes to be a folk etymology of the name Veronica, that it comes from the Latin words vera icon, which would mean a true icon, a true image of the face of Christ and that vera icon becomes Veronica, but it&#039;s it&#039;s from this Greek name that means bearer of victory. But anyway, so we get her name here, and this is just the first of several names that originate in this particular work.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Let&#039;s see. More defense of Jesus, including raising up Lazarus, Nicodemus and the twelve men. Called upon again. Then we get the Barabbas bit, just like in the Gospels, and they say, &amp;quot;Give us Barabbas,&amp;quot; and he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;I&#039;m giving you this out here.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;And Pilate was wroth and said unto the Jews, Your nation is always seditious, and you rebel against your benefactors.&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;what benefactors are you talking about?&amp;quot; And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Look, I&#039;m not Jewish, but as far as I know, God brought you guys out of slavery in Egypt, and then you repaid him by making a golden calf that you worshipped,&amp;quot; and they were like, &amp;quot;Hmm, yeah,&amp;quot; and he&#039;s saying, &amp;quot;and now you&#039;re saying I hate Caesar, so I don&#039;t care about what you&#039;re saying,&amp;quot; basically. And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;we know our king, it&#039;s Caesar, not Jesus.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And so... ah, then we get, here&#039;s two new names that we get in this one that we&#039;ve talked about on this show before, Dismas and Gestas, the thieves, the penitent thief and the impenitent thief who were crucified by Jesus&#039; side. Dismas we&#039;ve talked about, he becomes Saint Dismas or Saint Demas or Sandemas. And Gestas of course is not a saint. Dismas is gonna keep appearing in this one a couple times. He&#039;s gonna pop up as a little surprise later. Yeah, he&#039;s the penitent thief. He&#039;s the reason why on like an Orthodox cross, you&#039;ve got where the foot... on the cross beam down at the bottom where Jesus&#039; feet would be, that&#039;s tilted. It&#039;s tilted up towards where Dismas would have been and tilted down towards Gestus where Gestus would have been. Yeah, so Jesus goes forth from the judgment hall, the two malefactors with him. Stripped of his garments, you know, resurrection – or passion stuff, I should say. And then we get we get Dismas saying, &amp;quot;Lord, I&#039;ll be with you in your kingdom.&amp;quot; And Jesus is like, &amp;quot;Yeah man, I&#039;m going to heaven and I&#039;m going to take you with me.&amp;quot; What he doesn&#039;t tell him is like, &amp;quot;we have to make a pit stop along the way. But I&#039;m definitely taking you with me to heaven.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Look, there&#039;s just... wait for me there. I was about to say there&#039;s gonna be a guy named St. Peter there, but he will not be there yet. He will not be there for another 30 or so years.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then here in chapter 11 we get Joseph of Arimathea being a counselor of the city of Arimathea, which by the way isn&#039;t. That&#039;s a Robin Hood real city, we will say. Nobody knows where Arimathea is. It&#039;s supposed to be in Judea somewhere, but it&#039;s like nobody knows where that is. People of course have their own personal identifications of where it might be, but there&#039;s no solid location for Arimathea. Anyway, so he&#039;s like, yeah. He can have my tomb, nobody&#039;s been buried in that. So they took his body down, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, laid it in a hewn sepulchre wherein was never a man yet laid.&lt;br /&gt;
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What happens is when the priests find out that Joseph has taken Jesus&#039; body, they have him put on house arrest. They&#039;re like, just to make sure that he doesn&#039;t do anything with the body, right? So &amp;quot;they took hold on Joseph and commanded him to be put in safeguard until the first day of the week.&amp;quot; But yeah, there&#039;s not much else they can do because obviously the Sabbath is coming. And so they put him in his house and they put guards around the house. The house is locked up and the doors are sealed. And then what happens is they go back to find him and he&#039;s not there, and all the doors are still locked. And Joseph has disappeared. When the council was set, they commanded him to be brought with great dishonor because they were gonna charge him as well. But &amp;quot;and when they opened the door they found him not, and all the people were beside themselves and amazed, because they found the seals closed, and Caiaphas had the key, and they durst not any more lay hands upon them that had spoken on the behalf of Jesus before Pilate.&amp;quot; So that&#039;s why the other 12 witnesses don&#039;t get charged because they&#039;re so creeped out by this miraculous disappearance of Joseph of Arimathea from inside his own locked house.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So then they go talk to the guards who were at the tomb and they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;what happened here?&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;yeah, an angel came down and rolled the stone away and took the body,&amp;quot; and they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;let&#039;s not say that. Here&#039;s a lot of money. Say literally anything else. Actually, and then to me the funny part is they bribed the guards into saying that the disciples came and stole Jesus&#039; body. And then they spread the rumor, the priests spread the rumor that the disciples bribed the guards into saying that Jesus was resurrected.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Then here in chapter 14, we get a couple of new witnesses, Phinees and Addas and Aggaeus, and they basically come as witnesses to the Great Commission and the Ascension. We know what happens. Jesus says, &amp;quot;go forth and do all these cool things,&amp;quot; and then he disappears into heaven, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; The priests are not convinced by that, but then you know Nicodemus is like &amp;quot;Hey, this kind of thing has happened before.&amp;quot; It happened with here in this text it says Elias and Eliseus, but this is that&#039;s Elijah and Elisha. So Elijah, of course, we know was taken up into heaven in the chariot of fire. [Obvious humming] Anyway, so yeah, he&#039;s he&#039;s saying there is precedent for someone being taken straight up into heaven.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. It&#039;s happened before.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s happened. It&#039;s happened. They go looking for Jesus, they don&#039;t find him. Someone eventually says, &amp;quot;I found Joseph though.&amp;quot; Joseph of Arimathea, found that guy who&#039;d been missing for a while. And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;okay, we have to figure out what happened. Please send him a very nice letter and convince him to come here and that we&#039;re not mad at him or whatever.&amp;quot; And he does come and he explains basically that what happened was &amp;quot;on the preparation day,&amp;quot; so that&#039;s Friday, &amp;quot;about the tenth hour, you did shut me up, and I continued there the whole Sabbath. And at midnight, as I stood and prayed, The house wherein you shut me up was taken up by the four corners. And I saw as it were a flashing of light in mine eyes, and being filled with fear I fell to the earth.&amp;quot; Anyway, the ghost of Jesus shows up to him and is like, &amp;quot;Hey man, I&#039;m good.&amp;quot; And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Are you Elijah?&amp;quot; And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;I&#039;m not Elijah. It&#039;s me, Jesus. We&#039;re friends.&amp;quot; And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Cool, cool, cool, cool.&amp;quot; And then Jesus eventually puts him back in the house, but by that point, everyone had looked inside the house and he was gone. And they&#039;re all freaked out. And Jesus told him to stay in his house for 40 days. And of course, 40 days until the ascension. So now Jesus has ascended. Now Joseph is free to come out of his house.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We know that it&#039;s not an evil spirit, too. In case you were wondering if it was like an evil spirit, it&#039;s not.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And we know this because, as we all know, if you are ever confronted by an evil spirit, you just gotta quote the Ten Commandments at it.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s so true. It&#039;s so true. It&#039;s a very handy thing to have in your back pocket.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this is dropped on us, in a very casual way that I love. &amp;quot;I looked up and saw Jesus and I trembled and supposed that it was a spirit. And I said the commandments, and he said them with me. And as ye are not ignorant, that a spirit, if it meet any man and hear the commandments, straight away fleeth.&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Clearly not an evil spirit.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Established.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know how it goes. That does remind me, and I think I&#039;ve told you this story before because I think I wrote it up for Comics Alliance years and years ago. When I was a kid, and I&#039;ve talked about on this show, I used to spend almost every day at a church that I was convinced was haunted. If I thought that a church ghost was coming after me, I could repel them by closing my eyes and singing the song &amp;quot;My God is an Awesome God.&amp;quot; And that was my ghost repellent.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I have a lot of questions about this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, okay.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; First of all.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Why would you be afraid of a church ghost? Would they not be good ghosts?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I don&#039;t know that they were. They seemed bad to me. Especially one that I saw a particular time that I wrote about in the story. It looked like a large orangutan being experimented on that I saw through the window of a like a back building on the church grounds and I didn&#039;t want anything to do with that. Also like disembodied shadows. I don&#039;t want any part of those things. I didn&#039;t need it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Alright, well that&#039;s that&#039;s fair, I guess.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Church ghost, that&#039;s spooky!&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is spooky.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;re finally getting some spooky stuff in here.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s definitely spookier than this piece-by-piece investigation of the Ascension of Christ.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Can we can we talk about the descent of Christ?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we can get there. Okay, so yeah, when we get if we if we skip this, there&#039;s just a lot of questions here. Nothing is really new, right? We again also see Enoch brought up as a defense of the idea of the ascension of someone directly into heaven.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Let&#039;s see, here&#039;s the end of the first part. &amp;quot;And the people sang a hymn unto the Lord and said, &#039;Blessed be the Lord who hath given rest unto the people of Israel according to all that he spake. There hath not one word fallen to the ground of all his good saying which he spake unto his servant Moses. The Lord our God be with us as he was with our fathers, let him not forsake us, and let him not destroy us from turning our heart unto him. From walking in all his ways, and keeping his statutes and his judgments, which he commanded our fathers. And the Lord shall be king over all the earth in that day, and it shall be one Lord, and his name one, even the Lord our King, he shall save us. There is none like unto thee,&#039;&amp;quot; etc. So yeah, everyone&#039;s glorifying God at the end, which happens a lot.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Oh there is the interesting bit where the priests are totally freaking out and they say, &amp;quot;If his memorial endure until the Jubilee, I know that he&#039;ll prevail forever and raise up for himself a new people.&amp;quot; So a Jubilee: the idea was, just like there&#039;s a Sabbath within the week, there&#039;d also be a Sabbath year. Every seventh year you don&#039;t farm, you don&#039;t tend your fields basically. And so at the end of seven of seven, so after 49 years, seven Sabbath years, on the 50th year, that&#039;s a Jubilee. And that&#039;s a big deal. And so basically saying, if this if the reputation of Jesus lasts for fifty years, it&#039;s never going away. People are gonna know Jesus forever. And I guess that was true, which I guess is easy to say from the perspective of you know 350 CE or whatever. So anyway, that&#039;s the end of part one. The priests are basically defeated. Everyone&#039;s worshiping God.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But part two says, what if there&#039;s more proof though? What if we had some more proof of the divinity of Jesus? And so what we get here in part two is a descent into Hell. &amp;quot;Joseph arose, said unto Annas and Caiaphas, Simeon,&amp;quot; who, we skipped him earlier. Simeon from the Gospels again. I mean, we talked about him during the Gospels, but Simeon who was at the temple and who when he saw the baby Jesus, he was like &amp;quot;Truly, this is the one we&#039;ve been waiting for. Now I can finally die,&amp;quot; right? He&#039;s brought up earlier in part of the defense. That&#039;s not super important, but here we find out that Simeon had two sons who apparently died before he did or I guess it could have been it could have been after, I guess, but they were two of the Eastertime zombies. They were two of the people who rose from their graves on Good Friday. And their names are Leucius and Karinus, which is weird because Leucius Karinus, you might recall from our previous episode, was the name attributed to the authorship of many of the Acts of the Apostles. And so it&#039;s a little bit weird to take the name of like a popular author that would have definitely been known in the Middle Ages, and then turn it into the name of two of your characters. So it&#039;s a little bit like, &amp;quot;yes, and then Stephen and King showed up and came to give hard evidence for the divinity of Christ.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But the idea is that these two brothers, they&#039;re separated to go write down their testimonies of What happened? And so they go into separate rooms. &amp;quot;Karinus and Leucius had heard this adjuration. They trembled in their body and groaned being troubled in heart, and looking up together into heaven, they made the seal of the cross with their fingers upon their tongues, and forthwith they spake both of them, saying, &#039;Give us each a volume of paper, and let us write that which we have seen and heard.&#039; And they gave them unto them, And each of them sat down and wrote.&amp;quot; And so here we get finally the ascent into Hell, which comes from the testimonies of Leucius and Karinus. And yeah, so basically the idea is following the crucifixion, Jesus is going to head down into Hell or limbo or Hades, I&#039;m sure it&#039;s probably Hades if I had to guess in the original Greek. Which is part of the reason why it&#039;s so easy to anthropomorphosize Hell as a speaking character, if you already think of Hades as the god of the underworld. Hades is the word that&#039;s used in the Greek New Testament to refer to Sheol, the grave, and which is also occasionally personified. But from the perspective of Leucius and Karinus we also see John the Baptist come down first. We see his ghost coming down and this gives great hope.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Before we even get into that, there&#039;s an intro bit that I am quite a fan of.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Hey. You guys know how Jesus came back from the dead. And that&#039;s super impressive. But you know what&#039;s really impressive? Was that he did all this other stuff that you didn&#039;t even know about before now.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And I like this because I feel like resurrecting from the dead is a fairly impressive feat?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s a pretty good one. I cannot say many people have done it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So for this one to be like, &amp;quot;Hey, coming back from the dead, uh-uh, this is the real stuff,&amp;quot; that&#039;s bold.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; For sure. And we definitely are gonna get names that we recognize within this, even though in this edition they may be in forms that are not the familiar forms. So for example we get Esaias, which If you guys recall, that&#039;s the Greek form of Isaiah. So we get Isaiah as a character here. It&#039;s interesting who gets mentioned and who doesn&#039;t, right? There&#039;s a lot of Adam. There&#039;s Seth, there&#039;s Isaiah, and then we get some of the minor prophets later on.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s pretty weird to get Seth.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, it&#039;s not that weird, and I&#039;ll tell you why, because what happens is when they talk about John the Baptist being killed, and John comes down, and he tells them what&#039;s going on, he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Hey, I saw the Lamb of God, I saw the dove descend upon him. I heard a voice of heaven saying, This is my beloved son, and so on.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;When father Adam that was first created heard this, even that Jesus was baptized in Jordan, he cried out to Seth his son, saying: Declare unto thy sons the patriarchs and the prophets all that thou didst hear from Michael the archangel, when I sent thee unto the gates of paradise that thou mightest entreat God to send thee his angel,&amp;quot; and so on. This is a reference to another popular and yet fully apocryphal story about Adam that comes to us from a book called The Life of Adam and Eve, also known as The Apocalypse of Moses. And that was a book that we almost covered last week when we decided to do Judith instead. And we&#039;ll still get it at some point because it&#039;s interesting. But in this version of the story, after Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, there&#039;s a story where Adam is dying or something, and Seth and Eve go to the garden to get some oil from the Tree of Mercy, as it&#039;s called here, which would be the tree of life. And Seth encounters the archangel Michael. And he says, &amp;quot;I&#039;m not going to give you this oil, but I&#039;ll give it to you at the end of time when all flesh will be raised up,&amp;quot;&amp;quot; and so on. And that&#039;s what&#039;s being referred to here.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And it specifically talks about 5,500 years later. And we don&#039;t get it here, but later at the end of this, we get a full like mathematical accounting showing that like it&#039;s 5,500 years from the creation of the earth until the life of Jesus, basically, which, that does not add up if this is the year 5779. Although it is currently supposed to be 5779 years since the creation of Earth. So that math doesn&#039;t come together there. So I don&#039;t know. I don&#039;t know who&#039;s wrong. It&#039;s somebody. Somebody&#039;s math is wrong.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But anyway, yeah, all the patriarchs hear these things because it&#039;s like, oh, it&#039;s that year. It&#039;s time. It&#039;s time. Here comes Jesus. And so they&#039;re very excited. Saints were rejoicing, then we get Satan. Finally, finally, here we are, chapter twenty. Prince and chief of death. And here he is, he&#039;s having some arguments with Hell. And here&#039;s an interesting thing to recognize is that at this point in the story, Satan doesn&#039;t live in Hell. He&#039;s just chatting with him.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this is I guess this is like after seasons of Mist.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, he&#039;s gone up to be a lounge singer Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Uh-huh.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But no, so the idea is that Satan has not yet been cast into the pit of fire, right? And so he&#039;s I guess still roaming the earth, but he does talk to Hell, or the grave or you know, limbo, however you guys want to think about this, some realm of the dead.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The way that I imagined it&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Was it&#039;s all of the satans voice.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s all the demons. It&#039;s Beelzebub and all them just dunking on him.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like, &amp;quot;Hey idiot, you let Jesus come here.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, because yeah, because Hell is not on board with this plan. Satan&#039;s like, &amp;quot;yo, get ready, here comes Jesus,&amp;quot; and they&#039;re like, why? Yeah, why would you do this?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And an interesting thing about this is that the idea of Hell being a place for sinners is not yet there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is this is early in the development or dev-hell-opment of Hell.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Dev-hell-opment, yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Dev-hell-opment. It&#039;s just a place for the dead. And so there&#039;s this idea of Satan being like, &amp;quot;yeah, of course Jesus is here. He was just a dude, which means he&#039;s afraid of death, which means he dies. So where else is he gonna go?&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;you idiot, he&#039;s he&#039;s alive.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We do get the distinction here. Satan is called the prince of Tartarus, right? Which for the Greeks, Tartarus would have specifically been the portion of the underworld where the evil were punished. Right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The bad place.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s the bad place. Yeah, Tartarus is the bad place for sure. That&#039;s where Sisyphus is, that&#039;s where Tantalus is, all the famous dead people and their ironic, Rod Serling-esque punishments are all in Tartarus.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You&#039;ve seen it on Xena.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we all have. We all have. And he&#039;s like, no, man, look, &amp;quot;Why doubtest thou and fearest to receive this Jesus which is thine adversary and mine? For I tempted him, and have stirred up mine ancient people of the Jews.&amp;quot; Rough. That&#039;s real rough. I hate that, and I&#039;m sorry I said that out loud.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s pretty bad.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is so weird how next level anti-Semitic things get.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Let&#039;s move on. &amp;quot;I have sharpened a spear to thrust him through, gall and vinegar have I mingled to give him to drink, and I have prepared a cross to crucify him and nails to pierce him: and his death is nigh at hand, that I may bring him unto thee to be subject unto thee and me.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;You brought a cross? And What were you thinking? &amp;quot;It&#039;s Satan continually being like, &amp;quot;No no guys, it&#039;s totally cool. I brought a cross. He doesn&#039;t like those. It&#039;s like we&#039;re just gonna nail him up.&amp;quot;&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;Oh, Satan, have you never heard of symbolism? You you idiot. You absolute jabroni.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And Hell&#039;s also like, &amp;quot;Isn&#039;t this the guy that has already resurrected the dead? Like Lazarus, for example, like this guy has already taken the dead out of me. So what are you doing?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;And as Satan the prince, and Hell, spoke this together, suddenly there came a voice as of thunder and a spiritual cry: Remove, O princes, your gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.&amp;quot; Yeah, and so Hell is like, &amp;quot;just get out of here, man. Get out of here. If you&#039;re a mighty man of war, go fight the King of glory.&amp;quot; That is. God, aka Jesus here. And so Hell kicks Satan out. Get out of here. You&#039;ve ruined it. It&#039;s all ruined. But Hell says to his wicked ministers, &amp;quot;Shut hard the gates of brass and put on them the bars of iron and withstand stoutly.&amp;quot; That doesn&#039;t work, it turns out, Jesus is stronger than some gates. Because basically all the saints hear it and they just start shouting. They&#039;re like, &amp;quot;open the gates, open the gates, open the gates,&amp;quot;&amp;quot; until he&#039;s finally like, &amp;quot;open the gates.&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; He&#039;s like the opposite of Marc Maron.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yes. Exactly, very good. And so Isaiah standing there, like, &amp;quot;didn&#039;t I tell you? Didn&#039;t I tell you the dead shall arise, and they that are in tomb shall rise again, and they that are in the earth shall rejoice. For the dew which cometh of the Lord is their healing. And again, I also said, O death, where is thy sting? O Hell, where is thy victory? Remember? Remember when I said those things? It&#039;s coming true. It&#039;s happening. It&#039;s me, Isaiah, the fifth evangelist.&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep, pretty much.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah, they&#039;re all shouting, open the gates, and God&#039;s voice comes and says, &amp;quot;Open the gates, please.&amp;quot; And so he opens the gates. He&#039;s gotta do it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which it turns out that was the password.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah the password.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Remember we talked about the password in Isaiah and the Ascension of Isaiah? It was just &amp;quot;please.&amp;quot; It&#039;s the magic word, everybody.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, but you have to be God when you say it. That&#039;s the trick.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, no, that&#039;s the thing. You don&#039;t have to be God. You just have to be polite.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Definitely refer to the princes of Hell as princes. That helps. Give them their proper respect. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s never the wrong time to say please. That&#039;s all.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s true. It is a magical word. They open the gates and David, we get David here, and so he gets a mention. So we&#039;ve got Isaiah has gotten several mentions, Adam, Seth, David so far. And yeah, &amp;quot;Hell and death and their wicked ministers saw the Lord of Majesty appearing in his form. They and their cruel officers, at the sight of the brightness of so great light in their own realm, seeing Christ of a sudden in their abode, they cried out, saying, We&#039;re overcome by thee.&amp;quot; And here&#039;s the bit that I really liked. This was some of my favorite language here, their confusion here. &amp;quot;Who art thou that art sent by the Lord for our confusion? Who art thou that without all damage of corruption, and with the signs of thy majesty unblemished, dust and wrath condemn our power? Who art thou that art so great and so small, both humble and exalted, both soldier and commander, a marvelous warrior in the shape of a bondsman, and a king of glory, dead and living, whom the cross bears slain upon it?&amp;quot; Like I really like that bit. I just like the balance of the antithesis there. It&#039;s like both so great and so small, which is, I mean, that&#039;s the thing. That&#039;s the imagery of Jesus, right? He&#039;s a king born a slave, basically, right? So&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; He drinks from a cup of a carpenter.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not some gilded chalice. Yeah, so I just like that bit. I thought that was well well constructed.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s quite good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so a lot of questions there. &amp;quot;The King of Glory and His Majesty trampled upon death and laid hold on Satan the prince and delivered him unto the power of Hell.&amp;quot; So  there it is. There we get Satan getting cast into Hell there, which doesn&#039;t quite line up with Revelation, which also sees him being cast into the pit of fire. But I don&#039;t know time is a flat circle or something, so who knows? But now finally we get Jesus, he draws Adam to him unto his own brightness. &amp;quot;Hell receives Satan, with sore reproach says unto him, O Prince of Perdition and Chief of Destruction, Beelzebub, the scorn of the angels and spitting of the righteous, why did you do this?&amp;quot; You worked right into his own into his own hands. You played yourself.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You absolute dunce You complete idiot.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this is what he wanted. This is what he wanted, because now he&#039;s here and he&#039;s gonna free all these people.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And oh, and that cross? And that cross that you brought? Jesus is just gonna be like, &amp;quot;yeah, I&#039;m just gonna put this up right over here. Just gonna put this up. Cause this is mine now. This is mine now.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;I have it. It&#039;s Jesus&#039;s.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep. And so and so yeah, with Satan in Hell, truly and forever dunked on, now Jesus is summoning the righteous one. &amp;quot;So he stretches forth his hand. Come forth, all ye saints.&amp;quot; Yeah, &amp;quot;Ye that by the tree and the devil and death were condemned. Behold now the devil and death condemned by the tree.&amp;quot; Oh that&#039;s that&#039;s very nice. I like that the parallel there the tree of knowledge of good and evil that condemned them and now they&#039;re saved by the tree that is the cross. So very nice parallel imagery there again.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Both of which were gonna be Swamp Thing if Rick Veitch hadn&#039;t left DC.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s true. &amp;quot;He stretched forth his hand, made the sign of the cross over Adam, over all the saints.&amp;quot; Who else do we get here? Habakkuk.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like out of all the out of all the prophets, we get Habakkuk, we get Micah, who&#039;s called Micheas here, but that&#039;s Micah. So those are definitely guys that are fully listed among the minor prophets by Jewish and Christian reckoning.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. You might not even remember. We have seen Habakkuk before.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s true.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you don&#039;t recall, Habakkuk was the one who made that good stew for Daniel.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Mm-hmm.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The one who had angels show up and be like, hey, I&#039;m gonna need that stew. That is no longer your dinner. That is Daniel&#039;s dinner.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So he gets he gets another mention on this show. We&#039;ve now on this show had Habakkuk on twice and Moses zero times.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we don&#039;t get Moses. We don&#039;t get Daniel. We get the guy who made the stew. We don&#039;t get Daniel. Right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I don&#039;t know. I mean that&#039;s about it, right? So we&#039;ve seen Adam, Seth, David, Isaiah gets the most lines, I think. Habakkuk, Micah. And like that&#039;s it for now. Because we&#039;re about to get a couple more.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s like Jesus has a van And so he&#039;s gotta take multiple trips, so this is who lined up first.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, Habakkuk and Micah just managed to get there ahead, and like Ezekiel is like, &amp;quot;I just missed it. I&#039;m a major prophet.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Moses is in the back being like, &amp;quot;I walked around for 40 years. I can wait.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And so yeah, they go up to heaven, they deliver him to Michael the Archangel, all the saints followed Michael. &amp;quot;He brought them all into the glory and the beauty of paradise.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here&#039;s a question that I just thought of, actually.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do you think like Moses and Abraham were too Jewish?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; To be mentioned here? Oh man.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; They&#039;re like, you know, that Jews are the people of Moses and Abraham. But like David is Jesus&#039; grandpa.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, okay. David is incredibly Jewish, right? Like&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh no, he is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I don&#039;t know.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But he&#039;s also in the direct lineage, like Jesus is of the house of David.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure, right. Yeah, I suppose that makes sense. And then of course Isaiah gets heavily Christianized as well. We talked, you know, the fifth gospel and all that, but...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is weird to try and sift– try and CSI our way through the anti-Semitism of these attacks.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like Micah, I could see because also Micah is considered to prophesy the birth of Christ as well. Habakkuk I don&#039;t know. I don&#039;t know why he gets a mention. They&#039;re brought up to paradise and they run into Enoch and Elijah, who are already up there waiting for them, because they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;hey guys, God brought us here.&amp;quot; Enoch&#039;s just &amp;quot;God brought me. We were walking and then suddenly we were in heaven,&amp;quot; and Elijah&#039;s like, &amp;quot;yeah, I was in a cool flaming chariot that flew in the sky, so a little bit cooler, I think, than probably just walking straight into heaven with God.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But yeah, so we see those guys and then my favorite moment is like, &amp;quot;hey man we&#039;ve been doing this whole thing and I&#039;ve been trying not to mention anything, but who is that dude? Who is that guy that&#039;s with Jesus when he came down? Like Jesus came down here with a dude. Like who was that guy? Because you look a little sketchy, and I don&#039;t know you.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;And he answered them and said, &#039;Ye have rightly said, for I was a robber, doing all manner of evil upon the earth, and the Jews crucified me with Jesus, and I beheld the wonders of the creation which came to pass through the cross of Jesus when he was crucified,&#039;&amp;quot; and so on. It&#039;s Dismas. And so in a lot of the art of the Harrowing of Hell, if you find it, Jesus is usually like carrying Dismas, like, in his arm as he comes down. So it&#039;s completely like &amp;quot;you will be with me in heaven, but we gotta make a quick stop on the way. Are you cool with that? I promise we can get some combos. And like a specialty Mountain Dew flavor at the gas station.&amp;quot; And yeah, so we get we get Dismas there, which wild, but I love it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And yeah that&#039;s about the end of it. We get, &amp;quot;Blessed be the Lord Almighty, the Father of eternal good things, Father of mercies. Thou have given such grace unto thy sinners and hast brought them again into the beauty of paradise and into thy good pastures. For this is the most holy life of the Spirit. Amen.&amp;quot; And so that was, it turns out, what was written down by Leucius and Karinus. They both wrote identical word-for-word accounts of this, and that&#039;s how you know it&#039;s real. We see that exact thing, remember the story of the Septuagint is that the seventy-two rabbis all wrote down their Greek translation and they were all word for word identical, even though they were written in separate rooms. So it&#039;s the same idea. Leucius and Karinus in separate rooms write down verbatim versions of this story of the Harrowing of Hell. And then they turn into bright lights and disappear. They&#039;re gone. &amp;quot;When they had finished writing all the things in the several volumes of paper, they arose, and Karinus gave that which they had written into the hands of Annas and Caiaphas and Gamaliel, likewise Leucius gave that which he had written into the hands of Nicodemus and Joseph. And suddenly they were transfigured and became white exceedingly, and were seen no more. But their writings were found to be the same, neither more nor less, by one letter.&amp;quot; That&#039;s it. &amp;quot;These were the things that were spoken by the Jews in their synagogue, did Joseph and Nicodemus forthwith declare unto the governor. And Pilate himself wrote all the things that were done and said concerning Jesus by the Jews, and laid up all the words in the public books of his judgment hall.&amp;quot; This bit has another thing that, as I mentioned before, has the math. It does the math of that 5,500 years. They lay out it was this many years. And the thing that they draw, the significance of that number is to the building of the Ark of the Covenant, which is supposed to be five and a half cubits, and so they understand that the five and a half cubits equal five and a half thousand years. And so then they break down that math and they&#039;re saying that&#039;s why Jesus came in the 5,500th year, which again, if this is 5779, that doesn&#039;t work out.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is currently 5779.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Feeling fine, 5779. And yeah, then at the very end here of the M.R. James version, we get that letter from Pilate to Claudius, which we&#039;ve already discussed in our Peter and Paul episode. It&#039;s very brief. It&#039;s just two paragraphs of Pilate saying, &amp;quot;here&#039;s the thing I saw, and we killed him.&amp;quot; And like that and that&#039;s it, basically. But as I mentioned, a lot of versions of this story add the Cure of Tiberius, the Cura sanitatis Tiberii, which the cure of the health of Tiberius, which is the earliest version of the full Veronica legend with the handkerchief with God&#039;s or with Jesus&#039; face perfectly imprinted on it, which that particular relic comes to be known as a Veronica. And so this is the earliest account of that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So this is the earliest account of the Veronica Lodge-end.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, the Veronica Lodge-end, yes. So there&#039;s that, and then there&#039;s also another story called the Mors Pilati, which is the death of Pilate. There&#039;s different versions of what happens. And in a lot of versions, Pilate ultimately commits suicide. But here we have a different version. So if you combine the bits from the Cura sanitatis Tiberii and the Mors Pilati, you get the account here from our boy, Jacobus de Voragine, in the Golden Legend. This comes from the section on the Passion of the Lord. And I&#039;m just gonna read it. I&#039;m just gonna read it because it&#039;s very good. There&#039;s a lot of good things going on here. So.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;quot;When Pilate had handed Jesus over to the Jews to be crucified, he was afraid that his condemnation of innocent blood might offend Tiberius Caesar, and dispatched one of his familiars to make a case for him to the emperor. Meanwhile, it was announced to Tiberius, who was seriously ill, that in Jerusalem there was a physician who cured all diseases by his word alone. Therefore, the emperor, not knowing that Pilate and the Jews had put this physician to death, said to one of his intimates, whose name was Volusian, &#039;Cross the sea as fast as you can, and tell Pilate to send this healer to me so that he may restore me to health.&#039; Volusian came to Pilate and delivered the emperor&#039;s command, but Pilate, terror-stricken, asked for a fortnight&#039;s grace. During this time, Volusian made the acquaintance of a woman named Veronica, who had been in Jesus&#039; company, and asked her where he might find Jesus Christ. She answered, &#039;Alas, he was my Lord and my God, and Pilate, to whom he was handed over through envy, condemned him and commanded that he be crucified.&#039; Volusian was grieved at this and said, &#039;I am deeply sorry that I cannot carry out the orders my master gave me.&#039; Veronica answered, &#039;When the teacher was going about preaching, and I, to my regret, could not be with him. I wanted to have his picture painted so that when I was deprived of his presence I could at least have the solace of his image. So one day I was carrying a piece of linen to the painter when I met Jesus, and he asked me where I was going. I told him what my errand was. He asked for the cloth I had in my hand, pressed it to his venerable face, and he left his image on it. If your master looks devoutly upon the image, he will at once be rewarded by being cured.&#039; &#039;Can this image be bought for gold or silver?&#039; Volusian asked. &#039;No,&#039; Veronica replied. &#039;Only true piety can make it effective. Therefore I will go with you and let Caesar look upon the image, after which I will return home.&#039; So Volusian came to Rome with Veronica and told Tiberius, &#039;The Jesus you have long desired to see was unjustly given over to death by Pilate and the Jews, and by reason of their envy nailed to the gibbet of the cross. However, a lady came to me with a picture of Jesus, and if you look at it devoutly, you will obtain the benefit of your health.&#039; Caesar therefore had the road carpeted with silk cloths and ordered the image brought to him, and the moment he looked at it he won back his pristine health.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And Tiberius, who I can say for a fact was kind of a jerk emperor, is made into a Christian here, which kind of happens to a number of early emperors. It happens to Augustus too. There&#039;s a version where baby Jesus appears to Augustus in a dream or something. I haven&#039;t read that in like twenty years, so I don&#039;t remember the details.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;quot;But Pontius Pilate was then taken prisoner at Caesar&#039;s command and shipped to Rome. And when the emperor heard that he had arrived, he was filled with fury and had him brought into his presence. Pilate, however, had taken with him the Lord&#039;s seamless tunic, and came before the emperor wearing it. And As soon as Tiberius saw him clothed in the tunic, his anger vanished. He rose to meet Pilate and could not address a harsh word to him. So the emperor, who, when Pilate was absent, seemed so terrible and furious now in his presence, was somehow calmed. As soon as he had given him leave to go, on the other hand, he was again afire with rage, and called himself a wretch for not having showed the culprit the anger that was in his heart.&amp;quot; So as long as Pilate is wearing Jesus&#039;s clothes, Tiberius can&#039;t be angry with him, but as soon as he leaves, he&#039;s angry again. &amp;quot;Swearing and protesting that Pilate was a son of death, and that it was not right to let him live on the earth, he at once had him called back. But when he saw him, the emperor greeted him, and his wrath subsided. All wondered, and he himself wondered, that he could be so wrought up against Pilate absent, and could not so much as speak to him harshly when he was present.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;quot;At length, at a sign from God, or perhaps a hint from some Christian, he had the man stripped of that tunic and instantly his previous rage was rekindled. The emperor&#039;s astonishment mounted until he was told that the tunic had belonged to the Lord Jesus. He had Pilate remanded to prison until he could consult with a council of wise men about what should be done with the criminal. Pilate was forthwith sentenced to a shameful death, but when he heard of this he killed himself with his own knife, and so ended his life. When Caesar was informed of this, he said, &#039;Truly he died a most shameful death, and his own hand did not spare him.&#039;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;quot;The corpse was weighted with a huge stone and thrown into the Tiber, but wicked foul spirits made sport of the wicked foul body, plunging it into the water and snatching it up into the air. This caused awesome floods in the water and lightning, tempests and hailstorms in the air, and a widespread panic broke out among the people. The Romans therefore pulled the body out of the Tiber, and as a gesture of contempt carried it off to Vienne,&amp;quot; this is not Vienna, but Vienne, a city in France, &amp;quot;and dumped it into the Rhone. The name of the city comes from Via Gehenne, the road to Hell, because at this time it was a place of malediction. Or more likely, the city was called Vienne or Bienna because it was said to have been built on a biennium. But there again the wicked spirits rallied and stirred up the same disturbances, and the people refusing to put up with so great a plague of demons, removed that vessel of malediction from their midst and consigned it to a burial in the territory of the city of Lausanne. And there the populace, harried by excess, by the aforesaid upheavals, took the body away and sank it in a pit surrounded by mountains, where, according to some accounts, diabolical machinations still make themselves felt.&amp;quot; And that area, that real place, that mountain, is actually called Mont Pilatus. Like Pilate, Mount Pilate, except it&#039;s actually probably because it was &amp;quot;piletus&amp;quot; it was capped by clouds. But anyway it&#039;s got it&#039;s called Pilate now. And in some legends it says that on Holy Weekend the undead body of Pilate will climb out of the mountain and sit and contemplate the resurrection.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; How did you save... I guess that&#039;s appropriate for the last little bit of our horror episode. You didn&#039;t know there was gonna be a zombie.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, there&#039;s a zombie.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s a secret zombie in this episode all this time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s storm demons. There&#039;s some good stuff, yeah, but of course I had to dig into some Golden Legend to get the good-good stuff. But yeah, so that&#039;s essentially the story of the Cura Tiberii, sanitatis Tiberii, which is frequently appended in Latin editions of the Gospel of Nicodemus. We skipped over it. This book was also the origin of the name Longinus, as the soldier who drove the sphere. So we talked about the sphere of destiny, the Spear of Longinus, the Lance of Longinus. So that name first appears here, Dismas and Gestas first appear here, Veronica first appears here. So this is an important and influential work that gives us a lot of stuff that gets really thoroughly imbued into Christian thought and legend.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Did you have a verse?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I did. I already read it though. It was it was the bit with the demons asking about who is this so great and so humble. That was my favorite bit for sure. What about you? Did you have one?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh yeah, there&#039;s a lot of really good stuff in here. Basically anytime Hell is yelling at Satan is good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But I wanted to talk about Enoch.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Enoch is the one that you have made big promises about, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;ve definitely been teasing, yes, when we read first Enoch, it is definitely going to be one of the wildest things we have ever covered on this show, for sure. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay. Well this says, this is chapter twenty-five, &amp;quot;I am Enoch, which was translated hither by the word of the Lord, and this that is with me is Elias the Thesbite. which was taken up in a chariot of fire, and up to this day we have not tasted death, but we are received into the coming of Antichrist to fight against him with signs and wonders of God, and to be slain of him in Jerusalem, and after three days and a half to be taken up again alive on the clouds.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That sounds like a pretty cool story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I&#039;ll have to dig into that a little bit more to see if there&#039;s more to that particular belief that Enoch and Elijah are gonna go fight the Antichrist.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I would be very excited to know if that was the case.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah, yeah. We&#039;ll see, and if I can find where that gets carried out more, we&#039;ll definitely cover that on the show for sure.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But but also, yeah, like pretty much any time Satan is just getting dunked on is very good in this. I kinda love all the stuff where it&#039;s like, &amp;quot;this was his plan all along.&amp;quot; Where Jesus Ocean&#039;s 11s everybody into salvation is pretty great.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s good. So where do you come down on this, Chris? I know you said you were you found the first part kind of boring. Overall, what would you say about the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Acts of Pilate?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean it certainly picks up when Jesus descends into Hell to take all of the righteous dead up to heaven. Not great with all the anti-Semitism.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure, yeah, that part kind of blows. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, not my favorite part. In my understanding of it as just Jesus going getting the righteous dead, I find that to be very entertaining.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Jesus going and making all of the Jewish patriarchs into Christians, however, like you said, it&#039;s one of those things that is by doctrine necessary, but not a great look in retrospect.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep. But yeah. A pretty interesting one, and again, very important, so I&#039;m glad that we covered it as relatively early as we did, even if it means we haven&#039;t covered a lot of very important canonical books. You know, we do a mix of things. That&#039;s the show.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ll get to them. Don&#039;t get weird about it. We&#039;ll get to them.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ll definitely get there. Yeah. I just feel someone is out there like, why haven&#039;t you done Nahum yet or something? I don&#039;t know.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I think we&#039;ll be okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Let me know if you&#039;re a Nahum stan, I need to know, give me a shout.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; As we mentioned, that was the first part of our multi-part Scare-stravaganza.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, absolutely. So part two for our very good Halloween special. We&#039;re gonna have a mash. We&#039;re gonna do the mash. We&#039;re gonna do the monster mash. We&#039;re gonna go and we&#039;re gonna see our boy Solomon tackling all the demons. That&#039;s right, we&#039;re gonna do the Testament of Solomon next week and I promise you guys will not describe that one as boring in any part. Because it&#039;s a very cool story of Solomon. Asmodeus will make a return. Basically, any named demon that we&#039;ve seen so far is probably going to be showing up. Cool little folktales that were very popular among Jewish people. And I think it&#039;ll be very fun. I think you guys will get a real kick out of the Testament of Solomon. And I will provide a link on our Tumblr so you can find it. So don&#039;t worry about finding that because it&#039;s definitely not gonna be in the HCSB or the NRSV. I&#039;ll put a link up. You&#039;ll be able to find it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; A thing that I like is that next week we&#039;re doing a Monster Bash. But I think it&#039;s fair to refer to Jesus&#039; triumph over death as a Graveyard Dmash.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It w it was. It was the graveyard smash. We did it backwards, I guess.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; What book is the Transylvania twist in?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Ooh. Hmm. I have to think about it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is that in Enoch?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Maybe. It could be.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which apocalypse explains what happened to the Transylvania twist? It&#039;s now the mash. Alright everybody! Have a great week. We will be back next time with the Testament of Solomon. We hope you have a scary– nah we don&#039;t hope you have a scary time! We hope you have a time that has as many scares as you are comfortable with. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hey Chris, why don&#039;t we tell people where they can give us some money and some help and stuff. That sounds good, Benito.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Where can everybody find us online?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so if you want to find us online and get supplementary material and things like links to the readings that we do that can&#039;t be found in normal people bibles. Go to [https://apocrypals.tumbler.com apocrypals.tumbler.com]. This past week I&#039;ve put up a lot of images of Thecla and also some of the very, very many paintings of Judith and Holofernes. So if you wanted to check out different takes on those from across the years, which is an incredibly popular motif in art, you can check that out. Also we provide links to this show. Links to other resources and things. And we answer questions as well. You can ask us questions. Usually we&#039;ll just answer them on the Tumblr, but sometimes we might hit them up on the show. So go there if you&#039;re looking for any kind of supplemental material for the show.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you like the show, you want to help us out, you want to help us keep the show going, pay for hosting and that kind of stuff, go to [https://ko-fi.com/apocrypals K O dash F I dot com slash apocrypals], that&#039;s [https://ko-fi.com/apocrypals kofi dot com slash apocrypals], and there you can basically leave us a tip, buy us a coffee. You can leave any kind of amount of money in increments of three dollars. As much or as little as you are interested in. And unlike a Patreon, it&#039;s not a recurring pledge. You can you can leave a tip as often as you feel is appropriate. It can be one time, it could be every week, like some people do, and it could be any amount, it could be three dollars. Some people do $18 because 18 is that number of life. Some people have been doing $21 because it&#039;s as many threes as you can have. It&#039;s seven threes. And whatever, whatever, how however much. And we were we absolutely appreciate it. We absolutely appreciate everyone who&#039;s left donations there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you want to help us out and you don&#039;t have the money or you don&#039;t want to spend the money, you can absolutely help us by leaving us a review on whatever your podcatcher of choice is, especially Apple Podcasts. Just leave us a rating and a quick review. We get some really great reviews that I absolutely appreciate, but don&#039;t feel like you have to be super literary. You can just say, &amp;quot;it&#039;s very good and I do like it.&amp;quot; Like that could be your review and that&#039;s fine. But the more reviews and ratings we get, the more likely we are to be featured and the more likely we are to get that very clutch Pontifex retweet. So Yeah, just help us out that way. As for me, you can find me on Twitter or Tumblr or Instagram. Just search for Benito Cereno. You&#039;ll find me. What about you, Chris?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You can find me by going to [https://the-isb.com T H E  dash I S B dot com]. That&#039;s my homepage that has links to all the things that I do. Hey everybody, this Wednesday, October 24th, if you&#039;re listening to this the week that it comes out, we&#039;ve got a very special project that&#039;s finally out in stores.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The Army of Darkness Halloween special with a lead story by me and Chad Bowers and Owen Marin and a backup story written by Benito with art by...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sam Lotfi.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sam Lotfi.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That is going to be available in stores. Also, a new issue for the first time in two years. Of my comic Dracula the Unconquered is gonna be released digitally on Comixology. So if you would like to get some more stuff for us Then by all means pick those things up. They are very good and very fun.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I read that Dracula. I read that Dracula. It&#039;s excellent. It&#039;s a very good Dracula.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Thank you. I think it&#039;s my favorite issue I&#039;ve done of that book so far.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So that&#039;s it. We&#039;re gonna be back next week with the Testament of Solomon. Until then, for Benito Cereno, I&#039;ve been Chris Sims. Benito, peace be with you.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And also, with you!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music &amp;quot;Highway to Hell&amp;quot; by AC/DC]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Dunking_on_Satan_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1063</id>
		<title>Dunking on Satan (Transcript)</title>
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		<updated>2026-02-13T20:27:29Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;div&gt;&#039;&#039;&#039;Chris Sims:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;And while all the saints were rejoicing, behold Satan, the prince and chief of death, said unto Hell, &#039;Make thyself ready to receive Jesus, who boasteth himself that he is the Son of God.&#039;&amp;quot; The Gospel of Nicodemus, chapter 20, verse 1.&lt;br /&gt;
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[Music &amp;quot;Highway to Hell&amp;quot; by AC/DC]&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hello everybody and welcome to Apocrypals. It&#039;s the podcast where two non-believers read through the Bible and we try not to be jerks about it. My name is Chris Sims. With me as always, the other set of footprints, Benito Cereno. Benito! How are you today?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;Benito Cereno:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;m very good here in part one of our Spook-tober-fest Spook-tacular Boo-nanza.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s a scary one today.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I was terrified to my very marrow while reading this chilling story.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Spoiler warning, at the end of this show, you&#039;re gonna turn around and you&#039;re gonna have thriller eyes.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Everyone&#039;s got thriller eyes at the end of this one.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s the trick: everyone has thriller eyes.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Except one person who doesn&#039;t. Because if everybody has thriller eyes then what&#039;s scarier than a person who has regular person eyes?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly. Yeah, we&#039;re reading this week the Gospel of Nicodemus, aka The Acts of Pilate. AKA the Harrowing of Hell, the Descent to Hell. Yeah, as part one of our two-part Spooktoberfest. I don&#039;t know Chris, did you find it particularly spooky? Were you spooked with this one?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I did not.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean you and I have had the conversation before about how I have a very specific idea of Halloween monsters.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Dracula: Halloween monster.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Wolfman: Halloween monster. Godzilla: not a Halloween monster.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Satan? Debatable.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But we don&#039;t really get any... Here&#039;s the thing I&#039;ve noticed about the Bible is that there&#039;s very rarely any suspense about who&#039;s gonna win that would make... that is necessary for horror.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because it&#039;s mostly spoiler warning, this book&#039;s mostly Satan getting owned hard by Jesus.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s kind of how it goes. Like, it&#039;s not until relatively modern things that people are like, hey, what if Satan had a chance? Because yeah, like, you know, prior to that the idea is like, this guy is a scrub who just gets dunked on by Jesus all the time.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Jesus humiliates Satan in front of all his boys for like ten chapters.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is pretty great, honestly.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then the other thing is the fact that the actual Harrowing of Hell is honestly it&#039;s a thing that&#039;s tagged on to the larger work, which is the Acts of Pilate, which is basically an expansion of the trial of Jesus from the Gospel of Luke. It&#039;s expanded on to give larger roles to Annas and Caiaphas, to Nicodemus, and to Joseph of Arimathæa. There&#039;s a couple of bonus miracles in there, but it&#039;s basically like a forensic investigation where it&#039;s like step by step going through like debunking any kind of objection someone might have to the miracle of the passion and resurrection and ascension for that matter. There&#039;s not a lot of spooky atmosphere despite the fact that a significant portion of the book is set in Hell, wherein Hell itself is a speaking sentient character. You might expect more spookiness out of that, but alas. But this is a significant work that had a lot of influence on especially medieval thought and so we wanted to cover it and since it&#039;s a major one about Hell that seemed like a good time for it.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This also seems like the next logical step in terms of the rehabilitation and recontextualization of Pilate.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because we talked about over the course of the four gospels. Pilate becomes a much softer character because the story had to be made palatable to Roman audiences. And so if the chief Roman is the guy who crucifies Jesus, that&#039;s pretty tough.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But by this point, you know, we see him up to John, where he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;I don&#039;t really want to do this. I think Jesus is great, actually.&amp;quot; And then this is the next like takes that a step further of &amp;quot;what if Pilate had his own gospel?&amp;quot; Which is weird.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I mean, yes, this is absolutely a major step in the rehabilitation of the character of Pilate, where it&#039;s made very clear that he&#039;s not the bad guy in this situation, and his hand was forced by the multitudes of the Jewish nation who I will apologize in advance, do not come out looking great in this story. Again, there&#039;s not really gonna be a medieval narrative about the resurrection in which Jewish people come out looking good. It&#039;s just not gonna happen, so I hope no one has their hopes up about that.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here&#039;s the thing about the Harrowing of Hell. We&#039;ve talked about it for months because the Harrowing of Hell is a thing that I am very familiar with, like an idea that I&#039;m very familiar with. And I had kind of always thought it was just Jesus going down to Hell and kind of like, you know, picking everybody up, you know, putting like getting them in the van. So they can drive up to heaven. Not quite. Instead, what happens is Jesus goes down to Hell and hey, all of the great figures of Jewish history? They&#039;re actually Christians. They actually convert to the worship of Jesus and the cross specifically.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I mean again, you know, from a Christian perspective, it&#039;s necessary, but from like a more outside perspective, it&#039;s not a great look, you know?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, not the best?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not the best.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so yeah, the Harrowing of Hell is an idea that it&#039;s not... Well, it&#039;s not in the Bible directly. There are a couple of verses that are considered to be allusions to the idea. For example Ephesians 4:9 says that &amp;quot;Christ descended into the lower parts of the earth.&amp;quot; 1 Peter 4:6 says that &amp;quot;good tidings were proclaimed to the dead.&amp;quot; And so these were both taken as canonical elements that were seen as proof of the idea that on Saturday, on Holy Saturday, aka Huddlehouse Saturday, Jesus, the ghost of Jesus, descended into Hell, or at least limbo, depending on the particular you know, doctrine that you&#039;re believing, or Sheol or the Grave, or Hades, or however you want to think about it, some land of the dead, some waiting room of the dead, where the patriarchs and the other holy people of the Old Testament era, the pre-Jesus era, are being contained. The idea that Jesus went down there and brought them up to heaven is a common idea even though it&#039;s not explicitly in the Bible. So that&#039;s what when we say the Harrowing of Hell, the word harrowing it&#039;s originally a farming term, like digging, tearing up the earth, but it comes to mean just kind of like, you know, the destruction or the looting, I guess you can think of it that way, of Hell. And yeah, I mean it does pop up in serious places despite not being explicitly canon. Including, Chris, you know, you mentioned the Apostles&#039; Creed is a main place where you see it.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this is where I became familiar with it because as I&#039;ve mentioned before, when I was a teenager, I was baptized Presbyterian. And one of the things that we did in the church I was a member of was we would say the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostles%27_Creed Apostles&#039; Creed] every week. Now you didn&#039;t do this.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No. No, the church I went to, I went to a Southern Baptist church. Creeds were not really a thing.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Let me tell you. Let me tell you, this is not going to go over well in a Southern Baptist church.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Specifically because part of it includes the line, I believe in the Holy Catholic Church.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. But that&#039;s I mean that is lowercase-c Catholic and not Catholic.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sometimes lowercase-c Catholic.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I mean the word Catholic just means universal, right? So because like the H-O-L in there is the same as in the word like holistic, right? So it means whole or everything. So the word Catholic means the universal church, the Church of Everyone.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The Church of Universal Truth.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yes. But yeah, it&#039;s technically a lowercase-c Catholic when you say the Holy Catholic Church and the Communion of Saints and so on.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That was all explained to me in my extremely Protestant confirmation classes.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But if you&#039;re not familiar with it, the Apostles&#039; Creed is used in a variety of churches. I think the version that we had is according to my memory, it&#039;s and according to Wikipedia, it&#039;s the one from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Because we say you know, &amp;quot;I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,Born of the Virgin Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven,And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead,&amp;quot; a phrase that you have probably heard.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The line about He &amp;quot;Was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead&amp;quot; that was another thing that was explained to me in those confirmation classes as the Harrowing of Hell, as Jesus going down to Hell, getting everybody who... It seems like a very complicated process. That heaven exists. Jacob saw it. Isaiah saw it.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Allegedly. But Nobody went there until Jesus came down to get &#039;em. Like he could have just gotten Adam. Could have just gotten Abraham anytime.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But that was, at least in the church that I grew up in, absolutely doctrine.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That was the explanation for that line that we affirmed our belief in literally every week.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And I am always fascinated by the idea of stuff that is definitely apocryphal, but also definitely doctrine.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. That&#039;s the sweet spot for this show, I think. I really like hitting on that stuff where I&#039;m trying to drive home like, this is apocryphal in the sense that it&#039;s not in the canon, but nevertheless people absolutely believe in this thing and or did at least and it has had a major influence on the religion as we know it today. Like that, for me, those moments are the best moments of this show because I like to really show people like the Bible is not just the Bible, right? It&#039;s a bunch of things. It&#039;s a whole like miasma of texts and traditions and that kind of stuff. So yeah, this is a really nice one. And it is a part of the reason why I wanted to cover this book as early as we have, you know, before we&#039;ve even done Exodus, you know.&lt;br /&gt;
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But yeah, so reference to the Harrowing of Hell is also in the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasian_Creed Athanasian Creed], which, that&#039;s a different one. I don&#039;t know the exact quote, but I know it&#039;s in there somewhere. It&#039;s named after Athanasius of Alexandria.&lt;br /&gt;
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But yeah, so let&#039;s talk a little bit here about the Gospel of Nicodemus, which it&#039;s, speaking of, a mishmash of texts, Gospel of Nicodemus is definitely that, because there&#039;s not even like consistent versions, because there&#039;s some other versions with more and more things tacked on to it, right? The text as a whole, probably written around the fourth, the mid-fourth century CE. The title, Gospel of Nicodemus, it picks up in the Middle Ages somewhere. The whole story is very popular, like we were saying, it influenced legends and ideas of the Passion and the Resurrection. Little details from this get picked up later on. And the popularity of it can be proven by the wide variety of languages that it&#039;s available in. That&#039;s always a clue. That&#039;s something– the more copies of it we have extant and the more languages it&#039;s in, a better idea we have of how far and wide it was distributed. And so we have the original of this, which is Greek, in copies there&#039;s Coptic, there&#039;s version, there&#039;s many various Latin versions, which would be the latest ones.&lt;br /&gt;
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But the book is broken up into at least three distinct sections that almost certainly have different authors. You&#039;ve got chapters one through eleven, which is the trial part that&#039;s very heavily based on [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2023&amp;amp;version=NRSVUE Luke chapter 23], which we covered in [[The Dude Hates Wizards | our Luke episode]]. Feel free to jump back and listen to that one. Then you&#039;ve got chapters 12 through 16, which are the bit with the resurrection. And then the part that really got us into it today, the kind of the epilogue, aka the descensus ad infernos, or inferos, the descent to the lower parts, aka the descent into Hell, which is not in the Greek version. You might be able to guess from the Latin title if you can distinguish Latin from Greek. I don&#039;t know. I don&#039;t know who can do that.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I can&#039;t. Still.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, well, descensus ad infernos is definitely Latin, so&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I only know the difference because you have a specific Latin tone of voice that you use.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, sure. That&#039;s fair. Yes, I definitely have spent some time workshopping my Latin accent. But even then some Latin texts add an additional story called the Cura sanitatis Tiberii, which means the cure of Tiberias, which is actually not included in the M.R. James version of this book that we posted online and that Chris read and that I read also. So good news, I&#039;ll be supplementing this episode with the story of the cure of Tiberias at the end. I have a version. It&#039;s not available in a modern English version and I, despite my ability, I did not take the time to translate it myself. I have a different version that is this story, but it&#039;s a later version with some extra details added in. So we&#039;ll get to that.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very upsetting to me that you don&#039;t put any effort into this show.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I know. Don&#039;t think I didn&#039;t consider it. Don&#039;t think I didn&#039;t consider like translating this like five page story from Latin that has no modern English version. But I&#039;m sorry. I&#039;m sorry guys, I didn&#039;t mean to let you down. Anyway, so the early parts, the pre-Harrowing of Hell parts in the book are generally known as the Acta Pilati, the Acts of Pilate, which is, or in Greek that would be the Proxes Pilatu. And that&#039;s a common title for a number of things. In fact, we&#039;ve already on this show featured another bit of text that is also known as the Acts of Pilate, but that are not the same as this. In the [[Various Heresies | Acts of Peter and Paul episode]], in Peter and Paul, there&#039;s a bit where it just out of nowhere, someone&#039;s like, &amp;quot;by the way, I have this letter from Pilate that he wrote to the Emperor Claudius.&amp;quot; And it&#039;s just a short little paragraph wherein Pilate is like, &amp;quot;here&#039;s what happened.&amp;quot; And that&#039;s also called the Acts of Pilate. And in fact, the The M.R. James version of this document affixes that to the end of this one as well. But there&#039;s other versions of writings known by the name Acts of Pilate, which include ones mentioned, but maybe not extant, but mentioned by church fathers such as Justin Martyr, Tertullian... There was apparently a so-called heathen version, that is an anti-Christian version that was distributed during the persecution against Christians during the era of the Emperor Maximin, he would have been one of the last non-Christian emperors described by Eusebius, another important Christian author of the relatively early days. And so there&#039;s a couple of different things known as the Acts of Pilate, which are not the same as this one. And this one, in fact, might have been written intentionally in order to refute that the anti-Christian version of the Acts of Pilate that were being distributed.&lt;br /&gt;
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Otherwise, this one that we have here was written with the purpose of giving Christian audiences, those sweet details about Jesus that they&#039;re just hungry for. It&#039;s like I need to know more about this. Please tell me more. And so we get we get this expanded version. It also is intended to strengthen faith in the resurrection because, like I said, it&#039;s kind of written as almost a forensic investigation where point by point the high priests say, what about this? And then someone whether it&#039;s Nicodemus or Joseph or a couple of zombie boys at the end, they&#039;ll pop up and they say, &amp;quot;hey, no, here&#039;s what really happened.&amp;quot; And so the idea is it&#039;s supposed to strengthen your faith in the resurrection. Also just general edification. It&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Here&#039;s another new version of the most important part of the Jesus story.&amp;quot; And so yeah, so that&#039;s what&#039;s going on. That and you can see why it might be popular, because it does take and expand on an important story and adds some additional zazz to it. And then of course you get Hell at the end.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So The thing is, I found the first half of this book to be incredibly boring.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure. I could see that. Because I mean partly because it is a repeat of stuff we&#039;ve already seen for the most part. There is new stuff and we&#039;ll try and focus on that new stuff and the important bits of that. But yes, it will seem very familiar because it is definitely a story we have read four times before now.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you&#039;re gonna come in here with a gospel, you need to start up with some new stuff. You need to do it Thomas style.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well we&#039;ll see how interested... oh you&#039;re talking about the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;m talking about the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, I was gonna say like I don&#039;t know that you&#039;re necessarily going to find the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas less boring to read, but we&#039;ll see. We&#039;ll see. Yeah, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, sure. Very much of interest in that book, for sure.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, exactly. Like that&#039;s what I&#039;m talking about. I want werewolves. I want Jesus making weird little homunculi. That&#039;s the stuff that I want if you&#039;re gonna come in here with the gospel. New info.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We don&#039;t get anything. We get a lot of new stuff in this one, but we don&#039;t get it till halfway through.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like, there was a moment reading this where I was like, did Benito get the wrong book?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &#039;Cause you were waiting for the Hell stuff, right? And I kept having to tell you I was like, no man, it&#039;s in it&#039;s two parts, you have to get to the second part.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So finally, finally, I got to that second part. But do we know you said this book had likely what three different authors?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; At least, at least.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do we know anything about them?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No. No. And that&#039;s not uncommon, right? It&#039;s actually way less common for us to know anything about the author the way that we probably know something about the author of the Acts of Paul, the fact that we know that he was a priest who got in trouble for writing his Paul fan fiction. Like assuming that information is true, like it&#039;s very unusual for us to know even that much, because usually these things are fully anonymous or pseudonymous or they&#039;re assembled from various texts like this one is and they&#039;re just different, or they&#039;re from oral traditions or whatever and it&#039;s just impossible to have any real information because obviously you&#039;re trying to– if you want your writing to have any legitimacy or any kind of cachet, you want it to seem like it has apostolic authority, right? That&#039;s why books make canon in the New Testament is because they&#039;re believed earnestly to have a connection to an apostle either first or second hand, right? That&#039;s how you end up in the New Testament canon, is because an apostle wrote you or the friend of an apostle wrote you, right? And so if you want your book to be distributed, you&#039;ve got to give it that apostolic feeling, which is why this gets associated with Nicodemus. But yes, this was definitely not written by Nicodemus. This would have been written, you know, mid-fourth century at the earliest.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well that&#039;s another thing, is like Nicodemus there&#039;s nothing in here that implies that Nicodemus wrote it. Like Nicodemus is a character.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; He is a character. It does say, actually, you&#039;re right. The early parts, the framing device says that what is happening here is that this is a translation from Hebrew into Greek of the records of Pontius Pilate. Because it&#039;s supposed to be like these are the court records and they were they were held, you know, in among Pilate&#039;s papers. And that&#039;s what this framing device, which is a probably a later addition, and not every manuscript has this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But so &amp;quot;Ananias, the Protector, of praetorian rank, learned in the law, did from the divine scriptures recognize our Lord Jesus Christ and came near to him by faith and was accounted worthy of holy baptism: and I sought out the memorials that were made at that season in the time of our master Jesus Christ, which the Jews deposited with Pontius Pilate, and found the memorials in Hebrew, and by the good pleasure of God I translated them into Greek for the informing of all them that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ: in the reign of our Lord Flavius Theodosius, in the seventeenth year, and of Flavius Valentinianus the sixth, in the ninth indiction,&amp;quot; the Latin has &amp;quot;the eighteenth year of Theodosius, when Valentinian was proclaimed Augustus.&amp;quot; So that would be that would be 425 AD, so you can see that that frame is definitely a later addition. But there the idea is that these are the actual official records from the trial of Jesus and they were in Hebrew and this is just a Greek translation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But there is a part somewhere that does attribute at least some of this. Ah, here we go. &amp;quot;These be the things which after the cross and passion of the Lord Nicodemus recorded and delivered unto the high priest and the rest of the Jews: and the same Nicodemus set them forth in Hebrew.&amp;quot; So they were the papers of Pilate as written down by Nicodemus. So.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Who is a character in them.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Who is a character. Yes, he is a character. He pops up a couple different times throughout. Yeah, there&#039;s greatly expanded role for him. And for Joseph of Arimathea, both of whom are basically briefly mentioned. Nicodemus, you know, gets the famous scene where he&#039;s secretly studying with Jesus at night. And Joseph of Arimathea is basically only mentioned to say that he gave Jesus his tomb. And so they both get expanded roles here.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean honestly it&#039;s like how The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne was actually written by Alan Brennert.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. That&#039;s weird. Weird how that happened. I feel like they shouldn&#039;t have been able to call it an autobiography then.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Also kind of weird how Nicodemus marries Catwoman. In this story as well.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, but it&#039;s really great. That was it&#039;s Earth 2 Nicodemus though. That&#039;s how that&#039;s how you&#039;re able to get away with it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So yeah, we start with the trial. We&#039;ve got the chief priests, we&#039;ve got the scribes, we got Annas and Caiaphas, who of course we know from Bible. And then we&#039;ve got a bunch of other guys who are not mentioned in Bible as far as I know. &amp;quot;Somne, Dothaim, Gamaliel, Judas, Levi, Nepthalim, Alexander, Jairus, and the rest of the Jews.&amp;quot; Nepthalim, that&#039;s just Naphtali, that&#039;s one of the twelve sons of Israel and as is Levi of course. Judas is like the John, well, no, John is the John of this time, but Judas is a very common name that everybody has. So yeah, a lot of these would be repeat names for sure.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
They come to Pilate and they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;hey man, this guy sucks. Can we do something about that?&amp;quot; And Pilate&#039;s like, &amp;quot;who is he? What is he doing?&amp;quot; You know this, it&#039;s not anything new here, right? Their their main charge is that he heals somebody on the Sabbath. And of course that, you know, that&#039;s against the law, but to try and make it to try to sell it to Pilate, they&#039;re focusing on the seditious aspect of it, right? He says he&#039;s the king and whatever. &amp;quot;What evil deeds does he do?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;He is a sorcerer, and by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils, he casteth out devils, and they&#039;re all subject unto him.&amp;quot; And Pilate&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Hmm, that&#039;s what Asclepius does,&amp;quot; Asclepius being the Greco-Roman god of healing.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Okay, so here&#039;s the first bit that we really get. He&#039;s like, alright. The first new bit, and they say, &amp;quot;Go ahead and bring Jesus in.&amp;quot; And so they send out a messenger. And when he sees Jesus, he worships him, the messenger, and he takes out his handkerchief. And he lays it on the ground for Jesus to walk on, so Jesus doesn&#039;t walk on the ground. And the Jews are like, &amp;quot;what are you doing?&amp;quot; And Pilate&#039;s like, &amp;quot;What is this? You&#039;re embarrassing me. Like the whole point is that this guy is getting charged for falsely claiming to be a king and here you are, you&#039;re laying your handkerchief on the ground for walk on it like he is a king. What are you doing?&amp;quot; And and the messenger&#039;s like, &amp;quot;I&#039;m just doing what I saw people do. Like, I got sent out to Jerusalem and I was there and I saw Jesus on the donkey and everybody there was laying down the palm branches for him to walk on and they&#039;re all shouting Hosanna and all of this stuff.&amp;quot; So he was there on Palm Sunday is the idea. And so he&#039;s just replicating what he saw.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And it&#039;s got a bit where he actually gives the Hebrew and then he&#039;s like, What does that mean in Greek? And then they translate it. So wasn&#039;t wasn&#039;t expecting that. And yet there are a couple of parts where they actually bust out some Hebrew which feels surprising to me for something from as relatively late a date as this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And so we got that first bit with the messenger showing reverence to Jesus as if he&#039;s a king. But then we get the first actual like miraculous thing when Jesus actually comes in. Jesus comes in and there&#039;s there&#039;re ensigns, they&#039;re called, but these would be the standard bearers, the guys who hold the pole and at the top of the pole would be the standards which would include carvings, images, could be of people, usually an eagle among the Romans, but these are signs of power, especially military power. Like the standard bearer&#039;s job is to help rally people during battle, right? You always look to the standard. You would know where your group is, where your legion is, but as long as the standard&#039;s moving forward, you know to keep moving forward and so on. So there&#039;s gonna be these guys standing around the court of Pilate holding these standards that are going to have carved busts on the top of them. And when Jesus enters in, all of the busts bow in front of Jesus.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s right, it&#039;s a new miracle everybody.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, a new miracle. Jot it down in your miracle logs that I assume you&#039;re all keeping. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exclusive.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. It&#039;s a Nicodemus exclusive miracle. None of those other guys have this one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which also, this is the fanfic part of it, right? Because Pilate sees a miracle. Pilate sees inanimate objects come to life and begin worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. Well, but the thing is, at first he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Why&#039;d you guys do that? Why&#039;d you guys dip your standards down to Jesus? Like that&#039;s not cool. That&#039;s not what&#039;s happening here right now. Like first the messenger and now this.&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;no man, we didn&#039;t do this. We&#039;re Greeks? Why would we show reverence to him?&amp;quot; And so he was like, &amp;quot;Let&#039;s go get some new standard bears, please. Can we get some that are stronger than these guys who are obviously so weak they just drooped? Drooped their standards.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I actually really did like this because Pilate goes, &amp;quot;Hey, you guys did it wrong.&amp;quot; Pilate is very skeptical of this miracle. He&#039;s like, &amp;quot;hey, you guys did it wrong. I&#039;m gonna get some new dudes who can actually do their jobs. By the way. If Jesus walks by and these dudes in the standards do not bow, I&#039;m going to have you all executed.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is a pretty... he runs a tight ship, does old Pontius Pilate.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;I have sworn by the safety of Caesar that if the standards bow not when Jesus entereth in, I will cut off your heads.&amp;quot; And so, but of course, even with these new burliest possible standard bears, they do bow again and the messenger puts his handkerchief down again, so it&#039;s not a great look for either Pilate or the high priest in this case.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Then in the next bit we get a repeat of Pilate&#039;s wife, who is mentioned briefly in the Gospels as having premonitions in her dreams about Jesus that he&#039;s innocent, and we get we get a repetition of that. Although we get the added detail where Pilate says, &amp;quot;You know that my wife feareth God and favoreth rather the customs of the Jews?&amp;quot; So that&#039;s interesting, because it almost seems to– it doesn&#039;t quite say that she&#039;s Jewish, but that she&#039;s very–&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; She&#039;s into it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; She&#039;s into it. She&#039;s very into it. And so of course, you know, we&#039;ve talked about before, Pilate&#039;s wife, who later in other works gets the name Procula, is venerated as a saint in some churches. And part of it is because she tries to talk Pilate out of prosecuting Jesus because she has these dreams and she believes that he&#039;s innocent, right? And so, but of course, you know, the priests reply, &amp;quot;Didn&#039;t we say he&#039;s an evil wizard? Who sends people evil dreams? Obviously wizards.&amp;quot; And so, &amp;quot;behold, he hath sent a vision of a dream unto thy wife.&amp;quot; But yeah, and then we get, you know, some questioning of Jesus a little bit like we&#039;ve seen in Luke.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Then we&#039;ve got a new added charge, the specific charge, to try to disprove that Jesus was born of virgin birth, they have the charge that he came of fornication, which in this case, nearly positive they just mean he was born out of wedlock is the idea. And so to counter that charge, there are 12 witnesses who are there to say he couldn&#039;t have been born out of wedlock. Mary was married to Joseph when Jesus was born. Which almost seems counterproductive to the point if you&#039;re trying to prove that he&#039;s God, but I guess in this case they&#039;re really just trying to pr disprove this particular criminal charge. And the priests try to say, &amp;quot;we can&#039;t listen to these witnesses because they&#039;re converts and we don&#039;t listen to converts.&amp;quot; Pilate was like, &amp;quot;what do you mean converts?&amp;quot; He&#039;s like, &amp;quot;they&#039;re Greeks. And now they&#039;re Jewish. And so we don&#039;t like them. Don&#039;t care.&amp;quot; So we get all these names. We get these twelve guys. Lazarus, Asterius, Antonius, Jacob, Amnes, Zenas, Samuel, Isaac, Phineas, Crispus, Agrippa, and Judas. Are these supposed to be anybody else from any other story? Who knows? These are again very common names all of them. So and they say, &amp;quot;no, we&#039;re not converts. We were born Jewish and we definitely were there when we saw Joseph and Mary get engaged and then married, so no.&amp;quot; And Pilate was like, &amp;quot;look, we got twelve witnesses. Let them swear.&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;no, we don&#039;t swear. That&#039;s against the Jewish law to swear. But we you know, pinky promise.&amp;quot; So that&#039;s an added bit with these witnesses.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;no, still please put him unto death.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;And Pilate commanded the whole multitude to go out, saving the twelve men, which said he was not born of [fornification... fornic.. fornification...] fornication. And he commanded Jesus to be set apart. Pilate saith unto them, For what cause do they desire to put him to death?&amp;quot; And the twelve guys on Jesus&#039; side, they say, &amp;quot;They have jealousy because he healeth on the Sabbath day.&amp;quot; There probably not jealousy as in like they&#039;re so jealous of what he... not envy, but rather they have ill will toward him because of him healing on the Sabbath day. &amp;quot;Pilate saith, &#039;For a good work, do they desire to put him to death?&#039;&amp;quot; And they say, &amp;quot;Yay, yeah.&amp;quot; So again, not a good look, not a good look for Annas and Caiaphas and the others. And we get Pilate affirming that what Jesus did was good, actually. And so he comes out, he swears before the sun that he finds no fault in him. And you know more stuff from the trial that we&#039;ve seen before.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I feel like if you don&#039;t know how this ends... I mean there&#039;s, you know, you can go back to our episodes, you can, you know the Bible is always a good place to look. You could just like exist in Western civilization and probably figure out where this one&#039;s going.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So we do eventually get Nicodemus. He does pop up. Chapter five. He&#039;s finally here.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I do want to say, it is incredibly wild to me that there is no moment of Pilate going &amp;quot;Hey, I did see this guy perform an actual factual miracle. I did see inanimate objects come to life. Are you sure you want Barabbas?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &#039;Cause statues came alive.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure. Although, you know, of course, if the charge is that he&#039;s an evil wizard, then that doesn&#039;t necessarily you know, doesn&#039;t necessarily acquit him of that particular charge.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well as we all know, being an evil wizard is not illegal in ancient Rome, because Simon Magus was just doing all kinds of evil wizard stuff.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Obviously in at least one of those versions, the Emperor was on his side.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, chapter five we get Nicodemus come in to testify. He gives you know examples of Moses and his famous wizard battle against Jannes and Jambres, who are... those are the apocryphal, traditional names given to the wizards of Pharaoh. So he talks about that wizard battle, and they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;yeah, of course you&#039;re defending Jesus because you&#039;re his disciple.&amp;quot; And Nicodemus is like, &amp;quot;yeah, but is Pilate also his disciple? Because Pilate just said he was innocent,&amp;quot; which: pretty good dunk.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Also, I love that Nicodemus&#039;s strategy here is &amp;quot;Maybe Jesus is a wizard, but as we all know, wizard battles are super dope.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Pretty much. Okay, here&#039;s one here&#039;s one of my favorite lines. Yeah, &amp;quot;the Jews say unto Nicodemus, &#039;Thou dost become his disciple and thou speakest on his behalf.&#039; Nicodemus saith unto them, &#039;Is the governor also become his disciple that he speaketh on his behalf? Did not Caesar appoint him unto this dignity?&#039; And the Jews were raging and gnashing their teeth against Nicodemus. Pilate saith unto them, &#039;Wherefore gnash ye your teeth against him, whereas you have heard the truth?&#039;&amp;quot; So I what I need is for one of our very good listeners who like to do some Photoshops for us, Lucas Brown, Dave Lartigue, one of you guys. Or someone else, I don&#039;t care. Someone please take that Hannibal Burris meme. Where he&#039;s saying, &amp;quot;why are you booing me? I&#039;m right.&amp;quot; And I need you to change it so that it says, &amp;quot;wherefore gnash ye your teeth against me, whereas you have heard the truth.&amp;quot; Someone please make that happen because I need it. I laughed very much when I read that line because I was like, it sounds so familiar. It&#039;s so familiar.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; t&#039;s very good.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Then we get some witnesses, greatest hits, Jesus&#039; greatest hits, we get the guy who was paralyzed that Jesus raised from his mat, of course. If I recall correctly, he&#039;s the one that was healed on the Sabbath, and so he&#039;s the one he&#039;s getting charged against. Then we get a certain woman named Bernice or Berinique, Veronique, in Latin Veronica. Which is a name that this is another example of something from an apocryphal work that becomes part of real religion. The Veronica story is a major deal.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I had this one when I was a kid, because basically her deal is that Jesus took her and Betty out on a date on the same night.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And they all shared a milkshake. The name Veronica, yeah, even like one of the stations of the cross has to do with Veronica. This is one of the earliest mentions of her name. Here she&#039;s associated with the woman who had the bleeding disease that was healed by touching the hem of Jesus&#039; garment.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you don&#039;t recall, this was a woman who bled for twelve years.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; She was never not on her period, basically, for twelve years.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No. No.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I mean that&#039;s what it was. That&#039;s not a joke, Chris. That&#039;s what it was.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is that what it was?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. That&#039;s what it was.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I thought it was just like a wound.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, it was no it was menstrual bleeding.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh. Alright then.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That was not a goof.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Bible&#039;s wild.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, Bible&#039;s wild. But anyway, here she gets the name Veronica, which Which yeah, you can see comes from the Greek name Berenike, which it&#039;s actually a Macedonian name, I guess. It means the bearer of Nike, victory. And so that form Berenike becomes Beronike, which in Latin becomes Veronica, and that&#039;s where that name comes from. Although there&#039;s going to be more with the development of the character of Veronica because the station of the cross, does not have to do with the fact that she&#039;s the woman with the bleeding disease, but rather famously that she saw Jesus carrying his cross on the way to Skull Mountain and she handed him her handkerchief and he wiped his face and when she took it away it had his face still on it like a perfect image of Jesus&#039; face kind of like the shroud of Turin but a handkerchief. And so there is more of that we&#039;ll get back to at the end of the episode. There comes to be a folk etymology of the name Veronica, that it comes from the Latin words vera icon, which would mean a true icon, a true image of the face of Christ and that vera icon becomes Veronica, but it&#039;s it&#039;s from this Greek name that means bearer of victory. But anyway, so we get her name here, and this is just the first of several names that originate in this particular work.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Let&#039;s see. More defense of Jesus, including raising up Lazarus, Nicodemus and the twelve men. Called upon again. Then we get the Barabbas bit, just like in the Gospels, and they say, &amp;quot;Give us Barabbas,&amp;quot; and he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;I&#039;m giving you this out here.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;And Pilate was wroth and said unto the Jews, Your nation is always seditious, and you rebel against your benefactors.&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;what benefactors are you talking about?&amp;quot; And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Look, I&#039;m not Jewish, but as far as I know, God brought you guys out of slavery in Egypt, and then you repaid him by making a golden calf that you worshipped,&amp;quot; and they were like, &amp;quot;Hmm, yeah,&amp;quot; and he&#039;s saying, &amp;quot;and now you&#039;re saying I hate Caesar, so I don&#039;t care about what you&#039;re saying,&amp;quot; basically. And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;we know our king, it&#039;s Caesar, not Jesus.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And so... ah, then we get, here&#039;s two new names that we get in this one that we&#039;ve talked about on this show before, Dismas and Gestas, the thieves, the penitent thief and the impenitent thief who were crucified by Jesus&#039; side. Dismas we&#039;ve talked about, he becomes Saint Dismas or Saint Demas or Sandemas. And Gestas of course is not a saint. Dismas is gonna keep appearing in this one a couple times. He&#039;s gonna pop up as a little surprise later. Yeah, he&#039;s the penitent thief. He&#039;s the reason why on like an Orthodox cross, you&#039;ve got where the foot... on the cross beam down at the bottom where Jesus&#039; feet would be, that&#039;s tilted. It&#039;s tilted up towards where Dismas would have been and tilted down towards Gestus where Gestus would have been. Yeah, so Jesus goes forth from the judgment hall, the two malefactors with him. Stripped of his garments, you know, resurrection – or passion stuff, I should say. And then we get we get Dismas saying, &amp;quot;Lord, I&#039;ll be with you in your kingdom.&amp;quot; And Jesus is like, &amp;quot;Yeah man, I&#039;m going to heaven and I&#039;m going to take you with me.&amp;quot; What he doesn&#039;t tell him is like, &amp;quot;we have to make a pit stop along the way. But I&#039;m definitely taking you with me to heaven.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Look, there&#039;s just... wait for me there. I was about to say there&#039;s gonna be a guy named St. Peter there, but he will not be there yet. He will not be there for another 30 or so years.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then here in chapter 11 we get Joseph of Arimathea being a counselor of the city of Arimathea, which by the way isn&#039;t. That&#039;s a Robin Hood real city, we will say. Nobody knows where Arimathea is. It&#039;s supposed to be in Judea somewhere, but it&#039;s like nobody knows where that is. People of course have their own personal identifications of where it might be, but there&#039;s no solid location for Arimathea. Anyway, so he&#039;s like, yeah. He can have my tomb, nobody&#039;s been buried in that. So they took his body down, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, laid it in a hewn sepulchre wherein was never a man yet laid.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
What happens is when the priests find out that Joseph has taken Jesus&#039; body, they have him put on house arrest. They&#039;re like, just to make sure that he doesn&#039;t do anything with the body, right? So &amp;quot;they took hold on Joseph and commanded him to be put in safeguard until the first day of the week.&amp;quot; But yeah, there&#039;s not much else they can do because obviously the Sabbath is coming. And so they put him in his house and they put guards around the house. The house is locked up and the doors are sealed. And then what happens is they go back to find him and he&#039;s not there, and all the doors are still locked. And Joseph has disappeared. When the council was set, they commanded him to be brought with great dishonor because they were gonna charge him as well. But &amp;quot;and when they opened the door they found him not, and all the people were beside themselves and amazed, because they found the seals closed, and Caiaphas had the key, and they durst not any more lay hands upon them that had spoken on the behalf of Jesus before Pilate.&amp;quot; So that&#039;s why the other 12 witnesses don&#039;t get charged because they&#039;re so creeped out by this miraculous disappearance of Joseph of Arimathea from inside his own locked house.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So then they go talk to the guards who were at the tomb and they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;what happened here?&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;yeah, an angel came down and rolled the stone away and took the body,&amp;quot; and they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;let&#039;s not say that. Here&#039;s a lot of money. Say literally anything else. Actually, and then to me the funny part is they bribed the guards into saying that the disciples came and stole Jesus&#039; body. And then they spread the rumor, the priests spread the rumor that the disciples bribed the guards into saying that Jesus was resurrected.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Then here in chapter 14, we get a couple of new witnesses, Phinees and Addas and Aggaeus, and they basically come as witnesses to the Great Commission and the Ascension. We know what happens. Jesus says, &amp;quot;go forth and do all these cool things,&amp;quot; and then he disappears into heaven, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; The priests are not convinced by that, but then you know Nicodemus is like &amp;quot;Hey, this kind of thing has happened before.&amp;quot; It happened with here in this text it says Elias and Eliseus, but this is that&#039;s Elijah and Elisha. So Elijah, of course, we know was taken up into heaven in the chariot of fire. [Obvious humming] Anyway, so yeah, he&#039;s he&#039;s saying there is precedent for someone being taken straight up into heaven.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. It&#039;s happened before.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s happened. It&#039;s happened. They go looking for Jesus, they don&#039;t find him. Someone eventually says, &amp;quot;I found Joseph though.&amp;quot; Joseph of Arimathea, found that guy who&#039;d been missing for a while. And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;okay, we have to figure out what happened. Please send him a very nice letter and convince him to come here and that we&#039;re not mad at him or whatever.&amp;quot; And he does come and he explains basically that what happened was &amp;quot;on the preparation day,&amp;quot; so that&#039;s Friday, &amp;quot;about the tenth hour, you did shut me up, and I continued there the whole Sabbath. And at midnight, as I stood and prayed, The house wherein you shut me up was taken up by the four corners. And I saw as it were a flashing of light in mine eyes, and being filled with fear I fell to the earth.&amp;quot; Anyway, the ghost of Jesus shows up to him and is like, &amp;quot;Hey man, I&#039;m good.&amp;quot; And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Are you Elijah?&amp;quot; And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;I&#039;m not Elijah. It&#039;s me, Jesus. We&#039;re friends.&amp;quot; And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Cool, cool, cool, cool.&amp;quot; And then Jesus eventually puts him back in the house, but by that point, everyone had looked inside the house and he was gone. And they&#039;re all freaked out. And Jesus told him to stay in his house for 40 days. And of course, 40 days until the ascension. So now Jesus has ascended. Now Joseph is free to come out of his house.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We know that it&#039;s not an evil spirit, too. In case you were wondering if it was like an evil spirit, it&#039;s not.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And we know this because, as we all know, if you are ever confronted by an evil spirit, you just gotta quote the Ten Commandments at it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s so true. It&#039;s so true. It&#039;s a very handy thing to have in your back pocket.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this is dropped on us, in a very casual way that I love. &amp;quot;I looked up and saw Jesus and I trembled and supposed that it was a spirit. And I said the commandments, and he said them with me. And as ye are not ignorant, that a spirit, if it meet any man and hear the commandments, straight away fleeth.&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Clearly not an evil spirit.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Established.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know how it goes. That does remind me, and I think I&#039;ve told you this story before because I think I wrote it up for Comics Alliance years and years ago. When I was a kid, and I&#039;ve talked about on this show, I used to spend almost every day at a church that I was convinced was haunted. If I thought that a church ghost was coming after me, I could repel them by closing my eyes and singing the song &amp;quot;My God is an Awesome God.&amp;quot; And that was my ghost repellent.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I have a lot of questions about this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; First of all.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Why would you be afraid of a church ghost? Would they not be good ghosts?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I don&#039;t know that they were. They seemed bad to me. Especially one that I saw a particular time that I wrote about in the story. It looked like a large orangutan being experimented on that I saw through the window of a like a back building on the church grounds and I didn&#039;t want anything to do with that. Also like disembodied shadows. I don&#039;t want any part of those things. I didn&#039;t need it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Alright, well that&#039;s that&#039;s fair, I guess.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Church ghost, that&#039;s spooky!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is spooky.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;re finally getting some spooky stuff in here.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s definitely spookier than this piece-by-piece investigation of the Ascension of Christ.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Can we can we talk about the descent of Christ?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we can get there. Okay, so yeah, when we get if we if we skip this, there&#039;s just a lot of questions here. Nothing is really new, right? We again also see Enoch brought up as a defense of the idea of the ascension of someone directly into heaven.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Let&#039;s see, here&#039;s the end of the first part. &amp;quot;And the people sang a hymn unto the Lord and said, &#039;Blessed be the Lord who hath given rest unto the people of Israel according to all that he spake. There hath not one word fallen to the ground of all his good saying which he spake unto his servant Moses. The Lord our God be with us as he was with our fathers, let him not forsake us, and let him not destroy us from turning our heart unto him. From walking in all his ways, and keeping his statutes and his judgments, which he commanded our fathers. And the Lord shall be king over all the earth in that day, and it shall be one Lord, and his name one, even the Lord our King, he shall save us. There is none like unto thee,&#039;&amp;quot; etc. So yeah, everyone&#039;s glorifying God at the end, which happens a lot.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Oh there is the interesting bit where the priests are totally freaking out and they say, &amp;quot;If his memorial endure until the Jubilee, I know that he&#039;ll prevail forever and raise up for himself a new people.&amp;quot; So a Jubilee: the idea was, just like there&#039;s a Sabbath within the week, there&#039;d also be a Sabbath year. Every seventh year you don&#039;t farm, you don&#039;t tend your fields basically. And so at the end of seven of seven, so after 49 years, seven Sabbath years, on the 50th year, that&#039;s a Jubilee. And that&#039;s a big deal. And so basically saying, if this if the reputation of Jesus lasts for fifty years, it&#039;s never going away. People are gonna know Jesus forever. And I guess that was true, which I guess is easy to say from the perspective of you know 350 CE or whatever. So anyway, that&#039;s the end of part one. The priests are basically defeated. Everyone&#039;s worshiping God.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But part two says, what if there&#039;s more proof though? What if we had some more proof of the divinity of Jesus? And so what we get here in part two is a descent into Hell. &amp;quot;Joseph arose, said unto Annas and Caiaphas, Simeon,&amp;quot; who, we skipped him earlier. Simeon from the Gospels again. I mean, we talked about him during the Gospels, but Simeon who was at the temple and who when he saw the baby Jesus, he was like &amp;quot;Truly, this is the one we&#039;ve been waiting for. Now I can finally die,&amp;quot; right? He&#039;s brought up earlier in part of the defense. That&#039;s not super important, but here we find out that Simeon had two sons who apparently died before he did or I guess it could have been it could have been after, I guess, but they were two of the Eastertime zombies. They were two of the people who rose from their graves on Good Friday. And their names are Leucius and Karinus, which is weird because Leucius Karinus, you might recall from our previous episode, was the name attributed to the authorship of many of the Acts of the Apostles. And so it&#039;s a little bit weird to take the name of like a popular author that would have definitely been known in the Middle Ages, and then turn it into the name of two of your characters. So it&#039;s a little bit like, &amp;quot;yes, and then Stephen and King showed up and came to give hard evidence for the divinity of Christ.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But the idea is that these two brothers, they&#039;re separated to go write down their testimonies of What happened? And so they go into separate rooms. &amp;quot;Karinus and Leucius had heard this adjuration. They trembled in their body and groaned being troubled in heart, and looking up together into heaven, they made the seal of the cross with their fingers upon their tongues, and forthwith they spake both of them, saying, &#039;Give us each a volume of paper, and let us write that which we have seen and heard.&#039; And they gave them unto them, And each of them sat down and wrote.&amp;quot; And so here we get finally the ascent into Hell, which comes from the testimonies of Leucius and Karinus. And yeah, so basically the idea is following the crucifixion, Jesus is going to head down into Hell or limbo or Hades, I&#039;m sure it&#039;s probably Hades if I had to guess in the original Greek. Which is part of the reason why it&#039;s so easy to anthropomorphosize Hell as a speaking character, if you already think of Hades as the god of the underworld. Hades is the word that&#039;s used in the Greek New Testament to refer to Sheol, the grave, and which is also occasionally personified. But from the perspective of Leucius and Karinus we also see John the Baptist come down first. We see his ghost coming down and this gives great hope.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Before we even get into that, there&#039;s an intro bit that I am quite a fan of.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Hey. You guys know how Jesus came back from the dead. And that&#039;s super impressive. But you know what&#039;s really impressive? Was that he did all this other stuff that you didn&#039;t even know about before now.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And I like this because I feel like resurrecting from the dead is a fairly impressive feat?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s a pretty good one. I cannot say many people have done it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So for this one to be like, &amp;quot;Hey, coming back from the dead, uh-uh, this is the real stuff,&amp;quot; that&#039;s bold.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; For sure. And we definitely are gonna get names that we recognize within this, even though in this edition they may be in forms that are not the familiar forms. So for example we get Esaias, which If you guys recall, that&#039;s the Greek form of Isaiah. So we get Isaiah as a character here. It&#039;s interesting who gets mentioned and who doesn&#039;t, right? There&#039;s a lot of Adam. There&#039;s Seth, there&#039;s Isaiah, and then we get some of the minor prophets later on.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s pretty weird to get Seth.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, it&#039;s not that weird, and I&#039;ll tell you why, because what happens is when they talk about John the Baptist being killed, and John comes down, and he tells them what&#039;s going on, he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Hey, I saw the Lamb of God, I saw the dove descend upon him. I heard a voice of heaven saying, This is my beloved son, and so on.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;When father Adam that was first created heard this, even that Jesus was baptized in Jordan, he cried out to Seth his son, saying: Declare unto thy sons the patriarchs and the prophets all that thou didst hear from Michael the archangel, when I sent thee unto the gates of paradise that thou mightest entreat God to send thee his angel,&amp;quot; and so on. This is a reference to another popular and yet fully apocryphal story about Adam that comes to us from a book called The Life of Adam and Eve, also known as The Apocalypse of Moses. And that was a book that we almost covered last week when we decided to do Judith instead. And we&#039;ll still get it at some point because it&#039;s interesting. But in this version of the story, after Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, there&#039;s a story where Adam is dying or something, and Seth and Eve go to the garden to get some oil from the Tree of Mercy, as it&#039;s called here, which would be the tree of life. And Seth encounters the archangel Michael. And he says, &amp;quot;I&#039;m not going to give you this oil, but I&#039;ll give it to you at the end of time when all flesh will be raised up,&amp;quot;&amp;quot; and so on. And that&#039;s what&#039;s being referred to here.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And it specifically talks about 5,500 years later. And we don&#039;t get it here, but later at the end of this, we get a full like mathematical accounting showing that like it&#039;s 5,500 years from the creation of the earth until the life of Jesus, basically, which, that does not add up if this is the year 5779. Although it is currently supposed to be 5779 years since the creation of Earth. So that math doesn&#039;t come together there. So I don&#039;t know. I don&#039;t know who&#039;s wrong. It&#039;s somebody. Somebody&#039;s math is wrong.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But anyway, yeah, all the patriarchs hear these things because it&#039;s like, oh, it&#039;s that year. It&#039;s time. It&#039;s time. Here comes Jesus. And so they&#039;re very excited. Saints were rejoicing, then we get Satan. Finally, finally, here we are, chapter twenty. Prince and chief of death. And here he is, he&#039;s having some arguments with Hell. And here&#039;s an interesting thing to recognize is that at this point in the story, Satan doesn&#039;t live in Hell. He&#039;s just chatting with him.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this is I guess this is like after seasons of Mist.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, he&#039;s gone up to be a lounge singer Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Uh-huh.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But no, so the idea is that Satan has not yet been cast into the pit of fire, right? And so he&#039;s I guess still roaming the earth, but he does talk to Hell, or the grave or you know, limbo, however you guys want to think about this, some realm of the dead.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The way that I imagined it&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Was it&#039;s all of the satans voice.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s all the demons. It&#039;s Beelzebub and all them just dunking on him.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like, &amp;quot;Hey idiot, you let Jesus come here.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, because yeah, because Hell is not on board with this plan. Satan&#039;s like, &amp;quot;yo, get ready, here comes Jesus,&amp;quot; and they&#039;re like, why? Yeah, why would you do this?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And an interesting thing about this is that the idea of Hell being a place for sinners is not yet there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is this is early in the development or dev-hell-opment of Hell.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Dev-hell-opment, yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Dev-hell-opment. It&#039;s just a place for the dead. And so there&#039;s this idea of Satan being like, &amp;quot;yeah, of course Jesus is here. He was just a dude, which means he&#039;s afraid of death, which means he dies. So where else is he gonna go?&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;you idiot, he&#039;s he&#039;s alive.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We do get the distinction here. Satan is called the prince of Tartarus, right? Which for the Greeks, Tartarus would have specifically been the portion of the underworld where the evil were punished. Right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The bad place.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s the bad place. Yeah, Tartarus is the bad place for sure. That&#039;s where Sisyphus is, that&#039;s where Tantalus is, all the famous dead people and their ironic, Rod Serling-esque punishments are all in Tartarus.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You&#039;ve seen it on Xena.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we all have. We all have. And he&#039;s like, no, man, look, &amp;quot;Why doubtest thou and fearest to receive this Jesus which is thine adversary and mine? For I tempted him, and have stirred up mine ancient people of the Jews.&amp;quot; Rough. That&#039;s real rough. I hate that, and I&#039;m sorry I said that out loud.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s pretty bad.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is so weird how next level anti-Semitic things get.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Let&#039;s move on. &amp;quot;I have sharpened a spear to thrust him through, gall and vinegar have I mingled to give him to drink, and I have prepared a cross to crucify him and nails to pierce him: and his death is nigh at hand, that I may bring him unto thee to be subject unto thee and me.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;You brought a cross? And What were you thinking? &amp;quot;It&#039;s Satan continually being like, &amp;quot;No no guys, it&#039;s totally cool. I brought a cross. He doesn&#039;t like those. It&#039;s like we&#039;re just gonna nail him up.&amp;quot;&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;Oh, Satan, have you never heard of symbolism? You you idiot. You absolute jabroni.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And Hell&#039;s also like, &amp;quot;Isn&#039;t this the guy that has already resurrected the dead? Like Lazarus, for example, like this guy has already taken the dead out of me. So what are you doing?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;And as Satan the prince, and Hell, spoke this together, suddenly there came a voice as of thunder and a spiritual cry: Remove, O princes, your gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.&amp;quot; Yeah, and so Hell is like, &amp;quot;just get out of here, man. Get out of here. If you&#039;re a mighty man of war, go fight the King of glory.&amp;quot; That is. God, aka Jesus here. And so Hell kicks Satan out. Get out of here. You&#039;ve ruined it. It&#039;s all ruined. But Hell says to his wicked ministers, &amp;quot;Shut hard the gates of brass and put on them the bars of iron and withstand stoutly.&amp;quot; That doesn&#039;t work, it turns out, Jesus is stronger than some gates. Because basically all the saints hear it and they just start shouting. They&#039;re like, &amp;quot;open the gates, open the gates, open the gates,&amp;quot;&amp;quot; until he&#039;s finally like, &amp;quot;open the gates.&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; He&#039;s like the opposite of Marc Maron.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yes. Exactly, very good. And so Isaiah standing there, like, &amp;quot;didn&#039;t I tell you? Didn&#039;t I tell you the dead shall arise, and they that are in tomb shall rise again, and they that are in the earth shall rejoice. For the dew which cometh of the Lord is their healing. And again, I also said, O death, where is thy sting? O Hell, where is thy victory? Remember? Remember when I said those things? It&#039;s coming true. It&#039;s happening. It&#039;s me, Isaiah, the fifth evangelist.&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep, pretty much.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah, they&#039;re all shouting, open the gates, and God&#039;s voice comes and says, &amp;quot;Open the gates, please.&amp;quot; And so he opens the gates. He&#039;s gotta do it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which it turns out that was the password.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah the password.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Remember we talked about the password in Isaiah and the Ascension of Isaiah? It was just &amp;quot;please.&amp;quot; It&#039;s the magic word, everybody.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, but you have to be God when you say it. That&#039;s the trick.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, no, that&#039;s the thing. You don&#039;t have to be God. You just have to be polite.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Definitely refer to the princes of Hell as princes. That helps. Give them their proper respect. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s never the wrong time to say please. That&#039;s all.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s true. It is a magical word. They open the gates and David, we get David here, and so he gets a mention. So we&#039;ve got Isaiah has gotten several mentions, Adam, Seth, David so far. And yeah, &amp;quot;Hell and death and their wicked ministers saw the Lord of Majesty appearing in his form. They and their cruel officers, at the sight of the brightness of so great light in their own realm, seeing Christ of a sudden in their abode, they cried out, saying, We&#039;re overcome by thee.&amp;quot; And here&#039;s the bit that I really liked. This was some of my favorite language here, their confusion here. &amp;quot;Who art thou that art sent by the Lord for our confusion? Who art thou that without all damage of corruption, and with the signs of thy majesty unblemished, dust and wrath condemn our power? Who art thou that art so great and so small, both humble and exalted, both soldier and commander, a marvelous warrior in the shape of a bondsman, and a king of glory, dead and living, whom the cross bears slain upon it?&amp;quot; Like I really like that bit. I just like the balance of the antithesis there. It&#039;s like both so great and so small, which is, I mean, that&#039;s the thing. That&#039;s the imagery of Jesus, right? He&#039;s a king born a slave, basically, right? So&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; He drinks from a cup of a carpenter.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not some gilded chalice. Yeah, so I just like that bit. I thought that was well well constructed.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s quite good.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so a lot of questions there. &amp;quot;The King of Glory and His Majesty trampled upon death and laid hold on Satan the prince and delivered him unto the power of Hell.&amp;quot; So  there it is. There we get Satan getting cast into Hell there, which doesn&#039;t quite line up with Revelation, which also sees him being cast into the pit of fire. But I don&#039;t know time is a flat circle or something, so who knows? But now finally we get Jesus, he draws Adam to him unto his own brightness. &amp;quot;Hell receives Satan, with sore reproach says unto him, O Prince of Perdition and Chief of Destruction, Beelzebub, the scorn of the angels and spitting of the righteous, why did you do this?&amp;quot; You worked right into his own into his own hands. You played yourself.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You absolute dunce You complete idiot.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this is what he wanted. This is what he wanted, because now he&#039;s here and he&#039;s gonna free all these people.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And oh, and that cross? And that cross that you brought? Jesus is just gonna be like, &amp;quot;yeah, I&#039;m just gonna put this up right over here. Just gonna put this up. Cause this is mine now. This is mine now.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;I have it. It&#039;s Jesus&#039;s.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep. And so and so yeah, with Satan in Hell, truly and forever dunked on, now Jesus is summoning the righteous one. &amp;quot;So he stretches forth his hand. Come forth, all ye saints.&amp;quot; Yeah, &amp;quot;Ye that by the tree and the devil and death were condemned. Behold now the devil and death condemned by the tree.&amp;quot; Oh that&#039;s that&#039;s very nice. I like that the parallel there the tree of knowledge of good and evil that condemned them and now they&#039;re saved by the tree that is the cross. So very nice parallel imagery there again.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Both of which were gonna be Swamp Thing if Rick Veitch hadn&#039;t left DC.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s true. &amp;quot;He stretched forth his hand, made the sign of the cross over Adam, over all the saints.&amp;quot; Who else do we get here? Habakkuk.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like out of all the out of all the prophets, we get Habakkuk, we get Micah, who&#039;s called Micheas here, but that&#039;s Micah. So those are definitely guys that are fully listed among the minor prophets by Jewish and Christian reckoning.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. You might not even remember. We have seen Habakkuk before.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s true.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you don&#039;t recall, Habakkuk was the one who made that good stew for Daniel.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Mm-hmm.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The one who had angels show up and be like, hey, I&#039;m gonna need that stew. That is no longer your dinner. That is Daniel&#039;s dinner.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So he gets he gets another mention on this show. We&#039;ve now on this show had Habakkuk on twice and Moses zero times.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we don&#039;t get Moses. We don&#039;t get Daniel. We get the guy who made the stew. We don&#039;t get Daniel. Right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I don&#039;t know. I mean that&#039;s about it, right? So we&#039;ve seen Adam, Seth, David, Isaiah gets the most lines, I think. Habakkuk, Micah. And like that&#039;s it for now. Because we&#039;re about to get a couple more.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s like Jesus has a van And so he&#039;s gotta take multiple trips, so this is who lined up first.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, Habakkuk and Micah just managed to get there ahead, and like Ezekiel is like, &amp;quot;I just missed it. I&#039;m a major prophet.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Moses is in the back being like, &amp;quot;I walked around for 40 years. I can wait.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And so yeah, they go up to heaven, they deliver him to Michael the Archangel, all the saints followed Michael. &amp;quot;He brought them all into the glory and the beauty of paradise.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here&#039;s a question that I just thought of, actually.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do you think like Moses and Abraham were too Jewish?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; To be mentioned here? Oh man.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; They&#039;re like, you know, that Jews are the people of Moses and Abraham. But like David is Jesus&#039; grandpa.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, okay. David is incredibly Jewish, right? Like&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh no, he is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I don&#039;t know.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But he&#039;s also in the direct lineage, like Jesus is of the house of David.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure, right. Yeah, I suppose that makes sense. And then of course Isaiah gets heavily Christianized as well. We talked, you know, the fifth gospel and all that, but...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is weird to try and sift– try and CSI our way through the anti-Semitism of these attacks.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like Micah, I could see because also Micah is considered to prophesy the birth of Christ as well. Habakkuk I don&#039;t know. I don&#039;t know why he gets a mention. They&#039;re brought up to paradise and they run into Enoch and Elijah, who are already up there waiting for them, because they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;hey guys, God brought us here.&amp;quot; Enoch&#039;s just &amp;quot;God brought me. We were walking and then suddenly we were in heaven,&amp;quot; and Elijah&#039;s like, &amp;quot;yeah, I was in a cool flaming chariot that flew in the sky, so a little bit cooler, I think, than probably just walking straight into heaven with God.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But yeah, so we see those guys and then my favorite moment is like, &amp;quot;hey man we&#039;ve been doing this whole thing and I&#039;ve been trying not to mention anything, but who is that dude? Who is that guy that&#039;s with Jesus when he came down? Like Jesus came down here with a dude. Like who was that guy? Because you look a little sketchy, and I don&#039;t know you.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;And he answered them and said, &#039;Ye have rightly said, for I was a robber, doing all manner of evil upon the earth, and the Jews crucified me with Jesus, and I beheld the wonders of the creation which came to pass through the cross of Jesus when he was crucified,&#039;&amp;quot; and so on. It&#039;s Dismas. And so in a lot of the art of the Harrowing of Hell, if you find it, Jesus is usually like carrying Dismas, like, in his arm as he comes down. So it&#039;s completely like &amp;quot;you will be with me in heaven, but we gotta make a quick stop on the way. Are you cool with that? I promise we can get some combos. And like a specialty Mountain Dew flavor at the gas station.&amp;quot; And yeah, so we get we get Dismas there, which wild, but I love it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And yeah that&#039;s about the end of it. We get, &amp;quot;Blessed be the Lord Almighty, the Father of eternal good things, Father of mercies. Thou have given such grace unto thy sinners and hast brought them again into the beauty of paradise and into thy good pastures. For this is the most holy life of the Spirit. Amen.&amp;quot; And so that was, it turns out, what was written down by Leucius and Karinus. They both wrote identical word-for-word accounts of this, and that&#039;s how you know it&#039;s real. We see that exact thing, remember the story of the Septuagint is that the seventy-two rabbis all wrote down their Greek translation and they were all word for word identical, even though they were written in separate rooms. So it&#039;s the same idea. Leucius and Karinus in separate rooms write down verbatim versions of this story of the Harrowing of Hell. And then they turn into bright lights and disappear. They&#039;re gone. &amp;quot;When they had finished writing all the things in the several volumes of paper, they arose, and Karinus gave that which they had written into the hands of Annas and Caiaphas and Gamaliel, likewise Leucius gave that which he had written into the hands of Nicodemus and Joseph. And suddenly they were transfigured and became white exceedingly, and were seen no more. But their writings were found to be the same, neither more nor less, by one letter.&amp;quot; That&#039;s it. &amp;quot;These were the things that were spoken by the Jews in their synagogue, did Joseph and Nicodemus forthwith declare unto the governor. And Pilate himself wrote all the things that were done and said concerning Jesus by the Jews, and laid up all the words in the public books of his judgment hall.&amp;quot; This bit has another thing that, as I mentioned before, has the math. It does the math of that 5,500 years. They lay out it was this many years. And the thing that they draw, the significance of that number is to the building of the Ark of the Covenant, which is supposed to be five and a half cubits, and so they understand that the five and a half cubits equal five and a half thousand years. And so then they break down that math and they&#039;re saying that&#039;s why Jesus came in the 5,500th year, which again, if this is 5779, that doesn&#039;t work out.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is currently 5779.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Feeling fine, 5779. And yeah, then at the very end here of the M.R. James version, we get that letter from Pilate to Claudius, which we&#039;ve already discussed in our Peter and Paul episode. It&#039;s very brief. It&#039;s just two paragraphs of Pilate saying, &amp;quot;here&#039;s the thing I saw, and we killed him.&amp;quot; And like that and that&#039;s it, basically. But as I mentioned, a lot of versions of this story add the Cure of Tiberius, the Cura sanitatis Tiberii, which the cure of the health of Tiberius, which is the earliest version of the full Veronica legend with the handkerchief with God&#039;s or with Jesus&#039; face perfectly imprinted on it, which that particular relic comes to be known as a Veronica. And so this is the earliest account of that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So this is the earliest account of the Veronica Lodge-end.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, the Veronica Lodge-end, yes. So there&#039;s that, and then there&#039;s also another story called the Mors Pilati, which is the death of Pilate. There&#039;s different versions of what happens. And in a lot of versions, Pilate ultimately commits suicide. But here we have a different version. So if you combine the bits from the Cura sanitatis Tiberii and the Mors Pilati, you get the account here from our boy, Jacobus de Voragine, in the Golden Legend. This comes from the section on the Passion of the Lord. And I&#039;m just gonna read it. I&#039;m just gonna read it because it&#039;s very good. There&#039;s a lot of good things going on here. So.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;quot;When Pilate had handed Jesus over to the Jews to be crucified, he was afraid that his condemnation of innocent blood might offend Tiberius Caesar, and dispatched one of his familiars to make a case for him to the emperor. Meanwhile, it was announced to Tiberius, who was seriously ill, that in Jerusalem there was a physician who cured all diseases by his word alone. Therefore, the emperor, not knowing that Pilate and the Jews had put this physician to death, said to one of his intimates, whose name was Volusian, &#039;Cross the sea as fast as you can, and tell Pilate to send this healer to me so that he may restore me to health.&#039; Volusian came to Pilate and delivered the emperor&#039;s command, but Pilate, terror-stricken, asked for a fortnight&#039;s grace. During this time, Volusian made the acquaintance of a woman named Veronica, who had been in Jesus&#039; company, and asked her where he might find Jesus Christ. She answered, &#039;Alas, he was my Lord and my God, and Pilate, to whom he was handed over through envy, condemned him and commanded that he be crucified.&#039; Volusian was grieved at this and said, &#039;I am deeply sorry that I cannot carry out the orders my master gave me.&#039; Veronica answered, &#039;When the teacher was going about preaching, and I, to my regret, could not be with him. I wanted to have his picture painted so that when I was deprived of his presence I could at least have the solace of his image. So one day I was carrying a piece of linen to the painter when I met Jesus, and he asked me where I was going. I told him what my errand was. He asked for the cloth I had in my hand, pressed it to his venerable face, and he left his image on it. If your master looks devoutly upon the image, he will at once be rewarded by being cured.&#039; &#039;Can this image be bought for gold or silver?&#039; Volusian asked. &#039;No,&#039; Veronica replied. &#039;Only true piety can make it effective. Therefore I will go with you and let Caesar look upon the image, after which I will return home.&#039; So Volusian came to Rome with Veronica and told Tiberius, &#039;The Jesus you have long desired to see was unjustly given over to death by Pilate and the Jews, and by reason of their envy nailed to the gibbet of the cross. However, a lady came to me with a picture of Jesus, and if you look at it devoutly, you will obtain the benefit of your health.&#039; Caesar therefore had the road carpeted with silk cloths and ordered the image brought to him, and the moment he looked at it he won back his pristine health.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And Tiberius, who I can say for a fact was kind of a jerk emperor, is made into a Christian here, which kind of happens to a number of early emperors. It happens to Augustus too. There&#039;s a version where baby Jesus appears to Augustus in a dream or something. I haven&#039;t read that in like twenty years, so I don&#039;t remember the details.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;quot;But Pontius Pilate was then taken prisoner at Caesar&#039;s command and shipped to Rome. And when the emperor heard that he had arrived, he was filled with fury and had him brought into his presence. Pilate, however, had taken with him the Lord&#039;s seamless tunic, and came before the emperor wearing it. And As soon as Tiberius saw him clothed in the tunic, his anger vanished. He rose to meet Pilate and could not address a harsh word to him. So the emperor, who, when Pilate was absent, seemed so terrible and furious now in his presence, was somehow calmed. As soon as he had given him leave to go, on the other hand, he was again afire with rage, and called himself a wretch for not having showed the culprit the anger that was in his heart.&amp;quot; So as long as Pilate is wearing Jesus&#039;s clothes, Tiberius can&#039;t be angry with him, but as soon as he leaves, he&#039;s angry again. &amp;quot;Swearing and protesting that Pilate was a son of death, and that it was not right to let him live on the earth, he at once had him called back. But when he saw him, the emperor greeted him, and his wrath subsided. All wondered, and he himself wondered, that he could be so wrought up against Pilate absent, and could not so much as speak to him harshly when he was present.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;quot;At length, at a sign from God, or perhaps a hint from some Christian, he had the man stripped of that tunic and instantly his previous rage was rekindled. The emperor&#039;s astonishment mounted until he was told that the tunic had belonged to the Lord Jesus. He had Pilate remanded to prison until he could consult with a council of wise men about what should be done with the criminal. Pilate was forthwith sentenced to a shameful death, but when he heard of this he killed himself with his own knife, and so ended his life. When Caesar was informed of this, he said, &#039;Truly he died a most shameful death, and his own hand did not spare him.&#039;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;quot;The corpse was weighted with a huge stone and thrown into the Tiber, but wicked foul spirits made sport of the wicked foul body, plunging it into the water and snatching it up into the air. This caused awesome floods in the water and lightning, tempests and hailstorms in the air, and a widespread panic broke out among the people. The Romans therefore pulled the body out of the Tiber, and as a gesture of contempt carried it off to Vienne,&amp;quot; this is not Vienna, but Vienne, a city in France, &amp;quot;and dumped it into the Rhone. The name of the city comes from Via Gehenne, the road to Hell, because at this time it was a place of malediction. Or more likely, the city was called Vienne or Bienna because it was said to have been built on a biennium. But there again the wicked spirits rallied and stirred up the same disturbances, and the people refusing to put up with so great a plague of demons, removed that vessel of malediction from their midst and consigned it to a burial in the territory of the city of Lausanne. And there the populace, harried by excess, by the aforesaid upheavals, took the body away and sank it in a pit surrounded by mountains, where, according to some accounts, diabolical machinations still make themselves felt.&amp;quot; And that area, that real place, that mountain, is actually called Mont Pilatus. Like Pilate, Mount Pilate, except it&#039;s actually probably because it was &amp;quot;piletus&amp;quot; it was capped by clouds. But anyway it&#039;s got it&#039;s called Pilate now. And in some legends it says that on Holy Weekend the undead body of Pilate will climb out of the mountain and sit and contemplate the resurrection.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; How did you save... I guess that&#039;s appropriate for the last little bit of our horror episode. You didn&#039;t know there was gonna be a zombie.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, there&#039;s a zombie.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s a secret zombie in this episode all this time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s storm demons. There&#039;s some good stuff, yeah, but of course I had to dig into some Golden Legend to get the good-good stuff. But yeah, so that&#039;s essentially the story of the Cura Tiberii, sanitatis Tiberii, which is frequently appended in Latin editions of the Gospel of Nicodemus. We skipped over it. This book was also the origin of the name Longinus, as the soldier who drove the sphere. So we talked about the sphere of destiny, the Spear of Longinus, the Lance of Longinus. So that name first appears here, Dismas and Gestas first appear here, Veronica first appears here. So this is an important and influential work that gives us a lot of stuff that gets really thoroughly imbued into Christian thought and legend.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Did you have a verse?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I did. I already read it though. It was it was the bit with the demons asking about who is this so great and so humble. That was my favorite bit for sure. What about you? Did you have one?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh yeah, there&#039;s a lot of really good stuff in here. Basically anytime Hell is yelling at Satan is good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But I wanted to talk about Enoch.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Enoch is the one that you have made big promises about, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;ve definitely been teasing, yes, when we read first Enoch, it is definitely going to be one of the wildest things we have ever covered on this show, for sure. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay. Well this says, this is chapter twenty-five, &amp;quot;I am Enoch, which was translated hither by the word of the Lord, and this that is with me is Elias the Thesbite. which was taken up in a chariot of fire, and up to this day we have not tasted death, but we are received into the coming of Antichrist to fight against him with signs and wonders of God, and to be slain of him in Jerusalem, and after three days and a half to be taken up again alive on the clouds.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That sounds like a pretty cool story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I&#039;ll have to dig into that a little bit more to see if there&#039;s more to that particular belief that Enoch and Elijah are gonna go fight the Antichrist.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I would be very excited to know if that was the case.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah, yeah. We&#039;ll see, and if I can find where that gets carried out more, we&#039;ll definitely cover that on the show for sure.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But but also, yeah, like pretty much any time Satan is just getting dunked on is very good in this. I kinda love all the stuff where it&#039;s like, &amp;quot;this was his plan all along.&amp;quot; Where Jesus Ocean&#039;s 11s everybody into salvation is pretty great.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s good. So where do you come down on this, Chris? I know you said you were you found the first part kind of boring. Overall, what would you say about the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Acts of Pilate?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean it certainly picks up when Jesus descends into Hell to take all of the righteous dead up to heaven. Not great with all the anti-Semitism.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure, yeah, that part kind of blows. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, not my favorite part. In my understanding of it as just Jesus going getting the righteous dead, I find that to be very entertaining.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Jesus going and making all of the Jewish patriarchs into Christians, however, like you said, it&#039;s one of those things that is by doctrine necessary, but not a great look in retrospect.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep. But yeah. A pretty interesting one, and again, very important, so I&#039;m glad that we covered it as relatively early as we did, even if it means we haven&#039;t covered a lot of very important canonical books. You know, we do a mix of things. That&#039;s the show.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ll get to them. Don&#039;t get weird about it. We&#039;ll get to them.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ll definitely get there. Yeah. I just feel someone is out there like, why haven&#039;t you done Nahum yet or something? I don&#039;t know.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I think we&#039;ll be okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Let me know if you&#039;re a Nahum stan, I need to know, give me a shout.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; As we mentioned, that was the first part of our multi-part Scare-stravaganza.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, absolutely. So part two for our very good Halloween special. We&#039;re gonna have a mash. We&#039;re gonna do the mash. We&#039;re gonna do the monster mash. We&#039;re gonna go and we&#039;re gonna see our boy Solomon tackling all the demons. That&#039;s right, we&#039;re gonna do the Testament of Solomon next week and I promise you guys will not describe that one as boring in any part. Because it&#039;s a very cool story of Solomon. Asmodeus will make a return. Basically, any named demon that we&#039;ve seen so far is probably going to be showing up. Cool little folktales that were very popular among Jewish people. And I think it&#039;ll be very fun. I think you guys will get a real kick out of the Testament of Solomon. And I will provide a link on our Tumblr so you can find it. So don&#039;t worry about finding that because it&#039;s definitely not gonna be in the HCSB or the NRSV. I&#039;ll put a link up. You&#039;ll be able to find it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; A thing that I like is that next week we&#039;re doing a Monster Bash. But I think it&#039;s fair to refer to Jesus&#039; triumph over death as a Graveyard Dmash.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It w it was. It was the graveyard smash. We did it backwards, I guess.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; What book is the Transylvania twist in?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Ooh. Hmm. I have to think about it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is that in Enoch?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Maybe. It could be.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which apocalypse explains what happened to the Transylvania twist? It&#039;s now the mash. Alright everybody! Have a great week. We will be back next time with the Testament of Solomon. We hope you have a scary– nah we don&#039;t hope you have a scary time! We hope you have a time that has as many scares as you are comfortable with. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hey Chris, why don&#039;t we tell people where they can give us some money and some help and stuff. That sounds good, Benito.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Where can everybody find us online?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so if you want to find us online and get supplementary material and things like links to the readings that we do that can&#039;t be found in normal people bibles. Go to [https://apocrypals.tumbler.com apocrypals.tumbler.com]. This past week I&#039;ve put up a lot of images of Thecla and also some of the very, very many paintings of Judith and Holofernes. So if you wanted to check out different takes on those from across the years, which is an incredibly popular motif in art, you can check that out. Also we provide links to this show. Links to other resources and things. And we answer questions as well. You can ask us questions. Usually we&#039;ll just answer them on the Tumblr, but sometimes we might hit them up on the show. So go there if you&#039;re looking for any kind of supplemental material for the show.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you like the show, you want to help us out, you want to help us keep the show going, pay for hosting and that kind of stuff, go to [https://ko-fi.com/apocrypals K O dash F I dot com slash apocrypals], that&#039;s [https://ko-fi.com/apocrypals kofi dot com slash apocrypals], and there you can basically leave us a tip, buy us a coffee. You can leave any kind of amount of money in increments of three dollars. As much or as little as you are interested in. And unlike a Patreon, it&#039;s not a recurring pledge. You can you can leave a tip as often as you feel is appropriate. It can be one time, it could be every week, like some people do, and it could be any amount, it could be three dollars. Some people do $18 because 18 is that number of life. Some people have been doing $21 because it&#039;s as many threes as you can have. It&#039;s seven threes. And whatever, whatever, how however much. And we were we absolutely appreciate it. We absolutely appreciate everyone who&#039;s left donations there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you want to help us out and you don&#039;t have the money or you don&#039;t want to spend the money, you can absolutely help us by leaving us a review on whatever your podcatcher of choice is, especially Apple Podcasts. Just leave us a rating and a quick review. We get some really great reviews that I absolutely appreciate, but don&#039;t feel like you have to be super literary. You can just say, &amp;quot;it&#039;s very good and I do like it.&amp;quot; Like that could be your review and that&#039;s fine. But the more reviews and ratings we get, the more likely we are to be featured and the more likely we are to get that very clutch Pontifex retweet. So Yeah, just help us out that way. As for me, you can find me on Twitter or Tumblr or Instagram. Just search for Benito Cereno. You&#039;ll find me. What about you, Chris?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You can find me by going to [https://the-isb.com T H E  dash I S B dot com]. That&#039;s my homepage that has links to all the things that I do. Hey everybody, this Wednesday, October 24th, if you&#039;re listening to this the week that it comes out, we&#039;ve got a very special project that&#039;s finally out in stores.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The Army of Darkness Halloween special with a lead story by me and Chad Bowers and Owen Marin and a backup story written by Benito with art by...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sam Lotfi.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sam Lotfi.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That is going to be available in stores. Also, a new issue for the first time in two years. Of my comic Dracula the Unconquered is gonna be released digitally on Comixology. So if you would like to get some more stuff for us Then by all means pick those things up. They are very good and very fun.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I read that Dracula. I read that Dracula. It&#039;s excellent. It&#039;s a very good Dracula.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Thank you. I think it&#039;s my favorite issue I&#039;ve done of that book so far.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So that&#039;s it. We&#039;re gonna be back next week with the Testament of Solomon. Until then, for Benito Cereno, I&#039;ve been Chris Sims. Benito, peace be with you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And also, with you!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music &amp;quot;Highway to Hell&amp;quot; by AC/DC]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Dunking_on_Satan_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1062</id>
		<title>Dunking on Satan (Transcript)</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Dunking_on_Satan_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1062"/>
		<updated>2026-02-13T20:08:58Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: Created page with &amp;quot;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;Chris Sims:&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039; &amp;quot;And while all the saints were rejoicing, behold Satan, the prince and chief of death, said unto Hell, &amp;#039;Make thyself ready to receive Jesus, who boasteth himself that he is the Son of God.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; The Gospel of Nicodemus, chapter 20, verse 1.  [Music &amp;quot;Highway to Hell&amp;quot; by AC/DC]  &amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;C:&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039; Hello everybody and welcome to Apocrypals. It&amp;#039;s the podcast where two non-believers read through the Bible and we try not to be jerks about it. My name is Chris Sims. With me...&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&#039;&#039;&#039;Chris Sims:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;And while all the saints were rejoicing, behold Satan, the prince and chief of death, said unto Hell, &#039;Make thyself ready to receive Jesus, who boasteth himself that he is the Son of God.&#039;&amp;quot; The Gospel of Nicodemus, chapter 20, verse 1.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music &amp;quot;Highway to Hell&amp;quot; by AC/DC]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hello everybody and welcome to Apocrypals. It&#039;s the podcast where two non-believers read through the Bible and we try not to be jerks about it. My name is Chris Sims. With me as always, the other set of footprints, Benito Cereno. Benito! How are you today?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;Benito Cereno:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;m very good here in part one of our Spook-tober-fest Spook-tacular Boo-nanza.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s a scary one today.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I was terrified to my very marrow while reading this chilling story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Spoiler warning, at the end of this show, you&#039;re gonna turn around and you&#039;re gonna have thriller eyes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Everyone&#039;s got thriller eyes at the end of this one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s the trick: everyone has thriller eyes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Except one person who doesn&#039;t. Because if everybody has thriller eyes then what&#039;s scarier than a person who has regular person eyes?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly. Yeah, we&#039;re reading this week the Gospel of Nicodemus, aka The Acts of Pilate. AKA the Harrowing of Hell, the Descent to Hell. Yeah, as part one of our two-part Spooktoberfest. I don&#039;t know Chris did you find it particularly spooky? Were you spooked with this one?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I did not.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean you and I have had the conversation before about how I have a very specific idea of Halloween monsters.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Dracula: Halloween monster.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Wolfman: Halloween monster. Godzilla: not a Halloween monster.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Satan? Debatable.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But we don&#039;t really get any... Here&#039;s the thing I&#039;ve noticed about the Bible is that there&#039;s very rarely any suspense about who&#039;s gonna win that would make... that is necessary for horror.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because it&#039;s mostly spoiler warning, this book&#039;s mostly Satan getting owned hard by Jesus.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s kind of how it goes. Like, it&#039;s not until relatively modern things that people are like, hey, what if Satan had a chance? Because yeah, like, you know, prior to that the idea is like, this guy is a scrub who just gets dunked on by Jesus all the time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Jesus humiliates Satan in front of all his boys for like ten chapters.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is pretty great, honestly.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then and then the other thing is the fact that the actual Harrowing of Hell is honestly it&#039;s a thing that&#039;s tagged on to the larger work, which is the Acts of Pilate, which is basically an expansion of the trial of Jesus from the Gospel of Luke. It&#039;s expanded on to give larger roles to Annas and Caiaphas, to Nicodemus, and to Joseph of Arimathæa. There&#039;s a couple of bonus miracles in there, but it&#039;s basically like a forensic investigation where it&#039;s like step by step going through like debunking any kind of objection someone might have to the miracle of the passion and resurrection and ascension for that matter. There&#039;s not a lot of spooky atmosphere despite the fact that a significant portion of the book is set in Hell, wherein Hell itself is a speaking sentient character. You might expect more spookiness out of that, but alas. But this is a significant work that had a lot of influence on especially medieval thought and so we wanted to cover it and since it&#039;s a major one about Hell that seemed like a good time for it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This also seems like the next logical step in terms of the rehabilitation and recontextualization of Pilate.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because we talked about over the course of the four gospels. Pilate becomes a much softer character because the story had to be made palatable to Roman audiences. And so if the chief Roman is the guy who crucifies Jesus, that&#039;s pretty tough.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But by this point, you know, we see him up to John, where he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;I don&#039;t really want to do this. I think Jesus is great, actually.&amp;quot; And then this is the next like takes that a step further of &amp;quot;what if Pilate had his own gospel?&amp;quot; Which is weird.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I mean, yes, this is absolutely a major step in the rehabilitation of the character of Pilate, where it&#039;s made very clear that he&#039;s not the bad guy in this situation, and his hand was forced by the multitudes of the Jewish nation who I will apologize in advance, do not come out looking great in this story. Again, there&#039;s not really gonna be a medieval narrative about the resurrection in which Jewish people come out looking good. It&#039;s just not gonna happen, so I hope no one has their hopes up about that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here&#039;s the thing about the Harrowing of Hell. We&#039;ve talked about it for months because the Harrowing of Hell is a thing that I am very familiar with, like an idea that I&#039;m very familiar with. And I had kind of always thought it was just Jesus going down to Hell and kind of like, you know, picking everybody up, you know, putting like getting them in the van. So they can drive up to heaven. Not quite. Instead, what happens is Jesus goes down to Hell and hey, all of the great figures of Jewish history? They&#039;re actually Christians. They actually convert to the worship of Jesus and the cross specifically.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I mean again, you know, from a Christian perspective, it&#039;s necessary, but from like a more outside perspective, it&#039;s not a great look, you know?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, not the best?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not the best.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so yeah, the Harrowing of Hell is an idea that it&#039;s not... Well, it&#039;s not in the Bible directly. There are a couple of verses that are considered to be allusions to the idea. For example Ephesians 4:9 says that &amp;quot;Christ descended into the lower parts of the earth.&amp;quot; 1 Peter 4:6 says that &amp;quot;good tidings were proclaimed to the dead.&amp;quot; And so these were both taken as canonical elements that were seen as proof of the idea that on Saturday, on Holy Saturday, aka Huddlehouse Saturday, Jesus, the ghost of Jesus, descended into Hell, or at least or at least limbo, depending on the particular you know, doctrine that you&#039;re believing, or Sheol or the Grave, or Hades, or however you want to think about it, some land of the dead, some waiting room of the dead, where the patriarchs and the other holy people of the Old Testament era, the pre-Jesus era, are being contained. The idea that Jesus went down there and brought them up to heaven is a common idea even though it&#039;s not explicitly in the Bible. So that&#039;s what when we say the Harrowing of Hell, the word harrowing it&#039;s originally a farming term, like digging, tearing up the earth, but it comes to mean just kind of like, you know, the destruction or the looting, I guess you can think of it that way, of Hell. And yeah, I mean it does pop up in serious places despite not being explicitly canon. Including, Chris, you know, you mentioned the Apostles&#039; Creed is a main place where you see it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this is where I became familiar with it because as I&#039;ve mentioned before, when I was a teenager, I was baptized Presbyterian. And one of the things that we did in the church I was a member of was we would say the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostles%27_Creed Apostles&#039; Creed] every week. Now you didn&#039;t do this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No. No, the church I went to, I went to a Southern Baptist church. Creeds were not really a thing.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Let me tell you. Let me tell you, this is not going to go over well in a Southern Baptist church.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Specifically because part of it includes the line, I believe in the Holy Catholic Church.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. But that&#039;s I mean that is lowercase-c Catholic and not Catholic.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sometimes lowercase-c Catholic.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I mean the word Catholic just means universal, right? So because like the H-O-L in there is the same as in the word like holistic, right? So it means whole or everything. So the word Catholic means the universal church, the Church of Everyone.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The Church of Universal Truth.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yes. But yeah, it&#039;s technically a lowercase-c Catholic when you say the Holy Catholic Church and the Communion of Saints and so on.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That was all explained to me in my extremely Protestant confirmation classes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But if you&#039;re not familiar with it, the Apostles&#039; Creed is used in a variety of churches. I think the version that we had is according to my memory, it&#039;s and according to Wikipedia, it&#039;s the one from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Because we say you know, &amp;quot;I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,Born of the Virgin Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven,And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead,&amp;quot; a phrase that you have probably heard.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The line about He &amp;quot;Was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead&amp;quot; that was another thing that was explained to me in those confirmation classes as the Harrowing of Hell, as Jesus going down to Hell, getting everybody who... It seems like a very complicated process. That heaven exists. Jacob saw it. Isaiah saw it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Allegedly. But Nobody went there until Jesus came down to get &#039;em. Like he could have just gotten Adam. Could have just gotten Abraham anytime.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But that was, at least in the church that I grew up in, absolutely doctrine.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That was the explanation for that line that we affirmed our belief in literally every week.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And I am always fascinated by the idea of stuff that is definitely apocryphal, but also definitely doctrine.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. That&#039;s the sweet spot for this show, I think. I really like hitting on that stuff where I&#039;m trying to drive home like, this is apocryphal in the sense that it&#039;s not in the canon, but nevertheless people absolutely believe in this thing and or did at least and it has had a major influence on the religion as we know it today. Like that, for me, those moments are the best moments of this show because I like to really show people like the Bible is not just the Bible, right? It&#039;s a bunch of things. It&#039;s a whole like miasma of texts and traditions and that kind of stuff. So yeah, this is a really nice one. And it is a part of the reason why I wanted to cover this book as early as we have, you know, you know, before we&#039;ve even done Exodus, you know.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But yeah, so reference to the Harrowing of Hell is also in the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasian_Creed Athanasian Creed], which, that&#039;s a different one. I don&#039;t know the exact I don&#039;t know the exact quote, but I know it&#039;s in there somewhere. It&#039;s named after Athanasius of Alexandria.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But yeah, so let&#039;s let&#039;s talk a little bit here about the Gospel of Nicodemus, which it&#039;s, speaking of, a mishmash of texts, Gospel of Nicodemus is definitely that, because there&#039;s not even like consistent versions, because there&#039;s some other versions with more and more things tacked on to it, right? The text as a whole, probably written around the fourth, the mid-fourth century CE. The title, Gospel of Nicodemus, it picks up in the Middle Ages somewhere. The whole story is very popular, like we were saying, it influenced legends and ideas of the Passion and the Resurrection. Little details from this get picked up later on. And the popularity of it can be proven by the wide variety of languages that it&#039;s available in. That&#039;s always a clue. That&#039;s something– the more copies of it we have extant and the more languages it&#039;s in, a better idea we have of how far and wide it was distributed. And so we have the original of this, which is Greek, in copies there&#039;s Coptic, there&#039;s version, there&#039;s many various Latin versions, which would be the latest ones.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But the book is broken up into at least three distinct sections that almost certainly have different authors. You&#039;ve got chapters one through eleven, which is the trial part that&#039;s very heavily based on [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2023&amp;amp;version=NRSVUE Luke chapter 23], which we covered in [[The Dude Hates Wizards | our Luke episode]. Feel free to jump back and listen to that one. Then you&#039;ve got chapters 12 through 16, which are the bit with the resurrection. And then the part that really got us into it today, the kind of the epilogue, aka the descensus ad infernos, or inferos, the descent to the lower parts, aka the descent into Hell, which is not in the Greek version. You might be able to guess from the Latin title if you can distinguish Latin from Greek. I don&#039;t know. I don&#039;t know who can do that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I can&#039;t. Still.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, well, well descensus ad infernos is definitely Latin, so&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I only know the difference because you have a specific Latin tone of voice that you use.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, sure. That&#039;s fair. Yes, I definitely have spent some time workshopping my Latin accent. But even then some Latin texts add an additional story called the Cura sanitatis Tiberii, which means the cure of Tiberias, which is actually not included in the M.R. James version of this book that we posted online and that Chris read and that I read also. So good news, I&#039;ll be supplementing this episode with the story of the cure of Tiberias at the end. I have a version. It&#039;s not available in a modern English version and I, despite my ability, I did not take the time to translate it myself. I have a different version that is this story, but it&#039;s a later version with some extra details added in. So we&#039;ll get to that.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very upsetting to me that you don&#039;t put any effort into this show.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I know. Don&#039;t think I didn&#039;t consider it. Don&#039;t think I didn&#039;t consider like translating this like five page story from Latin that has no modern English version. But I&#039;m sorry. I&#039;m sorry guys, I didn&#039;t mean to let you down. Anyway, so the early parts, the pre-Harrowing of Hell parts in the book are generally known as the Acta Pilati, the Acts of Pilate, which is, or in Greek that would be the Proxes Pilatu. And that&#039;s a common title for a number of things. In fact, we&#039;ve already on this show featured another bit of text that is also known as the Acts of Pilate, but that are not the same as this. In the [[Various Heresies | Acts of Peter and Paul episode]], in Peter and Paul, there&#039;s a bit where it just out of nowhere, someone&#039;s like, &amp;quot;by the way, I have this letter from Pilate that he wrote to the Emperor Claudius.&amp;quot; And it&#039;s just a short little paragraph wherein Pilate is like, &amp;quot;here&#039;s what happened.&amp;quot; And that&#039;s also called the Acts of Pilate. And in fact, the The M.R. James version of this document affixes that to the end of this one as well. But there&#039;s other versions of writings known by the name Acts of Pilate, which include ones mentioned, but maybe not extant, but mentioned by church fathers such as Justin Martyr, Tertullian... There was apparently a so-called heathen version, that is an anti-Christian version that was distributed during the persecution against Christians during the era of the Emperor Maximin, he would have been one of the last non-Christian emperors described by Eusebius, another important Christian author of the relatively early days. And so there&#039;s a couple of different things known as the Acts of Pilate, which are not the same as this one. And this one, in fact, might have been written intentionally in order to refute that the anti-Christian version of the Acts of Pilate that were being distributed.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Otherwise, this one that we have here was written with the purpose of giving Christian audiences, those sweet details about Jesus that they&#039;re just hungry for. It&#039;s like I need to know more about this. Please tell me more. And so we get we get this expanded version. It also is intended to strengthen faith in the resurrection because, like I said, it&#039;s kind of written as almost a forensic investigation where point by point the high priests say, what about this? And then someone whether it&#039;s Nicodemus or Joseph or a couple of zombie boys at the end, they&#039;ll pop up and they say, &amp;quot;hey, no, here&#039;s what really happened.&amp;quot; And so the idea is it&#039;s supposed to strengthen your faith in the resurrection. Also just general edification. It&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Here&#039;s another new version of the most important part of the Jesus story.&amp;quot; And so yeah, so that&#039;s what&#039;s going on. That and you can see why it might be popular, because it does take and expand on an important story and adds some additional zazz to it. And then of course you get Hell at the end.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So The thing is, I found the first half of this book to be incredibly boring.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure. I could see that. Because I mean partly because it is a repeat of stuff we&#039;ve already seen for the most part. There there is new stuff and we&#039;ll try and focus on that new stuff and the important bits of that. But yes, it will seem very familiar because it is definitely a story we have read four times before now.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you&#039;re gonna come in here with a gospel, you need to start up with some new stuff. You need to do it Thomas style.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well we&#039;ll see how interested... oh you&#039;re talking about the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;m talking about the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, I was gonna say like I don&#039;t know that you&#039;re necessarily going to find the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas less boring to read, but we&#039;ll see. We&#039;ll see. Yeah, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, sure. Very much of interest in that book, for sure.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, exactly. Like that&#039;s that&#039;s what I&#039;m talking about. I want werewolves. I want Jesus making weird little homunculi. That&#039;s the stuff that I want if you&#039;re gonna come in here with the gospel. New info.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We don&#039;t get anything. We get a lot of new stuff in this one, but we don&#039;t get it till halfway through.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like, there was a moment reading this where I was like, did Benito get the wrong book?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &#039;Cause you were waiting for the Hell stuff, right? And I kept having to tell you I was like, no man, it&#039;s in it&#039;s two parts, you have to get to the second part.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So finally, finally, I got to that second part. But do we know you said this book had likely what three different authors?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; At least, at least.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do we know anything about them?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No. No. And that&#039;s not uncommon, right? It&#039;s actually way less common for us to know anything about the author the way that we probably know something about the author of the Acts of Paul, the fact that we know that he was a priest who got in trouble for writing his Paul fan fiction. Like assuming that information is true, like it&#039;s very unusual for us to know even that much, because usually these things are fully anonymous or pseudonymous or they&#039;re assembled from various texts like this one is and they&#039;re just different, or they&#039;re from oral traditions or whatever and it&#039;s just impossible to have any real information because obviously you&#039;re trying to– if you want your writing to have any legitimacy or any kind of cachet, you want it to seem like it has apostolic authority, right? That&#039;s why books make canon in the New Testament is because they&#039;re believed earnestly to have a connection to an apostle either first or second hand, right? That&#039;s how you end up in the New Testament canon, is because an apostle wrote you or the friend of an apostle wrote you, right? And so if you want your book to be distributed, you&#039;ve got to give it that apostolic feeling, which is why this gets associated with Nicodemus. But yes, this was definitely not written by Nicodemus. This would have been written, you know, mid-fourth century at the earliest.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well that&#039;s another thing, is like Nicodemus there&#039;s nothing in here that implies that Nicodemus wrote it. Like Nicodemus is a character.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; He is a character. It does say, actually, you&#039;re right. The early parts, the framing device says that what is happening here is that this is a translation from Hebrew into Greek of the records of Pontius Pilate. Because it&#039;s supposed to be like these are the court records and they were they were held, you know, in among Pilate&#039;s papers. And that&#039;s what this framing device, which is a probably a later addition, and not every manuscript has this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But so &amp;quot;Ananias, the Protector, of praetorian rank, learned in the law, did from the divine scriptures recognize our Lord Jesus Christ and came near to him by faith and was accounted worthy of holy baptism: and I sought out the memorials that were made at that season in the time of our master Jesus Christ, which the Jews deposited with Pontius Pilate, and found the memorials in Hebrew, and by the good pleasure of God I translated them into Greek for the informing of all them that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ: in the reign of our Lord Flavius Theodosius, in the seventeenth year, and of Flavius Valentinianus the sixth, in the ninth indiction,&amp;quot; the Latin has &amp;quot;the eighteenth year of Theodosius, when Valentinian was proclaimed Augustus.&amp;quot; So that would be that would be 425 AD, so you can see that that frame is definitely a later addition. But there the idea is that these are the actual official records from the trial of Jesus and they were in Hebrew and this is just a Greek translation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But there is a part somewhere that does attribute at least some of this. Ah, here we go. &amp;quot;These be the things which after the cross and passion of the Lord Nicodemus recorded and delivered unto the high priest and the rest of the Jews: and the same Nicodemus set them forth in Hebrew.&amp;quot; So they were the papers of Pilate as written down by Nicodemus. So.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Who is a character in them.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Who is a character. Yes, he is a character. He pops up a couple different times throughout. Yeah, there&#039;s greatly expanded role for him. And for Joseph of Arimathea, both of whom are basically briefly mentioned. Nicodemus, you know, gets the famous scene where he&#039;s secretly studying with Jesus at night. And Joseph of Arimathea is basically only mentioned to say that he gave Jesus his tomb. And so they both get expanded roles here.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean honestly it&#039;s like how The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne was actually written by Alan Brennert.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. That&#039;s weird. Weird how that happened. I feel like they shouldn&#039;t have been able to call it an autobiography then.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Also kind of weird how Nicodemus marries Catwoman. In this story as well.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, but it&#039;s really great. That was it&#039;s Earth 2 Nicodemus though. That&#039;s how that&#039;s how you&#039;re able to get away with it.&lt;br /&gt;
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So yeah, we start with the trial. We&#039;ve got the chief priests, we&#039;ve got the scribes, we got Annas and Caiaphas, who of course we know from Bible. And then we&#039;ve got a bunch of other guys who are not mentioned in Bible as far as I know. &amp;quot;Somne, Dothaim, Gamaliel, Judas, Levi, Nepthalim, Alexander, Jairus, and the rest of the Jews.&amp;quot; Nepthalim, that&#039;s just Naphtali, that&#039;s one of the twelve sons of Israel and as is Levi of course. Judas is like the John, well, no, John is the John of this time, but Judas is a very common name that everybody has. So yeah, a lot of these would be repeat names for sure.&lt;br /&gt;
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They come to Pilate and they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;hey man, this guy sucks. Can we do something about that?&amp;quot; And Pilate&#039;s like, &amp;quot;who is he? What is he doing?&amp;quot; You know this, it&#039;s not anything new here, right? Their their main charge is that he heals somebody on the Sabbath. And of course that, you know, that&#039;s against the law, but to try and make it to try to sell it to Pilate, they&#039;re focusing on the seditious aspect of it, right? He says he&#039;s the king and whatever. &amp;quot;What evil deeds does he do?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;He is a sorcerer, and by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils, he casteth out devils, and they&#039;re all subject unto him.&amp;quot; And Pilate&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Hmm, that&#039;s what Asclepius does,&amp;quot; Asclepius being the Greco-Roman god of healing.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Okay, so here&#039;s the first bit that we really get. He&#039;s like, alright. The first new bit, and they say, &amp;quot;Go ahead and bring Jesus in.&amp;quot; And so they send out a messenger. And when he sees Jesus, he worships him, the messenger, and he takes out his handkerchief. And he lays it on the ground for Jesus to walk on, so Jesus doesn&#039;t walk on the on the ground. And the Jews are like, &amp;quot;what are you doing?&amp;quot; And Pilate&#039;s like, &amp;quot;What is this? You&#039;re embarrassing me. Like the whole point is that this guy is getting charged for falsely claiming to be a king and here you are you&#039;re you&#039;re laying your handkerchief on the ground for walk on it like he is a king. What are you doing?&amp;quot; And and the messenger&#039;s like, &amp;quot;I&#039;m just doing what I saw people do. Like, I got sent out to Jerusalem and I was there and I saw Jesus on the donkey and everybody there was laying down the palm branches for him to walk on and they&#039;re all shouting Hosanna and all of this stuff.&amp;quot; So he was there on Palm Sunday is the idea. And so he&#039;s just replicating what he saw.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And it&#039;s got a bit where he actually gives the Hebrew and then he&#039;s like, What does that mean in Greek? And then they translate it. So wasn&#039;t wasn&#039;t expecting that. And yet there&#039;s a there are a couple of parts where they actually bust out some Hebrew which feels surprising to me for something from as relatively late a date as this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And so we got that first bit with the messenger showing reverence to Jesus as if he&#039;s a king. But then we get the first actual like miraculous thing when Jesus actually comes in. Jesus comes in and there&#039;s there&#039;re ensigns, they&#039;re called, but these would be the standard bearers, the guy who hold the poll and at the top of the poll would be the standards which would include carvings, images, could be of people, usually an eagle among the Romans, but these are signs of power, especially military power. Like the standard bearer&#039;s job is to help rally people during battle, right? You always look to the standard. You would know where your group is, where your legion is, but as long as the standard&#039;s moving forward, you know to keep moving forward and so on. So there&#039;s gonna be these guys standing around the court of Pilate holding these standards that are going to have carved busts on the top of them. And when Jesus enters in, all of the busts bow in front of Jesus.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s right, it&#039;s a new miracle everybody.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, a new miracle. Jot it down in your miracle logs that I assume you&#039;re all keeping. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exclusive.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. It&#039;s a Nicodemus exclusive miracle. None of those other guys have this one.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which also, this is the fanfic part of it, right? Because Pilate sees a miracle. Pilate sees inanimate objects come to life and begin worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. Well but the thing is, at first he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Why&#039;d you guys do that? Why&#039;d you guys dip your standards down to Jesus? Like that&#039;s not cool. That&#039;s not what&#039;s happening here right now. Like first the messenger and now this.&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;no man, we did we didn&#039;t do this. Why we&#039;re Greeks? Why would we show reverence to him?&amp;quot; And so he was like, &amp;quot;Let&#039;s go get some new standard bears, please. Can we get some that are stronger than these guys who are obviously so weak they just drooped? Drooped their standards.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I actually really did like this because Pilate goes, &amp;quot;Hey, you guys did it wrong.&amp;quot; Pilate is very skeptical of this miracle. He&#039;s like, &amp;quot;hey, you guys did it wrong. I&#039;m gonna get some new dudes who can actually do their jobs. By the way. If Jesus walks by and these dudes in the standards do not bow, I&#039;m going to have you all executed.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is a pretty... he runs a tight ship, does old Pontius Pilate.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;I have sworn by the safety of Caesar that if the standards bow not when Jesus entereth in, I will cut off your heads.&amp;quot; And so, but of course, even with these new burliest possible standard bears, they do bow again and the messenger puts his handkerchief down again, so it&#039;s not a great look for either Pilate or the high priest in this case.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Then in the next bit we get a repeat of Pilate&#039;s wife, who is mentioned briefly in the Gospels as having premonitions in her dreams about Jesus that he&#039;s innocent, and we get we get a repetition of that. Although we get the added detail where Pilate says, &amp;quot;You know that my wife feareth God and favoreth rather the customs of the Jews?&amp;quot; So that&#039;s interesting, because it almost seems to– it doesn&#039;t quite say that she&#039;s Jewish, but that she&#039;s very–&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; She&#039;s into it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; She&#039;s into it. She&#039;s very into it. And so of course, you know, we&#039;ve talked about before, Pilate&#039;s wife, who later in other works gets the name Procula, is venerated as a saint in some churches. And part of it is because she tries to talk Pilate out of prosecuting Jesus because she has these dreams and she believes that he&#039;s innocent, right? And so, but of course, you know, the priests reply, &amp;quot;Didn&#039;t we say he&#039;s an evil wizard? Who sends people evil dreams? Obviously wizards.&amp;quot; And so, &amp;quot;behold, he hath sent a vision of a dream unto thy wife.&amp;quot; But yeah, and then we get, you know, some questioning of Jesus a little bit like we&#039;ve seen in Luke.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Then we&#039;ve got a new added charge, the specific charge, to try to disprove that Jesus was born of virgin birth, they have the charge that he came of fornication, which in this case, nearly positive they just mean he was born out of wedlock is the idea. And so to counter that charge, there are 12 witnesses who are there to say he couldn&#039;t have been born out of wedlock. Mary was married to Joseph when Jesus was born. Which almost seems counterproductive to the point if you&#039;re trying to prove that he&#039;s God, but I guess in this case they&#039;re really just trying to pr disprove this particular criminal charge. And the priests try to say, &amp;quot;we can&#039;t listen to these witnesses because they&#039;re converts and we don&#039;t listen to converts.&amp;quot; Pilate was like, &amp;quot;what do you mean converts?&amp;quot; He&#039;s like, &amp;quot;they&#039;re Greeks. And now they&#039;re Jewish. And so we don&#039;t like them. Don&#039;t care.&amp;quot; So we get all these names. We get these twelve guys. Lazarus, Asterius, Antonius, Jacob, Amnes, Zenas, Samuel, Isaac, Phineas, Crispus, Agrippa, and Judas. Are these supposed to be anybody else from any other story? Who knows? These are again very common names all of them. So and they say, &amp;quot;no, we&#039;re not converts. We were born Jewish and we definitely were there when we saw Joseph and Mary get engaged and then married, so no.&amp;quot; And Pilate was like, &amp;quot;look, we got twelve witnesses. Let them swear.&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;no, we don&#039;t swear. That&#039;s against the Jewish law to swear. But we you know, pinky promise.&amp;quot; So that&#039;s an added bit with these witnesses.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;no, still please put him unto death.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;And Pilate commanded the whole multitude to go out, saving the twelve men, which said he was not born of [fornification... fornic.. fornification...] fornication. And he commanded Jesus to be set apart. Pilate saith unto them, For what cause do they desire to put him to death?&amp;quot; And the twelve guys on Jesus&#039; side, they say, &amp;quot;They have jealousy because he healeth on the Sabbath day.&amp;quot; There probably not jealousy as in like they&#039;re so jealous of what he... not envy, but rather they have ill will toward him because of him healing on the Sabbath day. &amp;quot;Pilate saith, &#039;For a good work, do they desire to put him to death?&#039;&amp;quot; And they say, &amp;quot;Yay, yeah.&amp;quot; So again, not a good look, not a good look for Annas and Caiaphas and the others. And we get Pilate affirming that what Jesus did was good, actually. And so he comes out, he swears before the sun that he finds no fault in him. And you know more stuff from the trial that we&#039;ve seen before.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I feel like if you don&#039;t know how this ends... I mean there&#039;s, you know, you can go back to our episodes, you can, you know the Bible is always a good place to look. You could just like exist in Western civilization and probably figure out where this one&#039;s going.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So we do eventually get Nicodemus. He does pop up. Chapter five. He&#039;s finally here.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I do want to say, it is incredibly wild to me that there is no moment of Pilate going &amp;quot;Hey, I did see this guy perform an actual factual miracle. I did see inanimate objects come to life. Are you sure you want Barabbas?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &#039;Cause statues came alive.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure. Although, you know, of course, if the charge is that he&#039;s an evil wizard, then that doesn&#039;t necessarily you know, doesn&#039;t necessarily acquit him of that particular charge.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well as we all know, being an evil wizard is not illegal in ancient Rome, because Simon Magus was just doing all kinds of evil wizard stuff.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Obviously in at least one of those versions, the Emperor was on his side.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, chapter five we get Nicodemus come in to testify. He gives you know examples of Moses and his famous wizard battle against Jannes and Jambres, who are... those are the apocryphal, traditional names given to the wizards of Pharaoh. So he talks about that wizard battle, and they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;yeah, of course you&#039;re defending Jesus because you&#039;re his disciple.&amp;quot; And Nicodemus is like, &amp;quot;yeah, but is Pilate also his disciple? Because Pilate just said he was innocent,&amp;quot; which: pretty good dunk.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Also, I love that Nicodemus&#039;s strategy here is &amp;quot;Maybe Jesus is a wizard, but as we all know, wizard battles are super dope.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Pretty much. Okay, here&#039;s one here&#039;s one of my favorite lines. Yeah, &amp;quot;the Jews say unto Nicodemus, &#039;Thou dost become his disciple and thou speakest on his behalf.&#039; Nicodemus saith unto them, &#039;Is the governor also become his disciple that he speaketh on his behalf? Did not Caesar appoint him unto this dignity?&#039; And the Jews were raging and gnashing their teeth against Nicodemus. Pilate saith unto them, &#039;Wherefore gnash ye your teeth against him, whereas you have heard the truth?&#039;&amp;quot; So I what I need is for one of our very good listeners who like to do some Photoshops for us, Lucas Brown, Dave Lartigue, one of you guys. Or someone else, I don&#039;t care. Someone please take that Hannibal Burris meme. Where he&#039;s saying, &amp;quot;why are you booing me? I&#039;m right.&amp;quot; And I need you to change it so that it says, &amp;quot;wherefore gnash ye your teeth against me, whereas you have heard the truth.&amp;quot; Someone please make that happen because I need it. I laughed very much when I read that line because I was like, it sounds so familiar. It&#039;s so familiar.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; t&#039;s very good.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Then we get some witnesses, greatest hits, Jesus&#039; greatest hits, we get the guy who was paralyzed that Jesus raised from his mat, of course. If I recall correctly, he&#039;s the one that was healed on the Sabbath, and so he&#039;s the one he&#039;s getting charged against. Then we get a certain woman named Bernice or Berinique, Veronique, in Latin Veronica. Which is a name that this is another example of something from an apocryphal work that becomes part of real religion. The Veronica story is a major deal.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I had this one when I was a kid, because basically her deal is that Jesus took her and Betty out on a date on the same night.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And they all shared a milkshake. The name Veronica, yeah, even like one of the stations of the cross has to do with Veronica. This is one of the earliest mentions of her name. Here she&#039;s associated with the woman who had the bleeding disease that was healed by touching the hem of Jesus&#039; garment.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you don&#039;t recall, this was a woman who bled for twelve years.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; She was never not on her period, basically, for twelve years.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No. No.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I mean that&#039;s what it was. That&#039;s not a joke, Chris. That&#039;s what it was.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is that what it was?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. That&#039;s what it was.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I thought it was just like a wound.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, it was no it was menstrual bleeding.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh. Alright then.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That was not a goof.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Bible&#039;s wild.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, Bible&#039;s wild. But anyway, here she gets the name Veronica, which Which yeah, you can see comes from the Greek name Berenike, which it&#039;s actually a Macedonian name, I guess. It means the bearer of Nike, victory. And so that form Berenike becomes Beronike, which in Latin becomes Veronica, and that&#039;s where that name comes from. Although there&#039;s going to be more with the development of the character of Veronica because the station of the cross, does not have to do with the fact that she&#039;s the woman with the bleeding disease, but rather famously that she saw Jesus carrying his cross on the way to Skull Mountain and she handed him her handkerchief and he wiped his face and when she took it away it had his face still on it like a perfect image of Jesus&#039; face kind of like the shroud of Turin but a handkerchief. And so there is more of that we&#039;ll get back to at the end of the episode. There comes to be a folk etymology of the name Veronica, that it comes from the Latin words vera icon, which would mean a true icon, a true image of the face of Christ and that vera icon becomes Veronica, but it&#039;s it&#039;s from this Greek name that means bearer of victory. But anyway, so we get her name here, and this is just the first of several names that originate in this particular work.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Let&#039;s see. More defense of Jesus, including raising up Lazarus, Nicodemus and the twelve men. Called upon again. Then we get the Barabbas bit, just like in the Gospels, and they say, &amp;quot;Give us Barabbas,&amp;quot; and he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;I&#039;m giving you this out here.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;And Pilate was wroth and said unto the Jews, Your nation is always seditious, and you rebel against your benefactors.&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;what benefactors are you talking about?&amp;quot; And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Look, I&#039;m not Jewish, but as far as I know, God brought you guys out of slavery in Egypt, and then you repaid him by making a golden calf that you worshipped,&amp;quot; and they were like, &amp;quot;Hmm, yeah,&amp;quot; and he&#039;s saying, &amp;quot;and now you&#039;re saying I hate Caesar, so I don&#039;t care about what you&#039;re saying,&amp;quot; basically. And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;we know our king, it&#039;s Caesar, not Jesus.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And so... ah, then we get, here&#039;s two new names that we get in this one that we&#039;ve talked about on this show before, Dismas and Gestas, the thieves, the penitent thief and the impenitent thief who were crucified by Jesus&#039; side. Dismas we&#039;ve talked about, he becomes Saint Dismas or Saint Demas or Sandemas. And Gestas of course is not a saint. Dismas is gonna keep appearing in this one a couple times. He&#039;s gonna pop up as a little surprise later. Yeah, he&#039;s the penitent thief. He&#039;s the reason why on like an Orthodox cross, you&#039;ve got where the foot... on the cross beam down at the bottom where Jesus&#039; feet would be, that&#039;s tilted. It&#039;s tilted up towards where Dismas would have been and tilted down towards Gestus where Gestus would have been. Yeah, so Jesus goes forth from the judgment hall, the two malefactors with him. Stripped of his garments, you know, resurrection – or passion stuff, I should say. And then we get we get Dismas saying, &amp;quot;Lord, I&#039;ll be with you in your kingdom.&amp;quot; And Jesus is like, &amp;quot;Yeah man, I&#039;m going to heaven and I&#039;m going to take you with me.&amp;quot; What he doesn&#039;t tell him is like, &amp;quot;we have to make a pit stop along the way. But I&#039;m definitely taking you with me to heaven.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Look, there&#039;s just... wait for me there. I was about to say there&#039;s gonna be a guy named St. Peter there, but he will not be there yet. He will not be there for another 30 or so years.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then here in chapter 11 we get Joseph of Arimathea being a counselor of the city of Arimathea, which by the way isn&#039;t. That&#039;s a Robin Hood real city, we will say. Nobody knows where Arimathea is. It&#039;s supposed to be in Judea somewhere, but it&#039;s like nobody knows where that is. People of course have their own personal identifications of where it might be, but there&#039;s no solid location for Arimathea. Anyway, so he&#039;s like, yeah. He can have my tomb, nobody&#039;s been buried in that. So they took his body down, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, laid it in a hewn sepulchre wherein was never a man yet laid.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
What happens is when the priests find out that Joseph has taken Jesus&#039; body, they have him put on house arrest. They&#039;re like, just to make sure that he doesn&#039;t do anything with the body, right? So &amp;quot;they took hold on Joseph and commanded him to be put in safeguard until the first day of the week.&amp;quot; But yeah, there&#039;s not much else they can do because obviously the Sabbath is coming. And so they put him in his house and they put guards around the house. The house is locked up and the doors are sealed. And then what happens is they go back to find him and he&#039;s not there, and all the doors are still locked. And Joseph has disappeared. When the council was set, they commanded him to be brought with great dishonor because they were gonna charge him as well. But &amp;quot;and when they opened the door they found him not, and all the people were beside themselves and amazed, because they found the seals closed, and Caiaphas had the key, and they durst not any more lay hands upon them that had spoken on the behalf of Jesus before Pilate.&amp;quot; So that&#039;s why the other 12 witnesses don&#039;t get charged because they&#039;re so creeped out by this miraculous disappearance of Joseph of Arimathea from inside his own locked house.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So then they go talk to the guards who were at the tomb and they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;what happened here?&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;yeah, an angel came down and rolled the stone away and took the body,&amp;quot; and they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;let&#039;s not say that. Here&#039;s a lot of money. Say literally anything else. Actually, and then to me the funny part is they bribed the guards into saying that the disciples came and stole Jesus&#039; body. And then they spread the rumor, the priests spread the rumor that the disciples bribed the guards into saying that Jesus was resurrected.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Then here in chapter 14, we get a couple of new witnesses, Phinees and Addas and Aggaeus, and they basically come as witnesses to the Great Commission and the Ascension. We know what happens. Jesus says, &amp;quot;go forth and do all these cool things,&amp;quot; and then he disappears into heaven, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; The priests are not convinced by that, but then you know Nicodemus is like &amp;quot;Hey, this kind of thing has happened before.&amp;quot; It happened with here in this text it says Elias and Eliseus, but this is that&#039;s Elijah and Elisha. So Elijah, of course, we know was taken up into heaven in the chariot of fire. [Obvious humming] Anyway, so yeah, he&#039;s he&#039;s saying there is precedent for someone being taken straight up into heaven.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. It&#039;s happened before.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s happened. It&#039;s happened. They go looking for Jesus, they don&#039;t find him. Someone eventually says, &amp;quot;I found Joseph though.&amp;quot; Joseph of Arimathea, found that guy who&#039;d been missing for a while. And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;okay, we have to figure out what happened. Please send him a very nice letter and convince him to come here and that we&#039;re not mad at him or whatever.&amp;quot; And he does come and he explains basically that what happened was &amp;quot;on the preparation day,&amp;quot; so that&#039;s Friday, &amp;quot;about the tenth hour, you did shut me up, and I continued there the whole Sabbath. And at midnight, as I stood and prayed, The house wherein you shut me up was taken up by the four corners. And I saw as it were a flashing of light in mine eyes, and being filled with fear I fell to the earth.&amp;quot; Anyway, the ghost of Jesus shows up to him and is like, &amp;quot;Hey man, I&#039;m good.&amp;quot; And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Are you Elijah?&amp;quot; And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;I&#039;m not Elijah. It&#039;s me, Jesus. We&#039;re friends.&amp;quot; And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Cool, cool, cool, cool.&amp;quot; And then Jesus eventually puts him back in the house, but by that point, everyone had looked inside the house and he was gone. And they&#039;re all freaked out. And Jesus told him to stay in his house for 40 days. And of course, 40 days until the ascension. So now Jesus has ascended. Now Joseph is free to come out of his house.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We know that it&#039;s not an evil spirit, too. In case you were wondering if it was like an evil spirit, it&#039;s not. &lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. &lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And we know this because, as we all know, if you are ever confronted by an evil spirit, you just gotta quote the Ten Commandments at it.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s so true. It&#039;s so true. It&#039;s a very handy thing to have in your back pocket.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this is dropped on us, in a very casual way that I love. &amp;quot;I looked up and saw Jesus and I trembled and supposed that it was a spirit. And I said the commandments, and he said them with me. And as ye are not ignorant, that a spirit, if it meet any man and hear the commandments, straight away fleeth.&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Clearly not an evil spirit. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Established.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know how it goes. That does remind me, and I think I&#039;ve told you this story before because I think I wrote it up for Comics Alliance years and years ago. When I was a kid, and I&#039;ve talked about on this show, I used to spend almost every day at a church that I was convinced was haunted. If I thought that a church ghost was coming after me, I could repel them by closing my eyes and singing the song &amp;quot;My God is an Awesome God.&amp;quot; And that was my ghost repellent.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I have a lot of questions about this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, okay.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; First of all.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. &lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Why would you be afraid of a church ghost? Would they not be good ghosts?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I don&#039;t know that they were. They seemed bad to me. Especially one that I saw a particular time that I wrote about in the story. It looked like a large orangutan being experimented on that I saw through the window of a like a back building on the church grounds and I didn&#039;t want anything to do with that. Also like disembodied shadows. I don&#039;t want any part of those things. I didn&#039;t need it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Alright, well that&#039;s that&#039;s fair, I guess.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Church ghost, that&#039;s spooky!&lt;br /&gt;
 &lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is spooky. &lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;re finally getting some spooky stuff in here.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s definitely spookier than this piece-by-piece investigation of the Ascension of Christ.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Can we can we talk about the descent of Christ?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we can get there. Okay, so yeah, when we get if we if we skip this, there&#039;s just a lot of questions here. Nothing is really new, right? We again also see Enoch brought up as a defense of the idea of the ascension of someone directly into heaven. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Let&#039;s see, here&#039;s the end of the first part. &amp;quot;And the people sang a hymn unto the Lord and said, &#039;Blessed be the Lord who hath given rest unto the people of Israel according to all that he spake. There hath not one word fallen to the ground of all his good saying which he spake unto his servant Moses. The Lord our God be with us as he was with our fathers, let him not forsake us, and let him not destroy us from turning our heart unto him. From walking in all his ways, and keeping his statutes and his judgments, which he commanded our fathers. And the Lord shall be king over all the earth in that day, and it shall be one Lord, and his name one, even the Lord our King, he shall save us. There is none like unto thee,&#039;&amp;quot; etc. So yeah, everyone&#039;s glorifying God at the end, which happens a lot. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Oh there is the interesting bit where the priests are totally freaking out and they say, &amp;quot;If his memorial endure until the Jubilee, I know that he&#039;ll prevail forever and raise up for himself a new people.&amp;quot; So a Jubilee: the idea was, just like there&#039;s a Sabbath within the week, there&#039;d also be a Sabbath year. Every seventh year you don&#039;t farm, you don&#039;t tend your fields basically. And so at the end of seven of seven, so after 49 years, seven Sabbath years, on the 50th year, that&#039;s a Jubilee. And that&#039;s a big deal. And so basically saying, if this if the reputation of Jesus lasts for fifty years, it&#039;s never going away. People are gonna know Jesus forever. And I guess that was true, which I guess is easy to say from the perspective of you know 350 CE or whatever. So anyway, that&#039;s the end of part one. The priests are basically defeated. Everyone&#039;s worshiping God. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But part two says, what if there&#039;s more proof though? What if we had some more proof of the divinity of Jesus? And so what we get here in part two is a descent into Hell. &amp;quot;Joseph arose, said unto Annas and Caiaphas, Simeon,&amp;quot; who, we skipped him earlier. Simeon from the Gospels again. I mean, we talked about him during the Gospels, but Simeon who was at the temple and who when he saw the baby Jesus, he was like &amp;quot;Truly, this is the one we&#039;ve been waiting for. Now I can finally die,&amp;quot; right? He&#039;s brought up earlier in part of the defense. That&#039;s not super important, but here we find out that Simeon had two sons who apparently died before he did or I guess it could have been it could have been after, I guess, but they were two of the Eastertime zombies. They were two of the people who rose from their graves on Good Friday. And their names are Leucius and Karinus, which is weird because Leucius Karinus, you might recall from our previous episode, was the name attributed to the authorship of many of the Acts of the Apostles. And so it&#039;s a little bit weird to take the name of like a popular author that would have definitely been known in the Middle Ages, and then turn it into the name of two of your characters. So it&#039;s a little bit like, &amp;quot;yes, and then Stephen and King showed up and came to give hard evidence for the divinity of Christ.&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But the idea is that these two brothers, they&#039;re separated to go write down their testimonies of What happened? And so they go into separate rooms. &amp;quot;Karinus and Leucius had heard this adjuration. They trembled in their body and groaned being troubled in heart, and looking up together into heaven, they made the seal of the cross with their fingers upon their tongues, and forthwith they spake both of them, saying, &#039;Give us each a volume of paper, and let us write that which we have seen and heard.&#039; And they gave them unto them And each of them sat down and wrote.&amp;quot; And so here we get finally the ascent into Hell, which comes from the testimonies of Leucius and Karinus. And yeah, so basically the idea is following the crucifixion, Jesus is going to head down into Hell or limbo or Hades, I&#039;m sure it&#039;s probably Hades if I had to guess in the original Greek. Which is part of the reason why it&#039;s so easy to anthropomorphosize Hell as a speaking character, if you already think of Hades as the god of the underworld. Hades is the word that&#039;s used in the Greek New Testament to refer to Sheol, the grave, and which is also occasionally personified. But from the perspective of Leucius and Karinus we also see John the Baptist come down first. We see his ghost coming down and this gives great hope.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Before we even get into that, there&#039;s an intro bit that I am quite a fan of.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Hey. You guys know how Jesus came back from the dead. And that&#039;s super impressive. But you know what&#039;s really impressive? Was that he did all this other stuff that you didn&#039;t even know about before now.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And I like this because I feel like resurrecting from the dead is a fairly impressive feat?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s a pretty good one. I cannot say many people have done it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So for this one to be like, &amp;quot;Hey, coming back from the dead, uh-uh, this is the real stuff,&amp;quot; that&#039;s bold.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; For sure. And we definitely are gonna get names that we recognize within this, even though in this edition they may be in forms that are not the familiar forms. So for example we get Esaias, which If you guys recall, that&#039;s the Greek form of Isaiah. So we get Isaiah as a character here. It&#039;s interesting who gets mentioned and who doesn&#039;t, right? There&#039;s a lot of Adam. There&#039;s Seth, there&#039;s Isaiah, and then we get some of the minor prophets later on. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s pretty weird to get Seth. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, it&#039;s not that weird, and I&#039;ll tell you why, because what happens is when they talk about John the Baptist being killed, and John comes down, and he tells them what&#039;s going on, he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Hey, I saw the Lamb of God, I saw the dove descend upon him. I heard a voice of heaven saying, This is my beloved son, and so on.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;When father Adam that was first created heard this, even that Jesus was baptized in Jordan, he cried out to Seth his son, saying: Declare unto thy sons the patriarchs and the prophets all that thou didst hear from Michael the archangel, when I sent thee unto the gates of paradise that thou mightest entreat God to send thee his angel,&amp;quot; and so on. This is a reference to another popular and yet fully apocryphal story about Adam that comes to us from a book called The Life of Adam and Eve, also known as The Apocalypse of Moses. And that was a book that we almost covered last week when we decided to do Judith instead. And we&#039;ll still get it at some point because it&#039;s interesting. But in this version of the story, after Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, there&#039;s a story where Adam is dying or something, and Seth and Eve go to the garden to get some oil from the Tree of Mercy, as it&#039;s called here, which would be the tree of life. And Seth encounters the archangel Michael. And he says, &amp;quot;I&#039;m not going to give you this oil, but I&#039;ll give it to you at the end of time when all flesh will be raised up,&amp;quot;&amp;quot; and so on. And that&#039;s what&#039;s being referred to here. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And it specifically talks about 5,500 years later. And we don&#039;t get it here, but later at the end of this, we get a full like mathematical accounting showing that like it&#039;s 5,500 years from the creation of the earth until the life of Jesus, basically, which, that does not add up if this is the year 5779. Although it is currently supposed to be 5779 years since the creation of Earth. So that math doesn&#039;t come together there. So I don&#039;t know. I don&#039;t know who&#039;s wrong. It&#039;s somebody. Somebody&#039;s math is wrong. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But anyway, yeah, all the patriarchs hear these things because it&#039;s like, oh, it&#039;s that year. It&#039;s time. It&#039;s time. Here comes Jesus. And so they&#039;re very excited. Saints were rejoicing, then we get Satan. Finally, finally, here we are, chapter twenty. Prince and chief of death. And here he is, he&#039;s having some arguments with Hell. And here&#039;s an interesting thing to recognize is that at this point in the story, Satan doesn&#039;t live in Hell. He&#039;s just chatting with him.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this is I guess this is like after seasons of Mist.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, he&#039;s gone up to be a lounge singer Yeah. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Uh-huh. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But no, so the idea is that Satan has not yet been cast into the pit of fire, right? And so he&#039;s I guess still roaming the earth, but he does talk to Hell, or the grave or you know, limbo, however you guys want to think about this, some realm of the dead.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The way that I imagined it&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Was it&#039;s all of the satans voice.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s all the demons. It&#039;s Beelzebub and all them just dunking on him.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like, &amp;quot;Hey idiot, you let Jesus come here.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, because yeah, because Hell is not on board with this plan. Satan&#039;s like, &amp;quot;yo, get ready, here comes Jesus,&amp;quot; and they&#039;re like, why? Yeah, why would you do this?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And an interesting thing about this is that the idea of Hell being a place for sinners is not yet there. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is this is early in the development or dev-hell-opment of Hell. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Dev-hell-opment, yes. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Dev-hell-opment. It&#039;s just a place for the dead. And so there&#039;s this idea of Satan being like, &amp;quot;yeah, of course Jesus is here. He was just a dude, which means he&#039;s afraid of death, which means he dies. So where else is he gonna go?&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;you idiot, he&#039;s he&#039;s alive.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We do get the distinction here. Satan is called the prince of Tartarus, right? Which for the Greeks, Tartarus would have specifically been the portion of the underworld where the evil were punished. Right? &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The bad place. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s the bad place. Yeah, Tartarus is the bad place for sure. That&#039;s where Sisyphus is, that&#039;s where Tantalus is, all the famous dead people and their ironic, Rod Serling-esque punishments are all in Tartarus. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You&#039;ve seen it on Xena. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we all have. We all have. And he&#039;s like, no, man, look, &amp;quot;Why doubtest thou and fearest to receive this Jesus which is thine adversary and mine? For I tempted him, and have stirred up mine ancient people of the Jews.&amp;quot; Rough. That&#039;s real rough. I hate that, and I&#039;m sorry I said that out loud. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s pretty bad. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is so weird how next level anti-Semitic things get.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Let&#039;s move on. &amp;quot;I have sharpened a spear to thrust him through, gall and vinegar have I mingled to give him to drink, and I have prepared a cross to crucify him and nails to pierce him: and his death is nigh at hand, that I may bring him unto thee to be subject unto thee and me.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;You brought a cross? And What were you thinking? &amp;quot;It&#039;s Satan continually being like, &amp;quot;No no guys, it&#039;s totally cool. I brought a cross. He doesn&#039;t like those. It&#039;s like we&#039;re just gonna nail him up.&amp;quot;&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;Oh, Satan, have you never heard of symbolism? You you idiot. You absolute jabroni.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And Hell&#039;s also like, &amp;quot;Isn&#039;t this the guy that has already resurrected the dead? Like Lazarus, for example, like this guy has already taken the dead out of me. So what are you doing?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;And as Satan the prince, and Hell, spoke this together, suddenly there came a voice as of thunder and a spiritual cry: Remove, O princes, your gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.&amp;quot; Yeah, and so Hell is like, &amp;quot;just get out of here, man. Get out of here. If you&#039;re a mighty man of war, go fight the King of glory.&amp;quot; That is. God, aka Jesus here. And so Hell kicks Satan out. Get out of here. You&#039;ve ruined it. It&#039;s all ruined. But Hell says to his wicked ministers, &amp;quot;Shut hard the gates of brass and put on them the bars of iron and withstand stoutly.&amp;quot; That doesn&#039;t work, it turns out, Jesus is stronger than some gates. Because basically all the saints hear it and they just start shouting. They&#039;re like, &amp;quot;open the gates, open the gates, open the gates,&amp;quot;&amp;quot; until he&#039;s finally like, &amp;quot;open the gates.&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; He&#039;s like the opposite of Marc Maron.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yes. Exactly, very good. And so Isaiah standing there, like, &amp;quot;didn&#039;t I tell you? Didn&#039;t I tell you the dead shall arise, and they that are in tomb shall rise again, and they that are in the earth shall rejoice. For the dew which cometh of the Lord is their healing. And again, I also said, O death, where is thy sting? O Hell, where is thy victory? Remember? Remember when I said those things? It&#039;s coming true. It&#039;s happening. It&#039;s me, Isaiah, the fifth evangelist.&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep, pretty much.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah, they&#039;re all shouting, open the gates, and God&#039;s voice comes and says, &amp;quot;Open the gates, please.&amp;quot; And so he opens the gates. He&#039;s gotta do it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which it turns out that was the password. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah the password. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Remember we talked about the password in Isaiah and the Ascension of Isaiah? It was just &amp;quot;please.&amp;quot; It&#039;s the magic word, everybody.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, but you have to be God when you say it. That&#039;s the trick.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, no, that&#039;s the thing. You don&#039;t have to be God. You just have to be polite.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Definitely refer to the princes of Hell as princes. That helps. Give them their proper respect. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s never the wrong time to say please. That&#039;s all.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s true. It is a magical word. They open the gates and David, we get David here, and so he gets a mention. So we&#039;ve got Isaiah has gotten several mentions, Adam, Seth, David so far. And yeah, &amp;quot;Hell and death and their wicked ministers saw the Lord of Majesty appearing in his form. They and their cruel officers, at the sight of the brightness of so great light in their own realm, seeing Christ of a sudden in their abode, they cried out, saying, We&#039;re overcome by thee.&amp;quot; And here&#039;s the bit that I really liked. This was some of my favorite language here, their confusion here. &amp;quot;Who art thou that art sent by the Lord for our confusion? Who art thou that without all damage of corruption, and with the signs of thy majesty unblemished, dust and wrath condemn our power? Who art thou that art so great and so small, both humble and exalted, both soldier and commander, a marvelous warrior in the shape of a bondsman, and a king of glory, dead and living, whom the cross bears slain upon it?&amp;quot; Like I really like that bit. I just like the balance of the antithesis there. It&#039;s like both so great and so small, which is, I mean, that&#039;s the thing. That&#039;s the imagery of Jesus, right? He&#039;s a king born a slave, basically, right? So &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; He drinks from a cup of a carpenter. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not some gilded chalice. Yeah, so I just like that bit. I thought that was well well constructed. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s quite good. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so a lot of questions there. &amp;quot;The King of Glory and His Majesty trampled upon death and laid hold on Satan the prince and delivered him unto the power of Hell.&amp;quot; So  there it is. There we get Satan getting cast into Hell there, which doesn&#039;t quite line up with Revelation, which also sees him being cast into the pit of fire. But I don&#039;t know time is a flat circle or something, so who knows? But now finally we get Jesus, he draws Adam to him unto his own brightness. &amp;quot;Hell receives Satan, with sore reproach says unto him, O Prince of Perdition and Chief of Destruction, Beelzebub, the scorn of the angels and spitting of the righteous, why did you do this?&amp;quot; You worked right into his own into his own hands. You played yourself.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You absolute dunce You complete idiot.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this is what he wanted. This is what he wanted, because now he&#039;s here and he&#039;s gonna free all these people. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And oh, and that cross? And that cross that you brought? Jesus is just gonna be like, &amp;quot;yeah, I&#039;m just gonna put this up right over here. Just gonna put this up. Cause this is mine now. This is mine now.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;I have it. It&#039;s Jesus&#039;s.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep. And so and so yeah, with Satan in Hell, truly and forever dunked on, now Jesus is summoning the righteous one. &amp;quot;So he stretches forth his hand. Come forth, all ye saints.&amp;quot; Yeah, &amp;quot;Ye that by the tree and the devil and death were condemned. Behold now the devil and death condemned by the tree.&amp;quot; Oh that&#039;s that&#039;s very nice. I like that the parallel there the tree of knowledge of good and evil that condemned them and now they&#039;re saved by the tree that is the cross. So very nice parallel imagery there again.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Both of which were gonna be Swamp Thing if Rick Veitch hadn&#039;t left DC.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s true. &amp;quot;He stretched forth his hand, made the sign of the cross over Adam, over all the saints.&amp;quot; Who else do we get here? Habakkuk. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like out of all the out of all the prophets, we get Habakkuk, we get Micah, who&#039;s called Micheas here, but that&#039;s Micah. So those are definitely guys that are fully listed among the minor prophets by Jewish and Christian reckoning.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. You might not even remember. We have seen Habakkuk before. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s true. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you don&#039;t recall, Habakkuk was the one who made that good stew for Daniel. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Mm-hmm. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The one who had angels show up and be like, hey, I&#039;m gonna need that stew. That is no longer your dinner. That is Daniel&#039;s dinner.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So he gets he gets another mention on this show. We&#039;ve now on this show had Habakkuk on twice and Moses zero times.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we don&#039;t get Moses. We don&#039;t get Daniel. We get the guy who made the stew. We don&#039;t get Daniel. Right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I don&#039;t know. I mean that&#039;s about it, right? So we&#039;ve seen Adam, Seth, David, Isaiah gets the most lines, I think. Habakkuk, Micah. And like that&#039;s it for now. Because we&#039;re about to get a couple more.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s like Jesus has a van And so he&#039;s gotta take multiple trips, so this is who lined up first.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, Habakkuk and Micah just managed to get there ahead, and like Ezekiel is like, &amp;quot;I just missed it. I&#039;m a major prophet.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Moses is in the back being like, &amp;quot;I walked around for 40 years. I can wait.&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And so yeah, they go up to heaven, they deliver him to Michael the Archangel, all the saints followed Michael. &amp;quot;He brought them all into the glory and the beauty of paradise.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here&#039;s a question that I just thought of, actually. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do you think like Moses and Abraham were too Jewish? &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; To be mentioned here? Oh man. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; They&#039;re like, you know, that Jews are the people of Moses and Abraham. But like David is Jesus&#039; grandpa.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, okay. David is incredibly Jewish, right? Like &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh no, he is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I don&#039;t know.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But he&#039;s also in the direct lineage, like Jesus is of the house of David.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure, right. Yeah, I suppose that makes sense. And then of course Isaiah gets heavily Christianized as well. We talked, you know, the fifth gospel and all that, but...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is weird to try and sift try and CSI our way through the anti-Semitism of these attacks.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like Micah, I could see because also Micah is considered to prophesy the birth of Christ as well. Habakkuk I don&#039;t know. I don&#039;t know why he gets a mention. They&#039;re brought up to paradise and they run into Enoch and Elijah, who are already up there waiting for them, because they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;hey guys, God brought us here.&amp;quot; Enoch&#039;s just &amp;quot;God brought me. We were walking and then suddenly we were in heaven,&amp;quot; and Elijah&#039;s like, &amp;quot;yeah, I was in a cool flaming chariot that flew in the sky, so a little bit cooler, I think, than probably just walking straight into heaven with God.&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But yeah, so we see those guys and then my favorite moment is like, &amp;quot;hey man we&#039;ve been doing this whole thing and I&#039;ve been trying not to mention anything, but who is that dude? Who is that guy that&#039;s with Jesus when he came down? Like Jesus came down here with a dude. Like who was that guy? Because you look a little sketchy, and I don&#039;t know you.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;And he answered them and said, &#039;Ye have rightly said, for I was a robber, doing all manner of evil upon the earth, and the Jews crucified me with Jesus, and I beheld the wonders of the creation which came to pass through the cross of Jesus when he was crucified,&#039;&amp;quot; and so on. It&#039;s Dismas. And so in a lot of the art of the Harrowing of Hell, if you find it, Jesus is usually like carrying Dismas, like, in his arm as he comes down. So it&#039;s completely like &amp;quot;you will be with me in heaven, but we gotta make a quick stop on the way. Are you cool with that? I promise we can get some combos. And like a specialty Mountain Dew flavor at the gas station.&amp;quot; And yeah, so we get we get Dismas there, which wild, but I love it. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And yeah that&#039;s about the end of it. We get, &amp;quot;Blessed be the Lord Almighty, the Father of eternal good things, Father of mercies. Thou have given such grace unto thy sinners and hast brought them again into the beauty of paradise and into thy good pastures. For this is the most holy life of the Spirit. Amen.&amp;quot; And so that was, it turns out, what was written down by Leucius and Karinus. They both wrote identical word-for-word accounts of this, and that&#039;s how you know it&#039;s real. We see that exact thing, remember the story of the Septuagint is that the seventy-two rabbis all wrote down their Greek translation and they were all word for word identical, even though they were written in separate rooms. So it&#039;s the same idea. Leucius and Karinus in separate rooms write down verbatim versions of this story of the Harrowing of Hell. And then they turn into bright lights and disappear. They&#039;re gone. &amp;quot;When they had finished writing all the things in the several volumes of paper, they arose, and Karinus gave that which they had written into the hands of Annas and Caiaphas and Gamaliel, likewise Leucius gave that which he had written into the hands of Nicodemus and Joseph. And suddenly they were transfigured and became white exceedingly, and were seen no more. But their writings were found to be the same, neither more nor less, by one letter.&amp;quot; That&#039;s it. &amp;quot;These were the things that were spoken by the Jews in their synagogue, did Joseph and Nicodemus forthwith declare unto the governor. And Pilate himself wrote all the things that were done and said concerning Jesus by the Jews, and laid up all the words in the public books of his judgment hall.&amp;quot; This bit has another thing that, as I mentioned before, has the math. It does the math of that 5,500 years. They lay out it was this many years. And the thing that they draw, the significance of that number is to the building of the Ark of the Covenant, which is supposed to be five and a half cubits, and so they understand that the five and a half cubits equal five and a half thousand years. And so then they break down that math and they&#039;re saying that&#039;s why Jesus came in the 5,500th year, which again, if this is 5779, that doesn&#039;t work out.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is currently 5779.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Feeling fine, 5779. And yeah, then at the very end here of the M.R. James version, we get that letter from Pilate to Claudius, which we&#039;ve already discussed in our Peter and Paul episode. It&#039;s very brief. It&#039;s just two paragraphs of Pilate saying, &amp;quot;here&#039;s the thing I saw, and we killed him.&amp;quot; And like that and that&#039;s it, basically. But as I mentioned, a lot of versions of this story add the Cure of Tiberius, the Cura sanitatis Tiberii, which the cure of the health of Tiberius, which is the earliest version of the full Veronica legend with the handkerchief with God&#039;s or with Jesus&#039; face perfectly imprinted on it, which that particular relic comes to be known as a Veronica. And so this is the earliest account of that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So this is the earliest account of the Veronica Lodge-end.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, the Veronica Lodge-end, yes. So there&#039;s that, and then there&#039;s also another story called the Mors Pilati, which is the death of Pilate. There&#039;s different versions of what happens. And in a lot of versions, Pilate ultimately commits suicide. But here we have a different version. So if you combine the bits from the Cura sanitatis Tiberii and the Mors Pilati, you get the account here from our boy, Jacobus de Voragine, in the Golden Legend. This comes from the section on the Passion of the Lord. And I&#039;m just gonna read it. I&#039;m just gonna read it because it&#039;s very good. There&#039;s a lot of good things going on here. So. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;quot;When Pilate had handed Jesus over to the Jews to be crucified, he was afraid that his condemnation of innocent blood might offend Tiberius Caesar, and dispatched one of his familiars to make a case for him to the emperor. Meanwhile, it was announced to Tiberius, who was seriously ill, that in Jerusalem there was a physician who cured all diseases by his word alone. Therefore, the emperor, not knowing that Pilate and the Jews had put this physician to death, said to one of his intimates, whose name was Volusian, &#039;Cross the sea as fast as you can, and tell Pilate to send this healer to me so that he may restore me to health.&#039; Volusian came to Pilate and delivered the emperor&#039;s command, but Pilate, terror-stricken, asked for a fortnight&#039;s grace. During this time, Volusian made the acquaintance of a woman named Veronica, who had been in Jesus&#039; company, and asked her where he might find Jesus Christ. She answered, &#039;Alas, he was my Lord and my God, and Pilate, to whom he was handed over through envy, condemned him and commanded that he be crucified.&#039; Volusian was grieved at this and said, &#039;I am deeply sorry that I cannot carry out the orders my master gave me.&#039; Veronica answered, &#039;When the teacher was going about preaching, and I, to my regret, could not be with him. I wanted to have his picture painted so that so that when I was deprived of his presence I could at least have the solace of his image. So one day I was carrying a piece of linen to the painter when I met Jesus, and he asked me where I was going. I told him what my errand was. He asked for the cloth I had in my hand, pressed it to his venerable face, and he left his image on it. If your master looks devoutly upon the image, he will at once be rewarded by being cured.&#039; &#039;Can this image be bought for gold or silver?&#039; Volusian asked. &#039;No,&#039; Veronica replied. &#039;Only true piety can make it effective. Therefore I will go with you and let Caesar look upon the image, after which I will return home.&#039; So Volusian came to Rome with Veronica and told Tiberius, &#039;The Jesus you have long desired to see was unjustly given over to death by Pilate and the Jews, and by reason of their envy nailed to the gibbet of the cross. However, a lady came to me with a picture of Jesus, and if you look at it devoutly, you will obtain the benefit of your health.&#039; Caesar therefore had the road carpeted with silk cloths and ordered the image brought to him, and the moment he looked at it he won back his pristine health.&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And Tiberius, who I can say for a fact was kind of a jerk emperor, is made into a Christian here, which kind of happens to a number of early emperors. It happens to Augustus too. There&#039;s a version where baby Jesus appears to Augustus in a dream or something. I haven&#039;t read that in like twenty years, so I don&#039;t remember the details. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;quot;But Pontius Pilate was then taken prisoner at Caesar&#039;s command and shipped to Rome. And when the emperor heard that he had arrived, he was filled with fury and had him brought into his presence. Pilate, however, had taken with him the Lord&#039;s seamless tunic, and came before the emperor wearing it. And As soon as Tiberius saw him clothed in the tunic, his anger vanished. He rose to meet Pilate and could not address a harsh word to him. So the emperor, who, when Pilate was absent, seemed so terrible and furious now in his presence, was somehow calmed. As soon as he had given him leave to go, on the other hand, he was again afire with rage, and called himself a wretch for not having showed the culprit the anger that was in his heart.&amp;quot; So as long as Pilate is wearing Jesus&#039;s clothes, Tiberius can&#039;t be angry with him, but as soon as he leaves, he&#039;s angry again. &amp;quot;Swearing and protesting that Pilate was a son of death, and that it was not right to let him live on the earth, he at once had him called back. But when he saw him, the emperor greeted him, and his wrath subsided. All wondered, and he himself wondered, that he could be so wrought up against Pilate absent, and could not so much as speak to him harshly when he was present.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;quot;At length, at a sign from God, or perhaps a hint from some Christian, he had the man stripped of that tunic and instantly his previous rage was rekindled. The emperor&#039;s astonishment mounted until he was told that the tunic had belonged to the Lord Jesus. He had Pilate remanded to prison until he could consult with a council of wise men about what should be done with the criminal. Pilate was forthwith sentenced to a shameful death, but when he heard of this he killed himself with his own knife, and so ended his life. When Caesar was informed of this, he said, &#039;Truly he died a most shameful death, and his own hand did not spare him.&#039;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;quot;The corpse was weighted with a huge stone and thrown into the Tiber, but wicked foul spirits made sport of the wicked foul body, plunging it into the water and snatching it up into the air. This caused awesome floods in the water and lightning, tempests and hailstorms in the air, and a widespread panic broke out among the people. The Romans therefore pulled the body out of the Tiber, and as a gesture of contempt carried it off to Vienne,&amp;quot; this is not Vienna, but Vienne, a city in France, &amp;quot;and dumped it into the Rhone. The name of the city comes from Via Gehenne, the road to Hell, because at this time it was a place of malediction. Or more likely, the city was called Vienne or Bienna because it was said to have been built on a biennium. But there again the wicked spirits rallied and stirred up the same disturbances, and the people refusing to put up with so great a plague of demons, removed that vessel of malediction from their midst and consigned it to a burial in the territory of the city of Lausanne. And there the populace, harried by excess, by the aforesaid upheavals, took the body away and sank it in a pit surrounded by mountains, where, according to some accounts, diabolical machinations still make themselves felt.&amp;quot; And that area, that real place, that mountain, is actually called Mont Pilatus. Like Pilate, Mount Pilate, except it&#039;s actually probably because it was &amp;quot;piletus&amp;quot; it was capped by clouds. But anyway it&#039;s got it&#039;s called Pilate now. And in some legends it says that on Holy Weekend the undead body of Pilate will climb out of the mountain and sit and contemplate the resurrection.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; How did you save... I guess that&#039;s appropriate for the last little bit of our horror episode. You didn&#039;t know there was gonna be a zombie. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, there&#039;s a zombie. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s a secret zombie in this episode all this time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s storm demons. There&#039;s some good stuff, yeah, but of course I had to dig into some Golden Legend to get the good-good stuff. But yeah, so that&#039;s essentially the story of the Cura Tiberii, sanitatis Tiberii, which is frequently appended in Latin editions of the Gospel of Nicodemus. We skipped over it. This book was also the origin of the name Longinus, as the soldier who drove the sphere. So we talked about the sphere of destiny, the Spear of Longinus, the Lance of Longinus. So that name first appears here, Dismas and Gestas first appear here, Veronica first appears here. So this is an important and influential work that gives us a lot of stuff that gets really thoroughly imbued into Christian thought and legend. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Did you have a verse? &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I did. I already read it though. It was it was the bit with the demons asking about who is this so great and so humble. That was my favorite bit for sure. What about you? Did you have one?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh yeah, there&#039;s a lot of really good stuff in here. Basically anytime Hell is yelling at Satan is good. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But I wanted to talk about Enoch. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, yeah. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Enoch is the one that you have made big promises about, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;ve definitely been teasing, yes, when we read first Enoch, it is definitely going to be one of the wildest things we have ever covered on this show, for sure. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay. Well this says, this is chapter twenty-five, &amp;quot;I am Enoch, which was translated hither by the word of the Lord, and this that is with me is Elias the Thesbite. which was taken up in a chariot of fire, and up to this day we have not tasted death, but we are received into the coming of Antichrist to fight against him with signs and wonders of God, and to be slain of him in Jerusalem, and after three days and a half to be taken up again alive on the clouds.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That sounds like a pretty cool story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I&#039;ll have to dig into that a little bit more to see if there&#039;s more to that particular belief that Enoch and Elijah are gonna go fight the Antichrist.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I would be very excited to know if that was the case.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah, yeah. We&#039;ll see, and if I can find where that gets carried out more, we&#039;ll definitely cover that on the show for sure.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But but also, yeah, like pretty much any time Satan is just getting dunked on is very good in this. I kinda love all the stuff where it&#039;s like, &amp;quot;this was his plan all along.&amp;quot; Where Jesus Ocean&#039;s 11s everybody into salvation is pretty great.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s good. So where do you come down on this, Chris? I know you said you were you found the first part kind of boring. Overall, what would you say about the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Acts of Pilate?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean it certainly picks up when Jesus descends into Hell to take all of the righteous dead up to heaven. Not great with all the anti-Semitism.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure, yeah, that part kind of blows. Yeah. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, not my favorite part. In my understanding of it as just Jesus going getting the righteous dead, I find that to be very entertaining. &lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. &lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Jesus going and making all of the Jewish patriarchs into Christians, however, like you said, it&#039;s one of those things that is by doctrine necessary, but not a great look in retrospect.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep. But yeah. A pretty interesting one, and again, very important, so I&#039;m glad that we covered it as relatively early as we did, even if it means we haven&#039;t covered a lot of very important canonical books. You know, we do a mix of things. That&#039;s the show. &lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ll get to them. Don&#039;t get weird about it. We&#039;ll get to them. &lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ll definitely get there. Yeah. I just feel someone is out there like, why haven&#039;t you done Nahum yet or something? I don&#039;t know. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I think we&#039;ll be okay. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Let me know if you&#039;re a Nahum stan, I need to know, give me a shout.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; As we mentioned, that was the first part of our multi-part Scare-stravaganza.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, absolutely. So part two for our very good Halloween special. We&#039;re gonna have a mash. We&#039;re gonna do the mash. We&#039;re gonna do the monster mash. We&#039;re gonna go and we&#039;re gonna see our boy Solomon tackling all the demons. That&#039;s right, we&#039;re gonna do the Testament of Solomon next week and I promise you guys will not describe that one as boring in any part. Because it&#039;s a very cool story of Solomon. Asmodeus will make a return. Basically, any named demon that we&#039;ve seen so far is probably going to be showing up. Cool little folktales that were very popular among Jewish people. And I think it&#039;ll be very fun. I think you guys will get a real kick out of the Testament of Solomon. And I will provide a link on our Tumblr so you can find it. So don&#039;t worry about finding that because it&#039;s definitely not gonna be in the HCSB or the NRSV. I&#039;ll put a link up. You&#039;ll be able to find it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; A thing that I like is that next week we&#039;re doing a Monster Bash. But I think it&#039;s fair to refer to Jesus&#039; triumph over death as a Graveyard Dmash.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It w it was. It was the graveyard smash. We did it backwards, I guess.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; What book is the Transylvania twist in? &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Ooh. Hmm. I have to think about it. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is that in Enoch?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Maybe. It could be.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which apocalypse explains what happened to the Transylvania twist? It&#039;s now the mash. Alright everybody! Have a great week. We will be back next time with the Testament of Solomon. We hope you have a scary– nah we don&#039;t hope you have a scary time! We hope you have a time that has as many scares as you are comfortable with. Yeah. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hey Chris, why don&#039;t we tell people where they can give us some money and some help and stuff. That sounds good, Benito. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Where can everybody find us online?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so if you want to find us online and get supplementary material and things like links to the readings that we do that can&#039;t be found in normal people bibles. Go to [https://apocrypals.tumbler.com apocrypals.tumbler.com]. This past week I&#039;ve put up a lot of images of Thecla and also some of the very, very many paintings of Judith and Holofernes. So if you wanted to check out different takes on those from across the years, which is an incredibly popular motif in art, you can check that out. Also we provide links to this show. Links to other resources and things. And we answer questions as well. You can ask us questions. Usually we&#039;ll just answer them on the Tumblr, but sometimes we might hit them up on the show. So go there if you&#039;re looking for any kind of supplemental material for the show. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you like the show, you want to help us out, you want to help us keep the show going, pay for hosting and that kind of stuff, go to [https://ko-fi.com/apocrypals K O dash F I dot com slash apocrypals], that&#039;s [https://ko-fi.com/apocrypals kofi dot com slash apocrypals], and there you can basically leave us a tip, buy us a coffee. You can leave any kind of amount of money in increments of three dollars. As much or as little as you are interested in. And unlike a Patreon, it&#039;s not a recurring pledge. You can you can leave a tip as often as you feel is appropriate. It can be one time, it could be every week, like some people do, and it could be any amount, it could be three dollars. Some people do $18 because 18 is that number of life. Some people have been doing $21 because it&#039;s as many threes as you can have. It&#039;s seven threes. And whatever, whatever, how however much. And we were we absolutely appreciate it. We absolutely appreciate everyone who&#039;s left donations there. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you want to help us out and you don&#039;t have the money or you don&#039;t want to spend the money, you can absolutely help us by leaving us a review on whatever your podcatcher of choice is, especially Apple Podcasts. Just leave us a rating and a quick review. We get some really great reviews that I absolutely appreciate, but don&#039;t feel like you have to be super literary. You can just say, &amp;quot;it&#039;s very good and I do like it.&amp;quot; Like that could be your review and that&#039;s fine. But the more reviews and ratings we get, the more likely we are to be featured and the more likely we are to get that very clutch Pontifex retweet. So Yeah, just help us out that way. As for me, you can find me on Twitter or Tumblr or Instagram. Just search for Benito Cereno. You&#039;ll find me. What about you, Chris?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You can find me by going to [https://the-isb.com T H E  dash I S B dot com]. That&#039;s my homepage that has links to all the things that I do. Hey everybody, this Wednesday, October 24th, if you&#039;re listening to this the week that it comes out, we&#039;ve got a very special project that&#039;s finally out in stores. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. &lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The Army of Darkness Halloween special with a lead story by me and Chad Bowers and Owen Marin and a backup story written by Benito with art by...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sam Lotfi. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sam Lotfi. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That is going to be available in stores. Also, a new issue for the first time in two years. Of my comic Dracula the Unconquered is gonna be released digitally on Comixology. So if you would like to get some more stuff for us Then by all means pick those things up. They are very good and very fun.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I read that Dracula. I read that Dracula. It&#039;s excellent. It&#039;s a very good Dracula.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Thank you. I think it&#039;s my favorite issue I&#039;ve done of that book so far.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So that&#039;s it. We&#039;re gonna be back next week with the Testament of Solomon. Until then, for Benito Cereno, I&#039;ve been Chris Sims. Benito, peace be with you. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And also, with you!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music &amp;quot;Highway to Hell&amp;quot; by AC/DC]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
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		<title>Episode List</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Episode_List&amp;diff=139"/>
		<updated>2026-02-13T20:08:41Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: /* Episodes */&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;In each episode, [[Benito Cereno|Benito]] and [[Chris Sims|Chris]] read, watch or play something from the Bible (or Bible-adjacent) and talk about its history, authors, and contents. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
You can listen to all episodes at the show&#039;s [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com Libsyn page] or by subscribing through [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/apocrypals/id1366302177 Apple Podcasts]. [[Bonus Episodes|Bonus video episodes]] can all be seen on [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvsqJ485UTPgVIP1i-BTgMfSsmk4S7ouE Benito&#039;s YouTube channel].&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Episodes==&lt;br /&gt;
{| class=&amp;quot;wikitable sortable&amp;quot; style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
! Episode !! &amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;Date&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp; !! Title !! Subject !! Source !! Transcript&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/episode-0-ive-been-to-my-share-of-pizza-parties 0] || 2018-03-29 || [[I&#039;ve Been To My Share of Pizza Parties]] || nonspecific || || [[I&#039;ve Been To My Share of Pizza Parties (Transcript) | Yes]] &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/porky-party-the-book-of-acts 1] || 2018-04-08 || [[Porky Party]] || Acts || New Testament || [[Porky Party (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/2-one-weird-trick-the-book-of-daniel-with-apocrypha 2] || 2018-04-14 || [[One Weird Trick]] || Daniel as well as The Prayer of Azariah aka the Song of the Three Holy Children; Susanna; and Bel and the Dragon || Tanakh and Deuterocanon  || [[One Weird Trick (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/3-various-heresies-the-acts-of-peter-and-paul 3] || 2018-04-22 || [[Various Heresies]] || The Acts of Peter and The Acts of Peter and Paul || Apocrypha  || [[Various Heresies (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/4-wittgensteins-monster-the-book-of-isaiah 4] || 2018-05-06 || [[Wittgenstein&#039;s Monster]] || The Book of Isaiah || Tanakh || [[Wittgenstein&#039;s Monster (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/5-on-the-road-to-rome-pauls-letter-to-the-romans 5] || 2018-05-20 || [[On the Road to Rome]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Romans || New Testament || [[On the Road to Rome (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/6-fresh-prince-of-beliar-the-ascension-of-isaiah 6] || 2018-05-27 || [[Fresh Prince of Beliar]] || The Ascension of Isaiah &amp;amp; The Prayer of Manasseh || Pseudepigrapha and Deuterocanon  || [[ Fresh Prince of Beliar (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/7-neon-genesis-good-news-the-gospel-of-mark-and-secret-mark-0 7] || 2018-06-03 || [[Neon Genesis Good News]] || The Gospel of Mark and Secret Mark || New Testament and Apocrypha  || [[Neon Genesis Good News (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/8-whats-up-doctor-goodacre-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-one 8] || 2018-06-10 || [[What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre]] || The Gospel of Matthew, Part One || New Testament  || [[ What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/9-simon-peters-sweet-sixteen-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-two 9] || 2018-06-24 || [[Simon Peter&#039;s Sweet Sixteen]] || The Gospel of Matthew, Part Two || New Testament || [[Simon Peter&#039;s Sweet Sixteen (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/10-the-dude-hates-wizards-the-gospel-of-luke 10] || 2018-07-02 || [[The Dude Hates Wizards]] || The Gospel of Luke || New Testament || [[The Dude Hates Wizards (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/11-90s-vertigo-jesus-the-gospel-of-john-part-one 11] || 2018-07-09 || [[90s Vertigo Jesus]] || The Gospel of John, Part One || New Testament  || [[ 90s Vertigo Jesus (Transcript)| Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/12-whomst-was-at-the-tombst-the-gospel-of-john-part-two 12] || 2018-07-15 || [[Whomst Was At the Tombst?]] || The Gospel of John, Part Two || New Testament || [[ Whomst Was At the Tombst? (Transcript)| Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/11-90s-vertigo-jesus-the-gospel-of-john-part-one 13] || 2018-07-30 || [[Bonus Goat]] || The Deuterocanonical Book of Tobit || Deuterocanon  || [[Bonus Goat (Transcript)|Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/14-the-boy-related-eagle-plan-the-story-of-ahikar 14] || 2018-08-06 || [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan]] || The Story of Ahikar || Pseudepigrapha || [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan (Transcript)|Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/15-an-approximate-week-the-golden-legend-st-christopher-and-st-benedict 15] || 2018-08-13 || [[An Approximate Week]] || The Golden Legend: St. Christopher and St. Benedict || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/16-doamurder-west-virginia-the-book-of-genesis-part-1 16] || 2018-08-19 || [[Doamurder, West Virginia]] || The Book of Genesis, Part 1 || Tanakh || [[Doamurder, West Virginia (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/17-five-gallons-of-bread-the-book-of-genesis-part-two 17] || 2018-08-27 || [[Five Gallons of Bread]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Two || Tanakh  || [[Five Gallons of Bread (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/18-literally-and-figuratively-wrestling-with-god-the-book-of-genesis-part-three-0 18] || 2018-09-09 || [[Literally and Figuratively Wrestling With God]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Three || Tanakh || [[ Literally and Figuratively Wrestling With God (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/19-mbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbam-the-book-of-genesis-part-four 19] || 2018-09-23 || [[MBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBaM]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Four || Tanakh  || [[ MBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBaM (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/20-shalom-birdie-genesis-commentary-with-david-wolkin 20] || 2018-09-30 || [[Shalom Birdie (with David Wolkin)]] || The Book of Genesis || Tanakh  || [[ Shalom Birdie (with David Wolkin) (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/21-biblerella-the-acts-of-paul-and-thecla 21] || 2018-10-07 || [[Biblerella]] || The Acts of Paul and Thecla || Apocrypha  || [[Biblerella (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/22-oceans-two-the-book-of-judith 22] || 2018-10-15 || [[Ocean&#039;s Two]] || The Book of Judith || Deuterocanon  || [[Ocean&#039;s Two (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/23-dunking-on-satan-the-acts-of-pilate-and-the-gospel-of-nicodemus 23] || 2018-10-21 || [[Dunking on Satan]] || The Acts of Pilate and The Gospel of Nicodemus || Apocrypha  || [[Dunking on Satan (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/25-butt-stuff-dragon-the-testament-of-solomon 24] || 2018-10-29 || [[Butt Stuff Dragon]] || The Testament of Solomon || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/25-one-rinthies-baby-first-corinthians 25] || 2018-11-14 || [[One Rinthies, Baby]] || First Corinthians || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/26-some-other-christmas-man-the-lives-of-st-nicholas-and-st-lucy 26] || 2018-11-19 || [[Some Other Christmas Man]] || The Lives of St. Nicholas and St. Lucy || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/27-the-book-of-the-dynasty-of-gods-resisters-the-first-book-of-maccabees 27] || 2018-12-02 || [[The Book of the Dynasty of God&#039;s Resisters]] || The First Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/28-second-maccabees-second-furious-the-second-book-of-maccabees 28] || 2018-12-10 || [[Second Maccabees Second Furious]] || The Second Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/29-these-apocryphal-ravings-the-infancy-gospel-of-james 29] || 2018-12-16 || [[These Apocryphal Ravings]] || The Infancy Gospel of James || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/30-apples-and-oranges-the-legend-of-the-three-kings 30] || 2019-01-07 || [[Apples and Oranges]] || The Legend of the Three Kings by John of Hildesheim || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/31-yartzed-upon-a-distant-shore-the-book-of-jonah 31] || 2019-01-24 || [[Yartzed Upon a Distant Shore]] || The Book of Jonah || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/32-return-of-the-twelve-foot-volcel-lion-questions-answers 32] || 2019-02-03 || [[Return of the Twelve-Foot Volcel Lion]] || Questions &amp;amp; Answers || Listener questions  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/33-thicc-darkness-the-book-of-exodus-part-one 33] || 2019-02-10 || [[Thicc Darkness]] || The Book of Exodus, Part One || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/34-thorn-bushes-and-pushups-the-song-of-songs 34] || 2019-02-24 || [[Thorn Bushes and Pushups]] || The Song of Songs || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/35-down-in-the-donkey-hole-the-book-of-exodus-part-two 35] || 2019-03-03 || [[Down in the Donkey Hole]] || The Book of Exodus, Part Two || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/36-grazacham-the-life-of-st-patrick 36] || 2019-03-12 || [[GRAZACHAM!]] || Muirchu’s Life of Saint Patrick || Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/37-bigger-esther-the-book-of-esther-and-greek-esther 37] || 2019-03-20 || [[Bigger Esther]] || The Book of Esther and Greek Esther || Tanakh and Deuterocanon ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/38-sword-drill-online-bible-trivia-special 38] || 2019-03-31 || [[Sword Drill Online]] || Bible Trivia Special || Complete Book of Bible Trivia  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/39-rain-is-boy-water-the-book-of-enoch-part-one 39] || 2019-04-07 || [[Rain is Boy Water]] || The Book of Enoch, Part One || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/40-devil-got-a-hog-the-book-of-enoch-part-two 40] || 2019-04-19 || [[Devil Got a Hog]] || The Book of Enoch, Part Two || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/41-neo-mary-is-about-to-e-x-p-l-o-d-e-the-questions-of-bartholomew 41] || 2019-04-29 || [[Neo-Mary Is About To E X P L O D E]] || Questions of Bartholomew and The Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Bartholomew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/42-the-roasting-of-the-apostle-paul-second-corinthians 42] || 2019-05-06 || [[The Roasting of the Apostle Paul]] || Second Corinthians || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/43-why-prophets-so-nasty-the-book-of-jeremiah 43] || 2019-05-27 || [[Why Prophets So Nasty?]] || The Book of Jeremiah || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/44-terms-and-conditions-the-book-of-jeremiah-part-2 44] || 2019-06-23 || [[Terms and Conditions]] || The Book of Jeremiah, Part 2 || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/45-mummy-dust-and-skeleton-bones-the-book-of-ruth 45] || 2019-07-14 || [[Mummy Dust and Skeleton Bones]] || The Book of Ruth || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/46-ctrl-z-on-a-murder-the-acts-of-john 46] || 2019-08-09 || [[CTRL-Z On A Murder]] || The Acts of John || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/47-approximate-week-ii-the-quickening-the-syriac-infancy-gospel 47] || 2019-08-21 || [[Approximate Week II: The Quickening]] || The Syriac Infancy Gospel || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/48-the-almighty-ambush-bear-the-book-of-lamentations 48] || 2019-08-28 || [[The Almighty Ambush Bear]] || The Book of Lamentations || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/49-wajesus-the-first-second-and-third-epistles-of-john 49] || 2019-09-16 || [[Wajesus]] || The First, Second, and Third Epistles of John || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/50-the-terf-of-babylon-the-revelation-of-john-0 50] || 2019-10-02 || [[The TERF of Babylon]] || The Revelation of John || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/51-jesus-buffy-halloween-chick-tracts 51] || 2019-10-28 || [[Jesus, Buffy]] || Halloween Chick Tracts || Chick Tracts  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/51-apocrypals-chris-and-benito-the-book-of-ecclesiastes 52] || 2019-11-24 || [[Apocrypals Chris And Benito]] || The Book of Ecclesiastes || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/52-maccabees-3-elephant-drift-the-third-book-of-maccabees 53] || 2019-12-08 || [[Maccabees 3: Elephant Drift]] || The Third Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/54-our-favorite-murders-the-infancy-gospel-of-thomas 54] || 2019-12-22 || [[Our Favorite Murders]] || The Infancy Gospel of Thomas || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/55-the-parable-of-the-sexy-blood-baby-the-book-of-ezekiel-part-one 55] || 2020-01-12 || [[The Parable of the Sexy Blood Baby]] || The Book of Ezekiel, Part One || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/56-welcome-to-the-bone-zone-the-book-of-ezekiel-part-two 56] || 2020-01-26 || [[Welcome to the Bone Zone]] || The Book of Ezekiel, Part Two || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/57-we-holy-ghost-bro-the-life-of-xanthippe-polyxena-and-rebecca 57] || 2020-02-08 || [[We Holy Ghost, Bro?]] || The Life of Xanthippe, Polyxena, and Rebecca || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/58-blaise-your-dead-homie-the-lives-of-st-sebastian-st-blaise-and-st-agatha 58] || 2020-02-23 || [[Blaise, Your Dead Homie]] || The Lives of St. Sebastian, St. Blaise, and St. Agatha || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/59-source-of-the-flow-the-book-of-leviticus 59] || 2020-03-08 || [[Source of the Flow]] || The Book of Leviticus || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/59-joses-crust-the-acts-of-andrew-and-matthias 60] || 2020-03-22 || [[Joses Crust]] || The Acts of Andrew and Matthias || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/60-countless-large-gregs-the-second-book-of-enoch 61] || 2020-04-05 || [[Countless Large Gregs]] || The Second Book of Enoch || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/62-oh-the-jews-manatees-the-book-of-numbers 62] || 2020-04-19 || [[Oh, the Jews&#039; Manatees!]] || The Book of Numbers || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/63-wist-not-to-whom-ne-whither-the-lives-of-st-roche-and-st-guinefort 63] || 2020-05-06 || [[Wist Not To Whom Ne Whither]] || The Lives of St. Roche and St. Guinefort || Golden Legend, Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/64-spiritual-warfare-is-good-actually-bible-adventures-and-the-wisdom-tree-catalogue 64] || 2020-05-18 || [[Spiritual Warfare Is Good, Actually]] || Bible Adventures and the Wisdom Tree catalogue || Video Games  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/65-adonai-is-ichiban-the-book-of-deuteronomy 65] || 2020-06-02 || [[Adonai is Ichiban!]] || The Book of Deuteronomy || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/66-jesus-with-two-cool-ses-the-acts-of-thomas-and-his-wonderworking-skin 66] || 2020-06-14 || [[JeSuS With Two Cool Ses]] || The Acts of Thomas and his Wonderworking Skin || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/67-bad-things-to-call-your-mother-the-book-of-bartholomew 67] || 2020-06-28 || [[Bad Things to Call Your Mother]] || The Book of Bartholomew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/68-scent-of-a-jesus-the-first-second-and-third-apocryphal-apocalypses-of-john 68] || 2020-07-12 || [[Scent of a Jesus]] || The First, Second, and Third Apocryphal Apocalypses of John || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/69-thirst-corinthians-the-lives-of-st-mary-of-egypt-and-st-pelagia 69] || 2020-07-26 || [[Thirst Corinthians]] || The Lives of St. Mary of Egypt and St. Pelagia || Separate books  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xHQHK_SLX8 69 Secret] || 2020-08-28 || [[Secret 69]] || The Greater Questions of Mary || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/70-two-firkin-bored-the-letter-of-aristeas-0 70] || 2020-08-09 || [[Two Firkin Bored]] || The Letter of Aristeas || Pseudepigrapha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/71-approximate-week-chapter-3-parabellum-the-war-scroll 71] || 2020-08-23 || [[Approximate Week Chapter 3: Parabellum]] || The War Scroll || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/72-cold-brew-paul-pauls-letter-to-the-galatians 72] || 2020-09-06 || [[Cold Brew Paul]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Galatians || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/73-be-courageous-the-book-of-joshua 73] || 2020-09-20 || [[Be Courageous!]] || The Book of Joshua || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/74-howl-of-the-ostrich-the-books-of-micah-and-nahum 74] || 2020-10-04 || [[Howl of the Ostrich]] || The Books of Micah and Nahum || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/75-lazer-babies-the-apocalypse-of-peter 75] || 2020-10-18 || [[Lazer Babies]] || The Apocalypse of Peter || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/76-filling-the-room-the-life-of-st-martin 76] || 2020-11-01 || [[Filling the Room]] || The Life of St. Martin || Separate books  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/77-the-blessed-voltrons-the-lives-of-st-catherine-and-st-barbara 77] || 2020-11-15 || [[The Blessed Voltrons]] || The Lives of St. Catherine and St. Barbara || Golden Legend ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/78-maccabees-the-fourth-book-of-maccabees 78] || 2020-11-29 || [[MACCABEES]] || the Fourth Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/79-marys-christmas-the-infancy-gospel-of-pseudo-matthew 79] || 2020-12-13 || [[Marys Christmas]] || The Infancy Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/bonus-bill-bless-us-every-ted-christmas-gift-exchange-2020 79 Bonus] || 2020-12-22 || [[Bill Bless Us, Every Ted]] || Christmas Gift Exchange 2020 || The Joy of Friendship  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/80-the-deadliest-skambush-of-them-all-the-book-of-judges 80] || 2021-01-10 || [[The Deadliest Skambush of Them All]] || The Book of Judges || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/81-sometimes-its-just-sucky-pauls-letter-to-the-ephesians 81] || 2021-01-24 || [[Sometimes It&#039;s Just Sucky]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Ephesians || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/82-sedeqetelebab-the-book-of-jubilees 82] || 2021-02-07 || [[Sedeqetelebab!]] || The Book of Jubilees Pt 1 || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/83-speedrun-tactics-the-book-of-jubilees-part-2 83] || 2021-02-21 || [[Speedrun Tactics]] || The Book of Jubilees Pt 2 || Pseudepigrapha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/84-just-one-more-thing-the-life-of-st-columba 84] || 2021-03-07 || [[Just One More Thing]] || The Life of St. Columba || Hagiography  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/85-old-clootie-the-life-of-st-dunstan 85] || 2021-03-21 || [[Old Clootie]] || The Life of St. Dunstan || Golden Legend ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/87-god-junior-the-third-book-of-enoch-part-1 86] || 2021-04-04 || [[God Junior]] || The Third Book of Enoch (Part 1) || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/87-crisis-on-18000-earths-the-third-book-of-enoch-part-2 87] || 2021-04-18 || [[Crisis On 18,000 Earths]] || The Third Book of Enoch (Part 2) || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/88-a-miserable-pile-of-secrets-the-da-vinci-code-commentary 88] || 2021-05-09 || [[A Miserable Pile of Secrets]] || The Da Vinci Code, the film || Fiction  || [[A Miserable Pile of Secrets (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/89-2000-bc-the-first-book-of-samuel 89] || 2021-05-23 || [[2000 B.C.]] || The First Book of Samuel || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/90-worfin-the-lions-the-second-book-of-samuel-part-1 90] || 2021-06-06 || [[Worfin’ the Lions]] || The Second Book of Samuel (Part 1) || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt4B2OXgHN4 90.1] || 2021-06-20 || [[Double Chai: Rock Me, Asmodeus]] || Solomon and the Devil || Talmudic Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/90-the-me-in-this-story-is-you-the-second-book-of-samuel-part-2 91] || 2021-06-27 || [[The Me In This Story Is You]] || The Second Book of Samuel (Part 2) || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/92-slayer-of-men-conqueror-of-space-the-gospel-of-philip-the-gospel-of-mary-and-the-gospel-of-jesuss-wife-0 92] || 2021-07-11 || [[Slayer of Men, Conqueror of Space]] || The Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Mary, and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife || Apocrypha (Gnostic)  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HKZ-U4W7Ew 92 Bonus] || 2021-08-04 || [[Cephalo4: Protect Yr Neck]] || Cephalophores || Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/93-approximate-week-iv-oblivion-joseph-and-aseneth 93] || 2021-08-15 || [[Approximate Week IV: OblIVion]] || Joseph and Aseneth || Apocrypha (Tanakh)  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/94-little-martha-and-the-small-vandellas-the-lives-of-st-mary-magdalene-and-st-wilgefortis 94] || 2021-09-26 || [[Little Martha and the Small Vandellas]] || The Lives of St. Mary Magdalene and St. Wilgefortis || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/95-an-abyss-of-significant-depth-the-apocalypse-of-paul 95] || 2021-10-10 || [[An Abyss of Significant Depth]] || The Apocalypse of Paul || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/96-the-goku-of-judaism-stories-of-the-baal-shem-tov 96] || 2021-10-24 || [[The Goku of Judaism]] || Stories of the Baal Shem Tov || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbw3BxiTfKU Bonus] || 2021-11-16 || [[Guess the Persona-fied Bible Character]] || Persona 5 || Video Games ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/97-pretty-sus-lesbius-the-acts-of-andrew 97] || 2021-12-02 || [[Pretty Sus, Lesbius]] || The Acts of Andrew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/98-you-know-the-manger-christmas-chick-tracts 98] || 2021-12-23 || [[You Know, the Manger?]] || Christmas Chick Tracts || Chick Tracts  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/99-for-sale-baby-legs-not-attached-the-first-book-of-kings 99] || 2022-01-30 || [[For Sale, Baby Legs, Not Attached]] || The First Book of Kings || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/100-escape-from-flesh-island-the-gospel-of-judas 100] || 2022-03-05 || [[Escape From Flesh Island]] || The Gospel of Judas || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/101-the-apocrypals-solve-theodicy-the-book-of-job 101] || 2022-04-21 || [[The Apocrypals Solve Theodicy]] || The Book of Job || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/102-napalm-toots-the-lives-of-st-mary-of-bethany-and-st-margaret-of-antioch 102] || 2022-06-12 || [[Napalm Toots]] || The Lives of The Lives of St. Martha of Bethany and St. Margaret of Antioch || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/103-sucky-james-the-history-of-joseph-the-carpenter 103] || 2022-07-03 || [[Sucky James]] || The History of Joseph the Carpenter || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/104-previously-on-bible-the-epistle-to-the-hebrews 104] || 2022-08-01 || [[Previously, on Bible]] || The Epistle to the Hebrews || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/103-approximate-week-v-ravager 105] || 2022-08-12 || [[Approximate Week V: RaVager]] || El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron || Video Games  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/104-a-serious-goku-move-the-second-book-of-kings 106] || 2022-10-30 || [[A Serious Goku Move]] || The Second Book of Kings || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/107-hellmensch-stories-of-the-baal-shem-tov-vol-2 107] || 2022-11-13 || [[Hellmensch]] || Stories of the Baal Shem Tov || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin  || [[Hellmensch (Transcript) | Yes ]] &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/108-skip-this-one-the-book-of-hosea 108] || 2022-11-27 || [[Skip This One]] || The Book of Hosea || Tanakh  || [[  Skip This One (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/109-chris-and-benitos-bible-bonkers-the-didache 109] || 2023-10-11 || [[Chris and Benito&#039;s Bible Bonkers]] || The Didache || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/110-the-beastie-boys-worst-nightmare-the-lock-in-2014 110] || 2023-10-30 || [[The Beastie Boys&#039; Worst Nightmare (The Lock-In (2014))]] || The Lock-In (2014) || Fiction ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/111-all-skips-no-hits-1-chronicles 111] || 2024-08-09 || [[All Skips No Hits]] || 1 Chronicles || Tanakh || [[All Skips No Hits (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/112-approximate-week-vi-the-undiscovered-country 112] || 2024-08-17 || [[Approximate Week VI: The Undiscovered Country]] || Illuminator || Comics ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/113-jaoel-instant-messenger-the-apocalypse-of-abraham 113] || 2024-09-05 || [[Jaoel Instant Messenger]] || The Apocalypse of Abraham || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/114-sin-onyms-the-devils-argument-the-martyrdom-of-perpetua-and-felicity 114] || 2024-10-03 || [[Sin-onyms, The Devil&#039;s Argument]] || The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/115-hell-is-the-big-show-the-life-of-st-christina-the-astonishing 115] || 2024-10-27 || [[Hell Is The Big Show]] || The Life of St. Christina the Astonishing || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/116-its-his-birthday-be-nice-the-revelation-of-the-magi 116] || 2024-12-22 || [[It&#039;s His BIRTHDAY, Be Nice!]] || The Revelation of the Magi || Pseudepigrapha || &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/117-king-solomons-hog-the-second-book-of-chronicles-feat-aaron-higashi 117] || 2024-02-17 || [[King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi]] || 2 Chronicles || Tanakh || [[King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/bonus-biblical-mini-golf 118 Bonus] || 2025-05-08 || [[Bonus: Biblical Mini-Golf]] || Fairway to Heaven || Road Trip || &lt;br /&gt;
|}&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Sub-series==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
{| class=&amp;quot;wikitable sortable&amp;quot; style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
! Podcast !! Episode !! &amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;Date&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp; !! Title !! Transcript !! Wolverine Costume&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-01-dr-dan-mcclellan 1] || 2023-04-20 || [[Multipals 01: Dr. Dan McClellan]] || [[Multipals 01: Dr. Dan McClellan (transcript) | Yes]] || Brown and Tan&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-02-aaron-higashi 1] || 2023-06-23 || [[Multipals 02: Aaron Higashi]] || [[Multipals 02: Aaron Higashi (transcript) | Yes]] || Kimono&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-03-anne-thriault 3] || 2023-04-20 || [[Multipals 03: Anne Thériault]] || [[Multipals 03: Anne Thériault (transcript) | Yes]] || Hugh Jackman as the Music Man&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-04-tony-burke-and-janet-spittler 4] || 2023-08-20 || [[Multipals 04: Tony Burke &amp;amp;amp; Janet Spittler]] || [[Multipals 04: Tony Burke &amp;amp;amp; Janet Spittler (transcript) | Yes]] || Brown and Tan / Yellow Guy From Cartoon&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-05-dr-alexiana-fry 5] || 2023-12-13 || [[Multipals 05: Dr. Alexiana Fry]] || [[Multipals 05: Dr. Alexiana Fry (transcript) | Yes]] || Logan (2017) Suit&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-06-dr-justin-sledge 6] || 2023-12-13 || [[Multipals 06: Dr. Justin Sledge]] || [[Multipals 06: Dr. Justin Sledge (transcript) | Yes]] || &#039;90s Yellow&lt;br /&gt;
|}&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Ocean%27s_Two&amp;diff=498</id>
		<title>Ocean&#039;s Two</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Ocean%27s_Two&amp;diff=498"/>
		<updated>2026-02-09T13:22:10Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: /* Favorite Verses */&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/7183298/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
Get ready, Theophiloi, because it&#039;s time for a tightly plotted heist story about our favorite Deuterocanonical heroine, Judith! We&#039;ll be heading into a slice of the Apocrypha with some sharp commentary that cuts right to the good stuff. Get to listening, chop chop! Plus: Some very good and suggestions for improving Hanukkah that you can implement in your own celebrations!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion: The ironies (all of them), Doubting Tomax, a prelude to Martinmas, St. Isadore the Hedgehog, an extended digression about Simon Magus and Avril Lavigne, The RAMBAN, Antilebanon, the Cracker Barrel Master Mold, earth and water, the most boss flex in the entire Bible, getting captured on purpose, Alfred, cheese plots, a Comic-Con of soldiers, and whether Holofernes was just a foot guy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Hymnal: &amp;quot;Heads Will Roll&amp;quot; by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Offertory: If you enjoy the show, head to ko-fi.com/apocrypals and send us a love offering! We absolutely appreciate it!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Opening Verse==&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;For their mighty one did not fall by the hands of the young men, nor did the sons of the Titans strike him down, nor did tall giants set upon him, but Judith, daughter of Merari, with the beauty of her countenance, undid him.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 16:6&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Favorite Verses==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Look at their pride, and send your wrath upon their heads. Give to me, a widow, the strong hand to do what I plan. By the deceit of my lips strike down the slave with the prince and the prince with his servant; &amp;lt;u&amp;gt;crush their arrogance by the hand of a woman&amp;lt;/u&amp;gt;.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 9:9-10 &amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;The mountains will be soaked with their blood, and the valleys will be filled with their corpses.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 6:4 &amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Then Judith said to them, &#039;Listen to me. I am about to do something that will go down through all generations of our people.&#039;&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 8:32&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;O Lord God of all might, look in this hour on the work of my hands for the exaltation of Jerusalem. 5 Now indeed is the time to help your heritage and to carry out my design to destroy the enemies who have risen up against us.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 13:4-5&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auzfTPp4moA Heads Will Roll] by Yeah Yeah Yeahs&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Choice Quotes==&lt;br /&gt;
(Help fill this in by checking out the [[ Ocean&#039;s Two (Transcript)|transcript]].)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Deuterocanon]]&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Maimonides]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Ocean%27s_Two_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1061</id>
		<title>Ocean&#039;s Two (Transcript)</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Ocean%27s_Two_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1061"/>
		<updated>2026-02-09T13:22:05Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&#039;&#039;&#039;Chris Sims:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;For their mighty one did not fall by the hands of the young men, nor did the sons of the Titans strike him down, nor did tall giants set upon him, but Judith, daughter of Merari, with the beauty of her countenance, undid him.&amp;quot; The Book of Judith, chapter 16, verse 6.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music: &amp;quot;Heads Will Roll&amp;quot; by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hello everybody and welcome to Apocrypals. It&#039;s the podcast where two non-believers read through the Bible, but we try not to be jerks about it. My name is Chris Sims. With me as always is the other set of footprints, Benito Cereno. Benito, how are you on this crisp fall afternoon?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;Benito Cereno:&#039;&#039;&#039; Really good man. Yeah, it&#039;s it is very crisp here too. We definitely had a significant temperature drop following some of that rain that we got here the other day.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I say crisp, it&#039;s like seventy degrees out.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh really? It&#039;s like fifty-five probably here right now.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is the first day in a while that has felt nice.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; As opposed to being sweltering and wet.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I&#039;m I&#039;m really I&#039;m all about that hoodie weather. Like that&#039;s my that&#039;s my ideal, so I&#039;m very happy that we&#039;re finally getting there. Although, you know, we&#039;ll get it for a week and then it&#039;ll be 80 again, I&#039;m sure, soon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s usually how it goes, but you and I, we&#039;re some we&#039;re some gentlemen who like layers.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s true.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not just as in like underground caves where we plot and scheme, but like multiple clothings over our torsos.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, both versions of that particular homonym. Yeah. I guess it&#039;s a homophone, don&#039;t correct me. I hear you out there at your Twitters already, it&#039;s homophones.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Checkity-checkity-check. That&#039;s the typing. That&#039;s what&#039;s happening right now. Benito, what are we doing this week here on the show where that we&#039;re supposed to be reading the Bible?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, hey, we&#039;re we&#039;re doing another one about about a woman with some agency. We&#039;re doing the book of Judith. From the Deuterocanon, aka the Capital A Apocrypha. I feel like maybe we shouldn&#039;t be squandering them, but at the same time, it feels like the right time to have powerful women doing some murders, cloaked in fire, etc. on our show. Feels like the appropriate time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It feels like a very good time to be discussing Judith. Now I will say, right up at the start, Judith does not cloak herself in fire. She does not cast lightning down upon man-eating seals.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s not gonna happen this week. I apologize for anyone who might have been misled.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this book is surprisingly miracle-free.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But it&#039;s pretty raw.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s completely raw. And it&#039;s basically it&#039;s Ocean&#039;s Eight if the goal was a murder instead of a robbery. And also there was only two women. So it&#039;s like Ocean&#039;s 2.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oceans 2 but a murder. That&#039;s a completely different kind of movie than Ocean&#039;s Eight. Right. You understand that, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I mean yeah, it&#039;s yeah. But it&#039;s definitely a heist. Everything is planned out. This is a very tightly plotted book, actually, where like there&#039;s a lot of stuff set up. A lot of stuff pays off. And if you&#039;re listening to this and you&#039;re in high school and you&#039;re trying to learn about the figurative device that is irony? This is an excellent book because it&#039;s got all the ironies. You got your verbal ironies, you got your dramatic ironies, you got your situational ironies. They&#039;re all here. Every single one of them. This is a super ironic book. Not in like a Rod Serling sense, but in the in the literary sense, it&#039;s got all of &#039;em. And yeah, everything&#039;s just so tight because it&#039;ll be like you see Judith doing things and you&#039;re like, huh, why&#039;s she doing that? Don&#039;t worry, it&#039;s gonna pay off because she knew what she was doing.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You are absolutely right. From a plot standpoint, you know me. I&#039;ve been frustrated with a lot of these before.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This one is: there are no frustrations with the Book of Judith. The only thing I have is that Judith herself does not show up until like chapter eight.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s true. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s a lot of build-up and it and it pays off.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, the the heroine of the story doesn&#039;t show up until halfway through. But even if we were to look at this from a structural point of view, it&#039;s very cool. We won&#039;t have to go into it because I don&#039;t want to have to explain to everybody what chiasmus is, but this is built on a two-tiered chiasmus structure where the first half, pre-Judith appearance, follows... it&#039;s like a reflex reflexive thing. It&#039;s like that the Rorschach-focused issue of Watchmen where it starts and ends the same way with the reflection in the middle. If you imagine like that, that&#039;s kind of what a chiastic structure is. And the two halves of this book, everything before Judith and everything starting with Judith to the end, it&#039;s it&#039;s two perfect reflexive structures like that. You can look more into that, but we don&#039;t have time to go into all that. But it&#039;s very cool. It&#039;s very tight from a structural point of view is what I&#039;m what I&#039;m getting at. This is a very well-composed book.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You&#039;re basically saying it&#039;s twice as good as Watchmen.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I am saying that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Or alternately like about 1.8 times as good as that issue of G. I. Joe about Tomax and Xamot that the same gimmick.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah, that&#039;s what I&#039;m getting at.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; When did Tomax and Xamot show up in the Bible, by the way?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ve already seen one of them, he doubted Jesus, and then later we&#039;re gonna see his twin brother, Xamot, later.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, how did we get through how did we get through four gospels and I never talked about doubting Tomax?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I&#039;ve been sit I&#039;ve been sitting on the Thomas and Samoht joke for a long time, waiting for an opportunity to drop that one, because he&#039;s the twin. He&#039;s Thomas the twin. Thomas Didymus, the twin. I was I thought maybe when we got to Acts of Thomas or something. There&#039;s so many books attributed to Thomas. We&#039;ve got the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the Acts of Thomas. There&#039;s no shortage of places I might have brought it up.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But Yeah, and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas is hashtag lit.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it sure is. But we&#039;re not talking about that today.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;re not talking about that today.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ll get there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do we have anything that we need to cover before we get into Judith? Any holidays, any upcoming celebrations. It&#039;s state fair time, but I don&#039;t believe that exists in doctrine.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, no, I actually was just checking while I was waiting for everything to get set up today. I was flipping through to see. Because obviously we pay a lot of attention to, we&#039;ve done a lot of Jewish holidays recently, because it obviously was the Jewish High Holidays is the most important ones, but also because the majority of American listeners at least are not super familiar with Jewish holidays, so we&#039;ve really focused on those. But I was like, maybe we should look more at some of the the different Saint feast days and things. We&#039;ve mentioned some, but not usually on the days when they&#039;re happening. So I actually was flipping through to see if there were any interesting ones and not really.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Great segment. Great great time that we spent on that. Good good job.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I did miss, I regret that we missed Michaelmas. We should have talked about Michaelmas a couple weeks ago. It was on September 24th. That&#039;s a very cool one to talk about. But we&#039;ll definitely be hitting, we&#039;ll probably be hitting weird Christian holidays almost every episode once we hit like November and we get to Martinmas, that&#039;s when the Christmas season, Advent and Christmas season kicks off. So we&#039;re gonna have some stuff like every episode after that for sure. So hang on til Saint Martin comes in on his white horse, and we&#039;ll be ready to talk about weird Christian festivals for like two months after that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And everybody make sure to tune in on November 1st for All Saints Day, where we read the entire golden legend.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep, don&#039;t do that actually.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;re not gonna do all the saints on All Saints Day? What&#039;s the point?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Oh Yeah, so actually that does remind me, speaking of saints, yeah. So I have two things I wanted to pick up on from last week&#039;s episode. They&#039;re not corrections per se, they&#039;re just additions. They came from our two favorite, of course, personal scholars who like to give us a hand every now and then. Number one comes from friend of the show, Ben Rowe. Regarding Saint Isidore of Seville being the patron of the internet, and I was close, I was kind of on top of it, but not quite there. So here&#039;s what he says: &amp;quot;Isidore is patron of the internet because his life&#039;s work was the assembly of a compendium of universal knowledge. He was the first Christian writer to attempt such a work, preserving abridgments of classical works and serving as the conduit through which they were known by medieval scholars.&amp;quot; And so he&#039;s basically Christian Wikipedia, ergo, he&#039;s the patron of the internet because he was the first person to try to assemble a compendium of all human knowledge. That answers that question a little bit.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; How many sonic OCs did he get through before he gave up?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I think a lot. I think there were very many echidnas. Like he built Knuckles&#039; family up big time. Anyway, here&#039;s our second piece of input from of course King of the Gnostics Jonathan Stewart. Regarding Paul and Thecla, he says, &amp;quot;If you want your crackpot theory for the week, the idea that Paul was the same as Simon Magus,&amp;quot; remember that&#039;s one we hit way back in episode three. &amp;quot;The idea that Paul and Simon Magus were the same person was pretty widespread in the ancient world, so Paul and Thecla was partly written to counteract it. Our early sources say Simon was definitely DTF,&amp;quot; if you think about the text where we talked about Simon and Helen, right? We talked about that. And also the bit about magicians corrupting wives that we talked about. And so, &amp;quot;Paul and Thecla was partly written to say that Paul is mega chaste, and of course his best lady friend isn&#039;t a sex worker but a very nice girl.&amp;quot; Not to say that sex workers aren&#039;t very nice. You understand the point. This is ancient. Anyway. So yeah, the idea that Paul and Thecla was written specifically to counteract the idea that Paul and Simon Magus were the same person, a surprisingly common conspiracy theory of the ancient ancient days.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I have a question.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Why not just do another story where Paul fights Simon Magus, like we have?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I don&#039;t know man. It wasn&#039;t enough. It didn&#039;t I mean we&#039;ve got multiple ones, we&#039;ve got at least three. One of them is in the canon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I feel like Paul and Simon Magus were the same person is the first century CE version of what if Batman was the Joker.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Or that one about how Avril Lavigne has been a clone since 1998 or whatever.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;re really... I am not looking forward to writing up the show notes on this one already.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hey man, let&#039;s talk about Judith, I guess.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do we know who wrote this and why is it Deuterocanon?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, yeah. So yeah, I got all that information ready to go. Here we go. So Judith, the name comes from the Hebrew name Yehudit, which is the feminine form of Judah and so her name either could mean &amp;quot;she is praised&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;she will be praised&amp;quot; or it just might mean &amp;quot;a Jewish woman,&amp;quot; right, in the way that Judah, the son of Jacob, gives his name to Judea and the land of Judah, and then therefore the word Jew and Jewish and Judaism all come from the name Judah. So the name Judith might just mean &amp;quot;Jewish woman.&amp;quot; The text, it&#039;s a little unclear if the original version of the text was Hebrew or Greek, because the oldest extant version that we have is the one from the Septuagint, which is where basically all of the deuterocanonical books come from. Remember the distinction is that the deuterocanonical books are books that exist in the Greek Septuagint but don&#039;t exist in the the later Hebrew canon. And that&#039;s where Protestants make the distinction between what they consider canon and what they consider Apocrypha. So the oldest version we have of Judith is Greek. The earliest Hebrew versions are from the Middle Ages, but that does not necessarily mean that the original text was not Hebrew. There are, however, certain phrases and vocabulary choices that indicate that maybe the Greek was the original with the author intentionally imitating stylistic bits from the Greek translations from the Septuagint.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
When was it written? Well, there are certain elements that indicate an origin in the Hasmonean period. That&#039;s the also known as the Maccabean period, the period of the dynasty of kings following Judah Maccabee following the Seleucid Empire or actually slightly overlapping with the Seleucid Empire, which you know follows up the Hellenistic era. So some of the things that indicate that this was probably from the Hasmonean period, the idea of the worship of a king as a god, which is a thing that our boy Antiochus IV Epiphanes would have wanted. And so that would be something that the Jews at this time would have specifically been rebelling against, I guess. We also see the political and military powers of the high priest in this in this book, Joachim, we see he has a lot of military powers. The supremacy of the Council of Elders, aka the Sanhedrin, we see that with Uzziah and some of the others. They have the kind of supremacy within the city. And also an overall similarity in the story to the story of Judah Maccabee and how he defeated Nicanor, 1. And so it seems most likely that this book was composed during the reign of John Hyrcanus I, which would be somewhere between 135 and 105 BCE.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
That said. The book as a whole is full of historical and geographical errors. We see that literally from verse one. Like verse one, continuity is out the window. It&#039;s also full of anachronisms, but a lot of people argue that these mistakes are intentional. They&#039;re meant to point out that the book is a parable or it&#039;s allegory. Some people refer to this as one of the earliest historical novels, but of course some people try to still justify some of the things in the book like why does it say that Nebuchadnezzar was king of the Assyrians? Well, maybe they really meant Ashurbanipal or Artaxerxes or someone else, you know. Even though we don&#039;t know where the village of Bethulia is, maybe it&#039;s this place or maybe it&#039;s that place.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The book as a whole was probably never considered canonical by any Jewish group. Though it was probably written in the Second Temple Era by a Jewish author. It&#039;s not in the canonical Jewish text, the Masoretic text. It&#039;s not among the Dead Sea Scrolls, which is true of a lot of the books that we&#039;ve seen that are not in the canonical text, do pop up among the dead sea scrolls showing that they were important to some Jewish societies, but this is not the case with Judith. And why might that be? Well, it could be again similar to Tobit and some of the others, it might just be because of the late date in which it was composed, might be because it has a Greek origin. Maybe it&#039;s because it endorses deceit and murder as cool things to do that God is in support of, but also there&#039;s some other like unorthodox ideas that get a little more specific, including the fact that an Ammonite gets converted to Judaism, which is actually specifically forbidden in the Torah. You&#039;re not allowed to convert Ammonites. But despite the fact that this was never seen as canonical in any way, it doesn&#039;t mean it wasn&#039;t popular among Jewish communities because, give it about a thousand years after its composition, the story of Judith becomes popular as a story in poems and songs in the Talmud. There&#039;s a very popular Midrash that ends up tying Judith to Hanukkah, even though this book has nothing to do with Hanukkah. And in fact, some Jewish communities will read the story of Judith at Hanukkah, similar to the way that the story of Esther is read at Purim. And so in that way Judith kind of becomes the Hasmonean equivalent to Esther. Esther is the hero of Purim. Judith becomes the hero of Hanukkah in a way.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Question.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is there any tradition of Judith being a gift-giving figure?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, but she is tied into a food tradition that I want to get back to once we get into the story, so remind me remind me on that. I probably won&#039;t forget that one, but There is a food tradition.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So there&#039;s nothing about how if you&#039;re good all year and you do your chores and clean your plate, then Judith might bring you like a present at Hanukkah time and if you&#039;re bad she will cut your head off.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No. Strangely.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s not that? That feels like a slam dunk.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly. And you know what? Like, Look again, this is me from the outside and I understand that Hanukkah is actually not in the grand scheme of things a very important Jewish holiday and that its importance has been inflated due to its proximity to Christmas. Like I fully understand that. But I keep seeing like in pop culture Hanukkah traditions where they try to just they do these like parodies of Christmas things where you get Mensch on the bench and you get a Hanukkah Bush or whatever. But I&#039;m like, if you want to make Hanukkah cool, why don&#039;t you just say that the ghost of Judah Maccabees and the ghost of Judith are gonna come to your house? Like you already have another holiday where you leave a seat open for a ghost to come and sit there. Why can&#039;t you have Judah Maccabee the Hammer come? Why can&#039;t you have the Hebrew hammer come and hang out at your house on Hanukkah? That would be the dopest holiday. It would arguably be better than Christmas. I don&#039;t know. I&#039;m not the boss of holidays, and obviously I&#039;m not any kind of you know actual authority that should be speaking about what they should do for Hanukkah. I&#039;m just saying if you had if you had Judah Maccabee and Judith show up at your house, that would be a very cool holiday.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I just feel like Judith&#039;s entire deal is that she gets into and out of a place.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Unseen.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Undetected.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And what it in her case she takes something and brings it to other people.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s true.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Spoiler warning.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; What if someone dressed up as Judith and came in with a pinata that looked like a man&#039;s head and it was full of candy and it was Holofernes&#039; head and the kids beat that until I don&#039;t know, until gelt fell out. Wouldn&#039;t that be a very dope holiday tradition?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Just spitballing here.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; So anyway, the comparison between Judith and Esther, there we go. But also, I got another cool abrieve coming up. The biblical commentator, Nachmanides, aka the Rabbi Moses bin Nachman, aka Ramban. So he&#039;s not the Rambam, he&#039;s Ramban, because he&#039;s the son of Nachman instead of the son of Maimon, and so he&#039;s Ramban instead of Rambam. He quotes Judith pretty heavily in his biblical commentaries. So, some Jewish communities do value the story of Judith even though it was never canonical.&lt;br /&gt;
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For Christians, however, the book of Judith was included in many Christian canons, but excluded from some others. Jerome in the Vulgate put it in the Apocrypha, but later he quoted it as though it were had the same weight as Scripture. It was accepted as canon by the Nicene Council and the Council of 1442, and it was dogmatically decreed canonical at the Council of Trent in 1546. So again, like all the books of the Deuterocan, it is canon for the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, and others. So the Deuterocan again just means later. They&#039;re books later. They&#039;re from the inter quote-unquote inter-testamental period. And so it was confirmed as canonical by the Eastern Orthodox Church at the Sinod of Jerusalem in 1672. The Episcopal Church reads from Judith on the Feast of Mary Magdalene on July 22nd. However, only the Coptic Church celebrates Judith as a saint, and her feast day is September 17th, so another one that we&#039;ve just missed. And again, Protestants see it as apocryphal, i. e. not real. However Luther, Martin Luther, in his Bible that included Apocrypha, it was listed first. It was number one among the Apocrypha.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So Tobit wasn&#039;t in there or was Tobit just in a different&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Tobit was just in a different spot. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Christians like this story because Judith is seen as an example of a mulier sancta, a holy woman. She&#039;s kind of a prefiguration of the Virgin Mary. You can see that because like her name means Jewish woman. She comes from Bethulia, a city whose name means virginity. And she alone, without the help of a man, overcomes the great enemy to deliver her city from evil, right? But also she personifies the virtues of humility, justice, and fortitude, and chastity, which are opposed to her great enemy, Holofernes, who represents pride, tyranny, decadence, and lust. And so, because it&#039;s a story that&#039;s so popular with Christian communities, of course, that means that it is very popular and very well represented in the various arts. Including, very cool, a very cool thing, there&#039;s an Anglo-Saxon epic poem from about the same time as Beowulf that&#039;s all about Judith. She is transformed into an Anglo-Saxon Christian woman, which okay, but the invasion of Holofernes and his his people are kind of likened to the Viking invasions of England at around the same time. I have a very short small quote from that that I can share later in the show. The story of Judith was also, for some reason, very popular in sixteenth century French poetry. I don&#039;t know any more than that.&lt;br /&gt;
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It is, of course, a very, very popular motif in painting and sculpture. A lot of these you guys have probably seen. They&#039;re very they&#039;ve been very popular on social media lately. But depictions of Judith and Holofernes in painting and sculpture include but are by no means limited to a very famous sculpture by Donatello, one of the artists famous enough to be a Ninja Turtle, although definitely the least famous of the four Ninja Turtle artists. But more famously one that you&#039;ve probably seen, a Caravaggio painting, one by Botticelli, one by Titian, a famous Art Nouveau version by Gustav Klimt, you guys have probably seen. It&#039;s that famous really sexy one where one of the girls is out and she&#039;s holding a head. You&#039;ve probably seen that one. A version by Goya, and of course the really popular one that&#039;s been going around lately is the one by Artemisia Gentileschi where she models Judith after herself and Holofernes after a man who assaulted her. And Judith, if you didn&#039;t know, is on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. You can see her and her maidservant hiding Holofernes&#039;s head like in a pan and covering it up and trying to escape. The story of Judith also appears in music, operas and other things, including pieces by Vivaldi and Mozart, who you guys have probably heard of, and many others. And the story of Judith has been represented in many, many modern plays and pieces of modern art as well. So it&#039;s a very popular motif in art, there&#039;s no shortage of places where you can see Judith referenced in high art and popular culture. So despite, again, being part of the so-called deuterocanon or the Apocrypha, This is another story that has had a major impact on history and culture.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it rules.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it kind of rules. Yeah, it rules.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s a very good story.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s good. So you want to talk about it?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I think we should.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I think we should too. We get some errors right off the bat. Like literally chapter one verse one. It was the twelfth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. who ruled over the Assyrians in the great city of Nineveh. That&#039;s wrong. Chris, do you remember who Nebuchadnezzar was the king of?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I do not. I remember Nineveh. Nineveh was where Tobit kept finding all those bodies in the streets.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, well, Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, that&#039;s true. And Nineveh of course is most famous, I think, probably to most people from the story of Jonah, because that&#039;s where he was supposed to go and didn&#039;t want to go. But yeah, we have seen Nineveh. We of course talked about the Assyrian Empire at great length in our Isaiah episode. Nebuchadnezzar we would have encountered in our Daniel episode. Does that help at all?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, so he was Babylonian.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. So yeah, Nebuchadnezzar, who lived from about 605 to about 562 BCE, was the second ruler over the Neo-Babylonian Empire, not the Assyrian Empire. And this story is supposed to be set in the post-Babylonian exile period, right, in which point the the main  dudes of the earth were the Persians and not either the Assyrians or the Neo-Babylonians, aka the Chaldeans. And so in fact what we see here is Nebuchadnezzar as king of the Assyrians battling the Chaldeans. The Chaldeans are the Babylonians, the Neo-Babylonians, the people over whom He was actually the king. And so again, I&#039;m not going to point out like every historical error or anachronism here because there&#039;s a lot, but this is kind of the major one. The setting is wrong, the king is wrong. So like I said, even early communities accepted this as being a folktale or a parable, however, if you want to follow, you know, the idea that this is, you know, the pure inerrant word of God, then you have to think that, you know, the author was putting in intentional miscues to disguise this, or they were code words for someone else or something like that.&lt;br /&gt;
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But anyway, so Nebuchadnezzar is being challenged by King Arphaxad, who is not even quite Robin Hood real, we&#039;ll say. We know nothing about him whatsoever.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well I know about him. I know that he rules over the Medes in Ecbatana.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s true. That&#039;s right.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s Chris one, historian zero.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly. And so yeah, Ecbatana we&#039;ve seen and Medea we&#039;ve seen as well. We saw those in Tobit. Medea is the northern part of Iran, basically the part of Iran that&#039;s not Persia is Medea. And so he rallies together people of the East is the idea. This is gonna be kind of an East and West kind of dispute. And so when Arphaxad gathers together all the countries of the East, Nebuchadnezzar sends out messengers to all the people of the West in Cilicia and Damascus, Lebanon, and anti-Lebanon.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I had a question about that.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is anti-Lebanon where like evil cedar trees are from?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, absolutely. Or counterpoint, what if anti-Lebanon is actually the Earth 3 version of Lebanon, Tennessee? And that&#039;s a city that consumes Cracker Barrels instead of producing them.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;m just throwing it out there. Just throwing it out there.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. The the Anti-Monitor needs to destroy all of the infinite Cracker Barrels.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly. Yeah. Just think about it. Just think. So comics artist Tony Moore, he used to tell me we would we talk about Lebanon, Tennessee. It&#039;s the city where Cracker Barrel comes from. It&#039;s a relatively small town. It&#039;s the county seat of Wilson County, just to the east of Nashville. It&#039;s where comics artist Eric Powell lives or used to live. And it&#039;s where Cracker Barrel is from. And Tony Moore used to say that he had never been to Lebanon, in Tennessee they say &amp;quot;Lebanun&amp;quot;, not Lebanon. He said he imagined that it was just a giant Cracker Barrel-shaped factory with like smoke pouring out and just like master mold of the sentinels. It just produces smaller Cracker Barrel versions of itself that they then ship out across the southeast. So yeah, anti-Lebanon is the is the opposite of that from Earth 3.&lt;br /&gt;
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So anyway, Nebuchadnezzar tries to rally together the kingdoms of the West. And when I say West, of course, we&#039;re still talking about the western parts of the Middle East, basically. And the problem is they tell him to go heck himself, basically. They&#039;re like, &amp;quot;Nebuchadnezzar, you&#039;re one dude. I don&#039;t care. You don&#039;t scare us. No thank you.&amp;quot; And so Nebuchadnezzar is like, &amp;quot;I do not appreciate that. Here&#039;s what I&#039;m gonna do. I&#039;m gonna go out by myself, I&#039;m gonna conquer this whole army of the East, and then when I&#039;m done killing them, I&#039;m gonna come around and get my revenge on you guys for not helping me out here.&amp;quot; And that happens. So score one for Nebuchadnezzar.&lt;br /&gt;
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&amp;quot;In the seventeenth year he led his forces against King Arphaxad, defeated him in battle. overthrowing the whole army of Arphaxad and all his cavalry and all his chariots. Thus he took possession of his towns, and came to Ecbatana, captured its towers, plundered its markets, and turned its glory into disgrace. He captured Arphaxad in the mountains of Regal and struck him down with his spears, thus destroying him once and for all. Then he returned to Nineveh.&amp;quot; So yeah, he&#039;s destroyed the largest army ever combined against him and now he is ready for his revenge against the people who didn&#039;t come help him when he asked. And that&#039;s kind of what kicks off, that&#039;s the inciting incident of the book. We see Nebuchadnezzar assigning his great high general Holofernes or Holofernes And we get pretty great speech here, Chris. Do you want to look at this speech from Nebuchadnezzar? Pretty raw talk here.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s pretty dope. &amp;quot;Thus says the great king, the lord of the whole earth, Leave my presence and take with you men confident in their strength, one hundred and twenty thousand foot soldiers and twelve thousand cavalry. March out against all the land in the west, because they disobeyed my orders. Tell them to prepare earth and water, for I am coming against them in my anger, and will cover the whole face of the earth with the feet of my troops, to whom I will hand them over to be plundered. Their wounded shall fill the ravines and gullies, and the swelling river shall be filled with their dead.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, pretty raw.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So Nebuchadnezzar&#039;s mad.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Now, I have a couple questions for you here that you may or may not know the answer to.&lt;br /&gt;
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Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
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First of all, what does Holofernes mean?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s actually probably a Persian name or similar to a Persian name, I don&#039;t know exactly what it means, because there are historical people with that name or ones similar to it, and so it may have been taken from a Persian general who was a leader in the expedition that invaded the West under Artaxerxes III about 350 BC. So it might come from that, but I do not know what it means.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay. The second thing is, have we talked about earth and water on the show?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We might have, but this is another anachronism because offering up earth and water is a traditional sign of submission among the Persian Empire, and it would have been unheard of with the Assyrians and the Babylonians. So this again, you know, being written in the post-Persian Empire period is a bit of an anachronism.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. And this is something that I&#039;ve heard about before, but I could not remember if we had talked about it on the show or if it was just from listening to like episodes of Hardcore History about the tributes that you would give to someone like Xerxes, for instance.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I&#039;m pretty sure it&#039;s mentioned in 300. I think when the scout comes to visit Sparta, they asked for tributes of earth and water...&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, that&#039;s right. He asks for water and that&#039;s why he gets kicked into the well.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, that&#039;s why he gets kicked into the well. That&#039;s exactly right. Because he demands earth and water, and so he kicks him into the well. That&#039;s exactly right. Yep.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Holofernes just starts going hard on the West.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and I should point out that this army is fantastically large. Like...&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s huge! It&#039;s 132,000 people!&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it is, I mean, when I say fantastically, I mean as in fantasy large. It is stretching the bounds of credibility large. Yeah, and so basically he sets out, &amp;quot;His army was a swarm of locusts locusts like the dust of the earth, a multitude that could not be counted&amp;quot; as he spread out across the West raining Nebuchadnezzar&#039;s revenge upon all these people that wouldn&#039;t help Nebuchadnezzar against Arphaxad.&lt;br /&gt;
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And we see him come through a lot of these places. The geography is kind of mixed up, like the order of his march doesn&#039;t quite make sense. We see that he comes to the southern borders of Japheth, facing Arabia. And if you remember from one of our Genesis episodes, I guess the first one, Japheth, one of the sons of Noah, his lands were Anatolia, that is the subcontinent on which Turkey is and Europe. So the army is stretching stretching out to either Turkey or Southern Europe, depending on how you want to think about that. They surround the Midianites, those are Arabs basically.&lt;br /&gt;
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They burn their tents, and they&#039;re spreading out all over the world. Sidon and Tyre and all these places. The people eventually submit to Nebuchadnezzar and they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;look, stop, we&#039;ll we&#039;ll be your servants. Do with us whatever you will. Our lands are all yours, our flocks are yours. We&#039;ll be your slaves, just don&#039;t kill us, don&#039;t destroy everything.&amp;quot; And Holofernes is like, &amp;quot;yes, good. That is what I will do. Thank you very much for saving me some time.&amp;quot; And they start to have a big party. &amp;quot;The people welcomed him in the countryside with garlands and dances and tambourines.&amp;quot; But then, &amp;quot;Yet he demolished all their shrines and cut down their sacred groves.&amp;quot; Because this is introducing Holofernes now, not just as a military threat, but also as a religious threat, because he&#039;s coming through and saying &amp;quot;the only god is Nebuchadnezzar,&amp;quot; and so he&#039;s destroying all the temples and sacred groves and shrines. And the implication is when he eventually reaches Israel, he&#039;s gonna try and do the same thing. And so, a little sinister here on Holofernes&#039;s part. And yeah, he eventually makes his way to Judea. And the people there are naturally quite alarmed. Because...&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, the the actual heading in the NRSV, because we have the little, they&#039;re not chapter headings, they&#039;re section headings, I guess, is &amp;quot;Judea on the alert.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so here&#039;s the thing, like Judea, especially this region is very hilly and mountainous. That is something that has been very much to the advantage of Israel throughout history. Of course, probably the most famous example of that is the the fortress of Masada up on the hilltop, but during the Roman siege. It&#039;s been much to their advantage, and we can see here that they describe that if they&#039;re gonna try and get into Judea, there&#039;s really only a couple of passes, and one of them is at Bethulia, and the other one is at Betomesthaim. I did not say that right. But anyway, the idea is these mountain passes are very thin. They&#039;re very narrow. They say it&#039;s only wide enough for two at a time to pass. And so they&#039;re going to buckle down and try and, speaking of 300, they&#039;re going to try and 300 this ish, right? And so that that&#039;s the plan laid out by Joachim the high priest, who again has vast political and military powers. But the people are, you know, they&#039;re freaking out a little bit. Then...&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You say they&#039;re freaking out a little bit. The text says &amp;quot;They even draped the altar with sackcloth and cried out in unison, praying fervently to the God of Israel not to allow their infants to be carried off and their wives to be taken as booty, and the towns they had inherited to be destroyed, and the sanctuary to be profaned and desecrated to the malicious joy of the Gentiles.&amp;quot; That&#039;s a little more than just kind of freaking out.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; They&#039;re freaking out a lot. Judea, you might say, is on the alert Definitely. So what we get then is Holofernes calls in representatives of the people of Moab and Ammon, the Moabites and the Ammonites. Now, if you&#039;ll recall, from our second episode on Genesis, the Moabites and the Ammonites are the descendants of Lot via his daughters, right? We had that very problematic scene. But the the idea there is that that was an etiology for the origin of two long-standing historical enemies of the Israelites: the Moabites, the Ammonites. And so we see them here. So Moab would have been directly east of the Dead Sea, and Ammon would have been to the northeast. And then soon enough we&#039;re gonna see the Edomites jump in as well, who are gonna be to the southeast of the Dead Sea. So these are all neighbors of Judea. And the people of Moab and the commanders of Ammon, they come in. And Holofernes is like, &amp;quot;who are these people? What towns do they inhabit? How large is their army?&amp;quot; And that kind of stuff.&lt;br /&gt;
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And so here we get introduced a supporting character, Achior. Achior, a leader of the Ammonites, and he basically gives the Israelite history for dummies compressed tour for Holofernes. And so most of chapter five is Achior laying out the history of the Israelites starting with Abraham up through the Babylonian exile and the return. And so we basically get everything from you know chapter twelve of Genesis up through Nehemiah, more or less, right? Ezra and Nehemiah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. But he crucially talks about that constant back and forth, the struggle with God that we talked about. Which is a key point of this story. He says, &amp;quot;As long as they did not sin against God, they prospered, for the God who hates iniquity is with them. But when they departed from the way that he had prescribed for them, they were utterly defeated in many battles and were led away captive to a foreign land.&amp;quot; So basically, Achior is saying, if they haven&#039;t sinned, you can&#039;t take them.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No matter what you do.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because God&#039;s on their side. All you gotta do is wait it out though.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; So true. And the fact that he&#039;s got that planted, that bug planted in his mind is going to be important for later as well. But while that does kind of seem moralistic and simplistic, like from Bible stories, it&#039;s definitely true. Like Samson, as long as he trusted in God, he had strength. As soon as he didn&#039;t, he lost his strength. You know? And of course the Israelites as a nation, Moses even, you know, everything&#039;s good until it&#039;s not. And then he&#039;s he doesn&#039;t trust in God. and and he&#039;s punished. And so to see it laid out this way, it&#039;s like like Samson and his hair, and the hair is the metaphor for his devotion to God, you know, as long as he keeps that, he&#039;s super strong. And so he&#039;s like, pretty sure they&#039;re on a holy streak right now, so you may not be able to do anything. What happens is Holofernes did not like that response. And so he has he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;if you love these Israelites so much, you get to die with them.&amp;quot; And so he has him bound and chained.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well well first he he gives him his own super raw speech.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh yeah, oh for sure.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is in Judith chapter 6 verse 4. &amp;quot;We will overwhelm them, their mountains will be drunk with their blood, and their fields will be full of their dead. Not even their footprints will survive our attack, they will utterly perish.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Again, I love the effort that this book puts in. Because again, this is chapter 6. Judith is 15 chapters long. Judith has not shown up yet. It&#039;s just bad guys and backstory at this point. And they&#039;re very, very strong bad guys.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, absolutely they are. This while we&#039;re while we&#039;re here, this bit right here at verse six in chapter six. Where Holofernes he says, &amp;quot;Then at my return, the sword of my army and the spear of my servants shall pierce your sides, and you shall fall among their wounded.&amp;quot; Like part of me is like, &amp;quot;Some medieval Christian guy definitely perked up at the site of `Sphere Through the Side, right?`&amp;quot; Like that&#039;s a thing where he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;What if this book is about Jesus, though?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Absolutely.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So enough, I mean, it&#039;s we already talked about the parallels with the Virgin Mary, of course, that have been latched onto, but that was one where I saw that and I was like, &amp;quot;Oh man, some guy.&amp;quot; Christians, not everything has to be for you, man. Just you don&#039;t have to put your finger in every pie. I&#039;m just I&#039;m just saying.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So anyway, yeah, they they chain up Achior, they take him to Bethulia, and they intend to hand him over to the Israelites. They basically they lay him out on a hill. And here we get introduced to some of the magistrates of Bethulia. We get Uzziah, son of Micah, Uzziah, whose name means &amp;quot;Yah is my strength.&amp;quot; It&#039;s a fairly common name for Bible characters. We&#039;ll see that name again and again in other books. And also we get Chabris, son of Gothoniel, and Charmis, son of Melchiel. So we&#039;re gonna see those three guys a couple times here, but they run out under suppressing fire from slings, which is wild.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s pretty dope, actually.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; They run out and they rescue Achior. And they bring him in, and he basically tells them, like, &amp;quot;hey man, here&#039;s what went down with Holofernes. Here&#039;s what&#039;s gonna happen.&amp;quot;  But what they don&#039;t know Is that while Achior is talking to the Israelites, meanwhile, the Moabites and then the Edomites who have not even been here, like they&#039;ve not even mentioned before. I like to imagine like I imagine that Edomites busting through the wall like the Kool-Aid man, like, &amp;quot;oh yeah, I hate Israel too.&amp;quot; And so they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;Here&#039;s the plan. You&#039;re not going to be able to storm through with your giant army through the hills because they use the geography to their advantage. What you&#039;re going to have to do is realize that they rely on these springs down at the bottom of these hills. If you fortify the springs, they won&#039;t have enough water and you can siege them that way. They&#039;ll have to surrender because without water, they&#039;ll have famine and sickness, and they&#039;ll start to die, and they&#039;ll just surrender on their own if you camp out around those springs.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And so that&#039;s the new plan and that&#039;s the plan that they start to carry out. And it works – for a while because so the Assyrian army encamped in the plane &amp;quot;And then the Israelites cried out to the Lord their God, for their courage failed, because all their enemies had surrounded them and there was no way of escape from them. Their cisterns were going dry. And on no day did they have enough water to drink, for their drinking water was rationed. Their children were listless, and the women and young men fainted from thirst and were collapsing in the streets of the town and in the gateways, and they no longer had any strength.&amp;quot; Things are going exceptionally bad. They intend to surrender, but we see Uzziah come out. And he says, &amp;quot;Courage, my brothers and sisters, let us hold out for five more days. By that time the Lord our God will turn his mercy to us again, for he will not forsake us utterly. But if these days pass by and no help comes for us, I will do as you say.&amp;quot; So yeah, things are bad in the town, there&#039;s great misery, but in those days, Judith heard about these things.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; By God! By God, that&#039;s Judith&#039;s music! What&#039;s she doing here?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh man.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so here comes Judith. Judith&#039;s great.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and we get this incredibly long and probably fictional genealogy for Judith. &amp;quot;The daughter of Merari, son of Ox,&amp;quot; from the enforcers possibly, you can&#039;t tell me no. &amp;quot;Son of Joseph, son of Oziel, son of Elkaiah, son of Ananias, son of Gideon, son of Raphain, son of Ahitub, son of Elijah, son of Hilkiah, son of Eliab, son of Nathanael, son of Salamiel, son of Sarasadai, son of Israel.&amp;quot; Most of these names do not exist elsewhere in the Bible.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Israel, we&#039;ve got. That&#039;s, that&#039;s Jacob.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, he&#039;s that dude&#039;s got a lot of sons. I do not recall one named Sarasadai. So it might be a different Israel. I don&#039;t know. These names can&#039;t be identified, basically. A lot of them are unparalleled in the Old Testament. Some of them we don&#039;t see anywhere else. But we get a little bit of her back story. We learn that Judith is a widow. Her husband&#039;s name was Manasseh, not any of the Manassehs we&#039;ve encountered before, but again that&#039;s just a common name. We learned that Manasseh worked in a barley field, and he died of heat stroke. He stood overseeing those who were binding sheaves in the field. He was overcome by the burning heat, and took to his bed and died in his town Bethulia.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So what we then learn about Judith is that she is not only a widow, she&#039;s an exceptionally pious one. She does everything she&#039;s supposed to do. She fasts every day, except for the days where it is expressly forbidden to fast. On the Sabbath and the day before the Sabbath, days before the new moon, days of the new moon, festivals, and so on. Every other day she&#039;s fasting. She wears sackcloth around her waist like she&#039;s supposed to. She wears widow&#039;s clothing. All the things that she&#039;s supposed to do. &amp;quot;No one spoke ill of her, for she feared God with great devotion.&amp;quot; So: incredibly pious. Like it&#039;s very important to note that except for the major events of deceit and murder, Judith is an incredibly pious person who follows the law of the Torah, like to the T. Even when she goes into Holofernes&#039; camp, like she still keeps Kosh. Like she&#039;s so serious about it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; In my head, Judith, at this point in the story is wearing overalls and glasses and she&#039;s got her hair in a ponytail.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But don&#039;t worry, she&#039;s about to She&#039;s All That herself.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Very soon, in fact, yeah. So she goes out to the people of Bethulia and she schools them, basically. She says...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, she says some dope shit.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, you have something you have something you want to feature here, Chris?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Do not try to bind the purposes of the Lord our God, for God is not like a human being to be threatened.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Or a mere mortal to be won over by pleading.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Absolutely. Her key message is like. &amp;quot;who are you to put God to the test today?&amp;quot; This thing where you&#039;re setting a deadline for God, five days, right? &amp;quot;Who are you to put God to the test? God is testing us, idiots,&amp;quot; right? And so she kind of bookends her speech with like, don&#039;t test God, God is testing us. And so, and I love this bit. This  is one of my favorite bits in the whole book. Uzziah comes to her and he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Oh you wanna help? Okay. Very good, sweetie. Here&#039;s how you can help. Why don&#039;t you go pray that God sends rain so we don&#039;t die of thirst?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is so good. This is so good. This is verse 32 of chapter 8.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is probably the most boss flex we have seen anybody lay out in the entire Bible so far, right? Like is there anything that parallels just like the rawness of this like dope flex right here?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Legitimately the only thing I can think of is when the soldier showed up and asked Jesus if he was Jesus and he knocked them over by saying, &amp;quot;I am.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s true. That&#039;s true. that&#039;s a pretty good one. But yeah, she says, &amp;quot;Listen to me. I&#039;m about to go do something that will go down through all generations of our descendants.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is true.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is true, because here we are.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here we are.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Over 2,000 years later talking about how raw this is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then Uzziah says &amp;quot;Go in peace and may the Lord God go before you to take vengeance on our enemies.&amp;quot; And she says, &amp;quot;God&#039;s gonna sit this one out.&amp;quot; No wait, I&#039;m sorry, that was the Punisher. The Punisher said that one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But, you know, no, God&#039;s definitely on her side, which again, not quite orthodox because she is definitely planning on breaking some commandments. But chapter nine is basically her is her prayer, her prayer to God. And so a lot of people, you know... The author does not see a moral inconsistency in Judith praying for divine help in her deceit and murder. But obviously some later scholars have. But there&#039;s still some a lot of the weight to it. The idea that it&#039;s gonna be a single woman who destroys an entire hundreds, thousands strong army, but at that time it would have been like particularly like it&#039;s definitely insult to injury, right? The fact that it&#039;s a woman who&#039;s gonna topple this entire army.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well here&#039;s what I thought was interesting about this scene, because we&#039;re moving into chapter nine now, this is the prayer of Judith. Judith references the story of Dinah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And is like there is no ambiguity for Judith about who was right in that situation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. It also helps that we learn here that Judith is of the tribe of Simeon. And Simeon was the guy who went and killed all the recently circumcised guys and burnt their city to the ground. Simeon and Levi.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Who Death Wish-ed everybody – Death Wish 3&#039;ed everybody in the book of Genesis.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, exactly. So there&#039;s a tie there, right, between the story of Simeon and Dinah and Shechem. That&#039;s very much n the background, like that&#039;s in the idea space. That&#039;s the ambient radiation of this story is is Dinah and the revenge there in the background. Definitely, definitely Judith is calling on the power of Simeon to get revenge on some dirty dudes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But like we get another pretty amazing Line from Judith here. &amp;quot;Look at their pride and send your wrath upon their heads. Give to me, a widow, the strong hand to do what I plan. By the deceit of my lips strike down the slave with the prince, and the prince with his servant, crush their arrogance by the hand of a woman.&amp;quot; Dope.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Very dope. Incredibly dope.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you&#039;re looking for a tattoo, if you&#039;re looking for a verse, something to put on the scroll around the dagger to get you through these tough times. I would say maybe the Book of Judith, chapter nine, verse ten. Is a good one?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very good. Just a scroll going around a sword stuck through the head of Holofernes. Or whoever.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And the great thing is Holofernes can look like whoever you want him to look like.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; He could look like anyone. He could look like any face that might have been at a Senate hearing in recent days. Any face.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So Judith&#039;s plan starts out like I think all great plans do. The Joker&#039;s plan in the Dark Knight, the plan in Skyfall, Star Wars.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; She&#039;s gonna get captured on purpose.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I thought you were gonna say a makeover, and then I was trying to apply that to some of those movies. The Joker, I was there with you, but then I was like, is there a makeover in Skyfall? I don&#039;t remember. Yeah, she changes out of her widow&#039;s clothes. She puts on her most beautiful clothing and jewelry. It goes to great lengths to explain how beautiful she is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Before there were montages, there was this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. &amp;quot;She combed her hair, put on a tiara, dressed herself in the festive attire that she used to wear while her husband Manasseh was living. She put sandals on her feet put on her anklets, bracelets, rings, earrings, and all other jewelry. Thus she made herself very beautiful to entice the eyes of all the men who might see her.&amp;quot; Yeah, and then, yes, as Chris says, she goes to get captured on purpose. She wanders out to the the encampment of the Assyrians, and she basically flirts her way into the tent of Holofernes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, she&#039;s not alone.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, she has a maidservant who, like we said, Ocean&#039;s 2.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do we know anything about her? Because I don&#039;t believe she&#039;s named in this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, she&#039;s not.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Unless I missed it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, I don&#039;t think there&#039;s a name or any other information about her.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s no midrash about this?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, there might be. I shouldn&#039;t say that. Yeah, there might be midrash. I don&#039;t know. I don&#039;t know them. It might be in the Talmud. if you know, give us a shout. Someone hook us up with a link to the the secret backstory of Judith&#039;s hand servant, and that would be good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Let&#039;s just call her Alfred.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ll call her Alfred. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so she goes in. All the guys in the Assyrian camp are basically Tex Avery wolves at this point. They&#039;re like, &amp;quot;who are you?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I&#039;m a daughter of the Hebrews. I&#039;m fleeing from them, for they&#039;re about to be handed over to you to be devoured. I&#039;m on my way to see Holofernes, the commander of your army, to give him a true report. I&#039;ll show him a way by which he can go and capture all the hill country without losing one of his men, captured or slain.&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;Cool, this is good. You just saved your own life by defecting to us.&amp;quot; They lead her to Holofernes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And we get this description of Holofernes in his tent. &amp;quot;The guards of Holofernes and all of his servants came out and led her into the tent. Holofernes was resting on his bed under a canopy that was woven with purple and gold, emeralds and other precious stones. When they told him of her, he came to the front of the tent with silver lamps carried before him. When Judith came into the presence of Holofernes and his servants, they all marveled at the beauty of her face. She prostrated herself and did obeisance to him, but his slaves raised her up.&amp;quot; So I want to take a minute because this is the one quote that I have from the Anglo-Saxon epic poem about Judith. This is the description of this scene. &amp;quot;There was hung all golden a fair fly net round the bed of the folk leader that the baleful one, the chief of warriors, might look through on each child of the brave who came therein, and none might look on him.&amp;quot; So the idea here is that this gold links chained canopy is like a mosquito net and it&#039;s designed in such a way that he can see out but people can&#039;t see in. And so that gives him you know kind of an upper hand over there. But that&#039;s that&#039;s the only little quote I have from the Anglo-Saxon Judith. I&#039;ll probably try and find– I&#039;m sure there&#039;s a text of it online that I can link to for anyone who might be interested in that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Okay, so here we&#039;re at chapter 11 now, and what I love about this is like there is a clear demarcation now where pretty much everything Judith says is a complete equivocation where it&#039;s true on the surface, but it has another meaning. So if you&#039;re looking for like examples of this kind of verbal irony, a lot of it plays on the idea of her using the phrase, &amp;quot;my lord,&amp;quot; right? Holofernes, of course, assumes that she means him when in fact she&#039;s talking about you know, capital L Lord, God. So when she says something like, &amp;quot;If you follow the words of your servant, God will accomplish something through you, and my Lord will not fail to achieve his purposes.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s the first thing she says to him.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s like at the end when there&#039;s the flashback.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And like the coffee cup drops.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; The coffee cup is dropping. You cut back to like, &amp;quot;oh I see what you mean now,&amp;quot; yeah. Yeah, this is starting to set up all the bits, and if you&#039;re paying close attention, especially if you know what&#039;s going to happen, you can see her sowing the seeds, and there&#039;s definitely a strong air of dramatic irony about so much of what she says, because she&#039;s always like, &amp;quot;Yes, my lord will prevail.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Something that no one will ever forget is about to happen today.&amp;quot; Right? That kind of stuff is is happening all the time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And so what she says to him, her information to him is that she repeats the things that Achior had told him before, the idea that Israel&#039;s strength waxes and wanes with their devotion to God. And she says, &amp;quot;I happen to know that because of the dire thirst that the people are experiencing, the famine and the drought, their faith is at an all-time low. It&#039;s absolutely ebbing at this point, to the point where they are eating and drinking food and wine that they&#039;re not supposed to. They&#039;re planning to kill livestock that had been set aside for God. They&#039;re consuming the first fruits of the grain which is set aside for God. The tithes of wine and oil they&#039;re going to use.&amp;quot; And so what she says to him, and this is important, like it seems like a weird detail, but it&#039;s important to the heist. She says, &amp;quot;Every night in the middle of the night, I need to go out of your tent and out into the valley to pray to God. And God will tell me when they&#039;re being their most unfaithful, and that&#039;s when you can go and attack. So I&#039;m here and I&#039;m gonna go out of your tent every night, out into the valley and I&#039;m gonna pray.&amp;quot; And so she sets this up and establishes this early on. And Holofernes is like, &amp;quot;this sounds great. I&#039;m on board.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and then she tells him, this might as well be &amp;quot;and then Judith turned and winked to us.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Uh-huh.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; She tells him T&amp;quot;hen I will lead you through Judea until you come to Jerusalem. There I will set your throne.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep, again.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That could not be more ominous.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; All true. It&#039;s all true In a technical sense, it is all true. Yeah, and so then we get this established for a couple of days. Judith and Holofernes...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Holofernes then goes, &amp;quot;Sounds great.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Sounds great. I&#039;m very on board. I&#039;m incredibly on board to all the things you just said.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And she&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Yeah, I think you&#039;re going to get &#039;a head&#039; in this war.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah, oh yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;I&#039;ll make sure to stay sharp when I go out at night.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We start getting the pattern established where she spends her days with Holofernes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;As soon as I hear the good word from God, I&#039;ll &#039;be-heading&#039; back to this tent.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; There we go.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; To let you know.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; There is. Hey Chris, why do you keep &#039;cutting me off?&#039; Anyway, so yeah, the pattern is established. She spends the day with Holofernes in the tent, at night she goes out in the middle of the night to pray. So Holofernes&#039; guards and servants are used to her going out in the middle of the night.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And as you mentioned, she she only eats and drinks her own food that her and her maid brought.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; He invites her to a banquet and he&#039;s like, I have all this stuff, and she&#039;s like &amp;quot;Nah, I have this big bag full of kosher food and I&#039;m just gonna eat that.&amp;quot; And he&#039;s and he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Well if your supply runs out, will you eat with me?&amp;quot; And she&#039;s like &amp;quot;Don&#039;t worry, it&#039;s not gonna run out.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, I won&#039;t be staying that long.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. No, she says, &amp;quot;your servant will not use up the supplies I have with me before the Lord carries out by my hand what he has determined.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Let&#039;s not get ahead of ourselves.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And then once again, we finally get to the day. It&#039;s happening.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is happening.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Judith rolls up into Holofernes&#039; tent. Holofernes is the thirst is real with my dude.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, both in both senses.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. He had been waiting for an opportunity to seduce her, so he says, &amp;quot;Have a drink and be merry with us.&amp;quot; And Judith says, &amp;quot;I will gladly drink, my lord, because today is the greatest day of my whole life.&amp;quot; And then she proceeds to straight Marion Ravenwood him and get him trashed.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. And so here&#039;s where that mid-rosh comes in. Okay? According to the the midrash about Judith, the way she gets him to keep drinking wine is she keeps feeding him cheese, and the cheese makes him thirsty. Or phleghmy or something, I don&#039;t know. So he keeps drinking wine, and because of all that cheese, he gets drunk because he has to drink all the wine to wash down his cheese. And so, some people eat a lot of cheese at Hanukkah. And so I I know that&#039;s not as popular as some as obviously latkes or like sufganiyot or whatever else you might eat, the fried foods that you eat at Hanukkah. But I do know some Groups do eat cheese. Let me know if you eat cheese at Hanukkah, also let me know if you eat those mozzarella sticks because then you got the fried thing going on. for Judah Maccabee and you got the cheese for Judith. So please let me know if you just like you you hit a TGI Fridays for Hanukkah and you&#039;re just like unlimited. mozzo sticks, please. Oh, that didn&#039;t I didn&#039;t mean to say matzah, but like mozzarella. Whatever. Maybe matzah breaded mozzarella. Let me know. Just let me know if you got that fried cheese going on at Hanukkah because you can. It&#039;s here in Bible. Yeah, now Holofernes&#039;s good and drunk.  He&#039;s completely turnt. And so the slaves are leaving because they know what&#039;s supposed to be happening now. Right? This is like the fourth day in the tenth, so it&#039;s basically third date rules, I guess.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And Judith&#039;s like, &amp;quot;hey, if you hear any chopping noises or screaming for help. Totally normal. Don&#039;t worry about it.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;That&#039;s just how that&#039;s just how we do it in Bethulia. So if you if you hear any...&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;If like if you hear like a man&#039;s voice saying &#039;what are you doing with that sword?&#039;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Totally it&#039;s a metaphor, we don&#039;t need to get into it, but just everything&#039;s totally, totally norms.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Yeah, this is this is just how my people do. If you do it different in Assyria, I&#039;m sorry.&amp;quot; Yeah, so everyone&#039;s cleared out except for Judith and Holofernes. She takes down Holofernes&#039;s own sword.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s three major players in this. There&#039;s Judith, there&#039;s Holofernes, and there&#039;s Holofernes&#039;s sword. &amp;quot;Now indeed is the time to help your heritage and to carry out my design to destroy the enemies who have risen up against us.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s a good prayer if you&#039;re about to behead somebody.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Here&#039;s what I think is the most brutal detail in this entire story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That it takes two chops?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It takes two. She doesn&#039;t get all the way through with the first one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So, yeah, she cut through his neck twice with all her might, cut off his head, rolls the body onto the floor, then steals his canopy. And then we see why she have that giant bag for food? Well it&#039;s her s-s-sneaking-sneaking out a head bag. It&#039;s Ocean&#039;s 2, baby. Ocean&#039;s 2. That bag&#039;s there for a reason. And then we see like she and her handmaid go out to the valley to pray, and everyone&#039;s like, &amp;quot;that is normal. That has what is what has been happening every night,&amp;quot; Except they&#039;re not going to pray, they&#039;re going to run back to Bethulia. And so, like, very well thought out heist, head heist. It&#039;s still robbery. They just stole a man&#039;s head. That&#039;s what it was.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean, at this point, he&#039;s not using it. It belongs to Judith.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s Judith&#039;s now. Why steal a diamond when you can steal the head of the general of your greatest enemies? Yeah, so pretending that they&#039;re going back to the valley to pray, they make their way back to the hills where the people of Bethulia greet her, and are kind of wigged out that she managed to do this thing. She pulls the head out of the bag and says, &amp;quot;Look, the head of Holofernes, the commander of the Assyrian army, and also his canopy, which I stole for some reason.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;The Lord has struck him down by the hands of a woman. As the Lord lives who has protected me in the way I went, I swear that it was my face that seduced him in his destruction, and that he committed no sin with me to defile and shame me.&amp;quot; That&#039;s an important detail, right? Because, she has to prove that she did not actually do the deed with him. He was just thirsty for her face. And to prove that she remained completely chaste. The people are astonished.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And we get this kind of cool detail when Achior comes in. &amp;quot;They summon Achior from the house of Uzziah. He came in and he saw the head of Holofernes and he fainted.&amp;quot; This is cool. This is...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Normal.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is cool because we also got that set up earlier when when he kicks Achior out, Holofernes says to him, he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;You&#039;re not gonna see you&#039;re not gonna see my face again until the day of my victory.&amp;quot; And here it here it is. It&#039;s not his victory, but victory over him, I suppose. And so yeah, Achior is the first to thank God for the for the death of Holofernes and the destruction of the Assyrian army. And so here, yeah, in complete flagrant disregard for Deuteronomy 23:3, they convert Achior to Judaism and he&#039;s circumcised and everything. That verse says that Ammonites and Moabites...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Two chops.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
 &#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Moabites and Ammonites cannot be converted. Yeah. Oh yeah, two chops, yeah. Moabites and Ammonites can&#039;t be converted to Judaism because, it turns out, because they did not bring out food and water for the Israelites when they returned from the desert they were supposed to have a bigger party for them and as a result they&#039;re not allowed into heaven, etc. I know Judaism doesn&#039;t have heaven per se, but you know what I mean. They&#039;re not allowed into covenant with God.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
 So yeah, they hang the head of Holofernes on the wall, and then their plan is Judith sends their army to come out as if they&#039;re about to attack. And so when the Assyrians wake up in the morning, they look and they see, &amp;quot;oh shoot, the Israelites are coming, go wake up Holofernes.&amp;quot; And so then when Bagoas, this is the name of Holofernes&#039; eunuch, who&#039;s in charge of stuff, including women, as eunuchs frequently were. He goes and knocks at the entry of the tent, because he supposed that Holofernes was sleeping with Judith, &amp;quot;But when no one answered he opened it and went into the bedchamber, found him sprawled on the floor dead, with his head missing. He cried out with a loud voice and wept and groaned and shouted and torn his tore his clothes.&amp;quot; And so yeah, the Assyrians start to panic, they start to run away, that doubles down. When Uzziah sends messengers out to the other villages of the Israelites, and now the full Israelite army comes and is able to chase off the Assyrians who are now literally headless. The head of their head has been cut off, and so they have no commander. And they basically get chased back. to Assyria.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Look, Holofernes is the Death Star. We got it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like he&#039;s the thing. They do have a hundred and seventy thousand other dudes there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. None of them it turns out were good at army. So, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I am not at all cheapening Judas actions. I&#039;m saying it is established: there are a hundred and seventy thousand people surrounding Jerusalem at this point.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Quick comparison. During the reign of Augustus, the Roman army numbered 250,000.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Entirely. For the empire.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. This is again, an implausible number of people.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s a very large number of people. It&#039;s a San Diego Comic-Con of people.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And you know what? If someone cut off Wil Wheaton&#039;s head, they would have run away too.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Definitely not advocating it. Definitely not advocating it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Definitely not. I&#039;m not saying, I&#039;m not saying I&#039;m not advocating violence against Wil Wheaton. I&#039;m just saying that if you cut off Wil Wheaton&#039;s head, the entirety of San Diego Comic-Con would run through the whole district. They&#039;d be gone.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That is fair. That is fair.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We get the again truly implausible detail that it took them thirty days to plunder the camp. There could not have been that much stuff there. But Judith gets the tent of Holofernes with all of his silverware and his beds, his bowls, his furniture. She loads them up on a cart and she brings them back with the intent to dedicate them all to God because again, Judith is a very pious and devout woman who always does the right thing. We get ivy-wreathed wands, we get olive wreaths. That&#039;s another clue that this is probably in a post-Hellenistic world because that&#039;s a thing that Greek people did, olive wreaths, that&#039;s not a Jewish thing. And then we get Judith&#039;s hymn of Thanksgiving, which is basically, she writes an epic ballad about herself from the perspective of a personified Israel. Which is pretty baller.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Pretty great. And then much like we did last week, we have a woman with agency who accomplishes something great and then lives a long and happy life.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we see her live to the age of 105. She never marries again. She stay she remains a widow for the rest of her life, even though she&#039;s the most beautiful woman in Israel. She is she&#039;s the face she&#039;s the face that killed 175,000 men.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Canonically, &amp;quot;her sandal ravished his eyes.&amp;quot; That&#039;s how hot she is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. Her shoes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Her shoes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Unless it&#039;s just Unless we are to believe that Judith 169 is just telling us that Holofernes was like a foot guy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Could be both. Could be both.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Could be both.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Could be both.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Could be both.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And yeah, so she lives to be 105, she never remarries. she is honored by the whole country. Despite the fact that many men tried to woo her, she did not give in. 105, she grew old. She set her maid free. She died in Bethulia, she&#039;s buried next to her husband, and then all of her belongings, which were great wealth, we know, because she took the highest and best plunder from the camp of Holofernes, all of that was distributed to her relatives in accordance with the law. So even post-death, Judith is still following the Torah to a T.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and the entire House of Israel mourned her passing for seven days, which is pretty good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; They lowered Holofernes&#039; head to half staff.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah, they just flew that gold canopy on a flagpole. So what do you think, Chris?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I think the story of Judith is pretty great, is what I think.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we had zero miracles.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Zero miracles.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Another thing that ties it into Esther a little bit, right? Esther pretty famously the canonical book that does not explicitly mention God, although God is mentioned many, many times in this book, we don&#039;t see active use of his hand. And yeah, no miracle healing fish or angels popping down to do anything. Yeah, it&#039;s just...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, Raphael does not show up to go fight Satan in Egypt at any point in this story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is a regular non-flaming and eye-covered sword that chops off Holofernes&#039; head. Also, as you mentioned, solidly written, like engagingly written, and translated, we specifically, I think we mentioned this at the beginning. We used the NRSV version of this story. But like very fun and action-packed. A good one to read, I think.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and it&#039;s it&#039;s not that long either. It&#039;s yeah, sixteen chapters. In my edition of the NRSV it takes up it&#039;s about twenty pages, but that includes lots of footnotes. So you could probably find it shorter than that. So if you if you haven&#039;t read it yet, I do recommend maybe giving this one a read. It&#039;s very cool. It&#039;s a really good one. And you can see why it&#039;s a popular inspiration for different pieces of art. I will definitely be posting a gallery of different paintings and sculptures of Judith on our Tumblr. for this week.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Did you have a verse that we didn&#039;t already talk about?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039;  I think we basically covered all the ones I wrote down as possibilities because The first one I wanna wanted to talk about was the was from [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judith%206%3A2-6&amp;amp;version=NRSVUE Holofernes&#039; speech about the about the valleys filling with blood]. That was one. Then I considered possibly [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judith%208%3A32-34&amp;amp;version=NRSVUE Judith&#039;s very raw drop about doing something that will go down through all the generations.] And then I also considered 13:4, which was... oh yeah, this is her prayer right before she kills Holofernes. &amp;quot;O Lord God of all might, look in this hour on the work of my hands for the exaltation of Jerusalem. Now indeed is the time to help your heritage and to carry out my design to destroy the enemies who have risen up against us.&amp;quot; So I had all those picked, but we covered we kinda covered all of them during the show, which I kind of figured we would because there&#039;s so many very raw speeches in this one. Did you have one, Chris?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We already did them, but I specifically highlighted [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judith%208%3A32-34&amp;amp;version=NRSVUE 8:32], which is Judith announcing that she is gonna go down in history.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Calling her shot.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer or George Washington. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Or Judith.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But I think the the winners in this one are Judith 9:9-10.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Judith chapter nine verses nine through ten: &amp;quot;Look at their pride, and send your wrath upon their heads. Give to me, a widow, the strong hand to do what I plan. By the deceit of my lips strike down the slave with the prince and the prince with his servant; crush their arrogance by the hand of a woman.&amp;quot; Especially that last bit. That is solid. Solid stuff...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very choice.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; ...from our pal the Bible. So that is the story of Judith. Very, very fun. But we are going to come back next week with the first part of a two-part Halloween Scare-tacular.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s right. Yeah, two-part Spook-toberfest. We&#039;re gonna do the one where the devil descended to hell, The Gospel of Nicodemus, aka the Acts of Pilate, aka the Descent into Hell. We&#039;re gonna see Jesus, what he did on his Saturday off between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, that&#039;s right, everybody. It&#039;s time for the harrowing of hell.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s the one. There&#039;s some other stuff that happens.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know I love it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Some other stuff happens too.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know I love it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But yeah. We&#039;re definitely gonna see Satan as a character with with lines that say stuff. So yeah, we&#039;re gonna get a little bit of a rehash of the the crucifixion and resurrection, but plenty of stuff in hell. We&#039;re gonna see the return of many of these patriarchs that we have encountered recently. Some names that should be familiar. But yeah, it should be a fun time. Part one of a two-part Spooktoberfest, Spooktacular, Boo-serbration. I don&#039;t know. I&#039;ve completely lost it there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But that is gonna be next week. And I am very excited about it. You know that&#039;s a story I&#039;ve been talking about since we started that I did not know was not in the canonical Bible.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But I think that that goes to your point. Like this this stuff exists even to me in pop culture.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Until we&#039;re back in action here, where can everybody find us, Benito?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so like I&#039;ve been mentioning throughout the show, if you want to see supplementary materials like links, we posted a lot of links to articles given to us by our good friend David Wolkin, recently. We also post images of art related to the stories that we do, also fan art when we get it. We had a very choice piece of Thecla art that came in this past week that you guys should absolutely go check out if you haven&#039;t seen it. It&#039;s definitely Thecla shrouded in fire, a vat full of dead seals and so on. You can find all that stuff on our Tumblr at [https://apocrypals.tumblr.com apocrypals dot tumbler dot com]. Follow us there. We also post links, especially to things that you can&#039;t find or may not be able to find in a print version of the Bible. When we read things like, for example, the Gospel of Nicodemus, we&#039;ll have links on our site that you can find there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Also, if you enjoy the show and you want to help us continue to make the show, if you want to help support us a little bit monetarily, you can do so by going to [https://ko-fi.com/apocrypals K O dash F I dot com slash apocrypals]. That&#039;s [https://ko-fi.com/apocrypals kofi dot com slash apocrypals], where you basically can help support the show in the form of a tip in multiples of $3. So if you feel like we&#039;re doing a good job and you want to help us continue to make the show, pay for things like hosting, music, reference books, and that kind of stuff that we use on the show, drop us a little bit of cash to show your appreciation. We appreciate it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you can&#039;t do that, or you just don&#039;t want to do that, but you do want to still help the show, not in a monetary fashion, you can do that by dropping us a review on your favorite podcaster of choice, whether that be iTunes. Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, I don&#039;t think has reviews, but you know, especially iTunes, if you give us a rating and a review, or Apple Podcasts, I suppose they call it now, but give us a give us a rating and review. We&#039;ve gotten some really nice reviews in the last week. Like sometimes it&#039;ll go a while without any reviews, but we&#039;ve gotten like four in the last couple of days that were all really great and we super appreciate you guys doing that. So yeah, leaving us rating and reviews help us get featured, help us bump up that Christian comedy chart, which is our our number one goal, obviously.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I feel like the number one goal is the clutch @Pontifex retweet.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, still waiting on that. We do definitely have a Catholic priest from Alabama who plays the guitar, who&#039;s very much in our corner, and we appreciate that. He&#039;s also dropped us some money at Kofi, which I appreciate, super appreciate. I know he&#039;s listening to this and will hear this. I think he&#039;s a couple episodes behind, but we definitely appreciate that. But yeah, still waiting for that @Pontifix. Otherwise, if you want to find me, I&#039;m on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, just search for Benito Cereno. You&#039;ll find me. I&#039;m there. Chris, what about you?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You can find all of my stuff by going to [https://the-isb.com T H E dash I S B dot com]. That has links to all the stuff that I write around the web and also has links to comic books that I write. The Army of Darkness Halloween special is coming out soon. That has stories by both of us. Me and my writing partner, Chad Bowers and Benito did stories in there. I&#039;ve also got Infinity Wars Sleepwalker coming out now. Chad and I wrote that one with art by Todd Nauck, and it&#039;s really fun. If you&#039;ve ever wondered what the insides of the Infinity Stones look like, then Sleepwalker will take you on a tour. And I got to see the the reality stone interior today for the first time, like full color finished. It&#039;s great.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I love it. I gotta tell you, Chris, it&#039;s very good. I read it, it&#039;s very good. Like it&#039;s been a long time. It&#039;s been a long time since I&#039;ve bought... There&#039;s been a like a comic book event story where I&#039;ve bought all the tie-ins. It might have been like Final Crisis might have been the last time I did that. And Final Crisis might literally be the only other time I&#039;ve ever done this. But I&#039;ve bought every tie-in to Infinity Wars like and Infinity Countdown before that. And like you had stuff for that. You did the Darkhawk story. And like everything has been good. All of these Infinity Warp stories have been very cool. The Sleepwalker is very cool. I was very glad to see the return of Silhouette, one of my favorite characters, even though I know that was Chad&#039;s addition and not yours, because you did not read early 90s New Warriors. But I&#039;ve been saying for years that Silhouette is ripe for a return. Like this is the era in which Silhouette could flourish and nobody&#039;s been using her. So I&#039;m glad to see her pop up in your book. That was very cool.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; People were very excited about her. You&#039;re not alone.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Also, this is the first place I have said this, because it came in while we were recording, actually.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Dracula the Unconquered number four is done.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hey!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That is a comic that&#039;s been in the works for years. Dracula the Unconquered was a series that I started with Steve Downer and Josh Croc. Seven years ago.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, alright.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Number four is done.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Nice.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So I&#039;m very excited about it. This is it&#039;s probably gonna be out on Halloween on Comixology and it&#039;s got Carmilla in it. This is the Carmilla issue that I&#039;m very excited about, and it it looks great. And I&#039;m very excited for people to read it. I really – it&#039;s been long enough since I wrote it that I kinda read it for the first time today and it was really fun.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and if people if people have not read that, you should check it out because the premise is what if Dracula was also an Uncle Scrooge? It&#039;s very good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, what if Dracula had world traveling adventures with his young lady sidekick?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; In Europe in 1901. so that&#039;s that, everybody. Also, Benito, you&#039;ve got a bunch of Halloween comics, but we we&#039;re we&#039;re plugging, we can&#039;t we can&#039;t be here all day.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, no, no, no, definitely not.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Check all that stuff out. Thank you for listening. So be here next week when we talk about the gospel of Nicodemus. Until then, for Benito Cereno, I&#039;ve been Chris Sims. Benito, peace be with you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And also with you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music: &amp;quot;Heads Will Roll&amp;quot; by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Ocean%27s_Two_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1060</id>
		<title>Ocean&#039;s Two (Transcript)</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Ocean%27s_Two_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1060"/>
		<updated>2026-02-09T13:20:51Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&#039;&#039;&#039;Chris Sims:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;For their mighty one did not fall by the hands of the young men, nor did the sons of the Titans strike him down, nor did tall giants set upon him, but Judith, daughter of Merari, with the beauty of her countenance, undid him.&amp;quot; The Book of Judith, chapter 16, verse 6.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music: &amp;quot;Heads Will Roll&amp;quot; by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hello everybody and welcome to Apocrypals. It&#039;s the podcast where two non-believers read through the Bible, but we try not to be jerks about it. My name is Chris Sims. With me as always is the other set of footprints, Benito Cereno. Benito, how are you on this crisp fall afternoon?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;Benito Cereno:&#039;&#039;&#039; Really good man. Yeah, it&#039;s it is very crisp here too. We definitely had a significant temperature drop following some of that rain that we got here the other day.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I say crisp, it&#039;s like seventy degrees out.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh really? It&#039;s like fifty-five probably here right now.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is the first day in a while that has felt nice.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; As opposed to being sweltering and wet.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I&#039;m I&#039;m really I&#039;m all about that hoodie weather. Like that&#039;s my that&#039;s my ideal, so I&#039;m very happy that we&#039;re finally getting there. Although, you know, we&#039;ll get it for a week and then it&#039;ll be 80 again, I&#039;m sure, soon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s usually how it goes, but you and I, we&#039;re some we&#039;re some gentlemen who like layers.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s true.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not just as in like underground caves where we plot and scheme, but like multiple clothings over our torsos.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, both versions of that particular homonym. Yeah. I guess it&#039;s a homophone, don&#039;t correct me. I hear you out there at your Twitters already, it&#039;s homophones.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Checkity-checkity-check. That&#039;s the typing. That&#039;s what&#039;s happening right now. Benito, what are we doing this week here on the show where that we&#039;re supposed to be reading the Bible?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, hey, we&#039;re we&#039;re doing another one about about a woman with some agency. We&#039;re doing the book of Judith. From the Deuterocanon, aka the Capital A Apocrypha. I feel like maybe we shouldn&#039;t be squandering them, but at the same time, it feels like the right time to have powerful women doing some murders, cloaked in fire, etc. on our show. Feels like the appropriate time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It feels like a very good time to be discussing Judith. Now I will say, right up at the start, Judith does not cloak herself in fire. She does not cast lightning down upon man-eating seals.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s not gonna happen this week. I apologize for anyone who might have been misled.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this book is surprisingly miracle-free.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But it&#039;s pretty raw.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s completely raw. And it&#039;s basically it&#039;s Ocean&#039;s Eight if the goal was a murder instead of a robbery. And also there was only two women. So it&#039;s like Ocean&#039;s 2.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oceans 2 but a murder. That&#039;s a completely different kind of movie than Ocean&#039;s Eight. Right. You understand that, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I mean yeah, it&#039;s yeah. But it&#039;s definitely a heist. Everything is planned out. This is a very tightly plotted book, actually, where like there&#039;s a lot of stuff set up. A lot of stuff pays off. And if you&#039;re listening to this and you&#039;re in high school and you&#039;re trying to learn about the figurative device that is irony? This is an excellent book because it&#039;s got all the ironies. You got your verbal ironies, you got your dramatic ironies, you got your situational ironies. They&#039;re all here. Every single one of them. This is a super ironic book. Not in like a Rod Serling sense, but in the in the literary sense, it&#039;s got all of &#039;em. And yeah, everything&#039;s just so tight because it&#039;ll be like you see Judith doing things and you&#039;re like, huh, why&#039;s she doing that? Don&#039;t worry, it&#039;s gonna pay off because she knew what she was doing.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You are absolutely right. From a plot standpoint, you know me. I&#039;ve been frustrated with a lot of these before.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This one is: there are no frustrations with the Book of Judith. The only thing I have is that Judith herself does not show up until like chapter eight.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s true. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s a lot of build-up and it and it pays off.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, the the heroine of the story doesn&#039;t show up until halfway through. But even if we were to look at this from a structural point of view, it&#039;s very cool. We won&#039;t have to go into it because I don&#039;t want to have to explain to everybody what chiasmus is, but this is built on a two-tiered chiasmus structure where the first half, pre-Judith appearance, follows... it&#039;s like a reflex reflexive thing. It&#039;s like that the Rorschach-focused issue of Watchmen where it starts and ends the same way with the reflection in the middle. If you imagine like that, that&#039;s kind of what a chiastic structure is. And the two halves of this book, everything before Judith and everything starting with Judith to the end, it&#039;s it&#039;s two perfect reflexive structures like that. You can look more into that, but we don&#039;t have time to go into all that. But it&#039;s very cool. It&#039;s very tight from a structural point of view is what I&#039;m what I&#039;m getting at. This is a very well-composed book.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You&#039;re basically saying it&#039;s twice as good as Watchmen.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I am saying that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Or alternately like about 1.8 times as good as that issue of G. I. Joe about Tomax and Xamot that the same gimmick.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah, that&#039;s what I&#039;m getting at.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; When did Tomax and Xamot show up in the Bible, by the way?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ve already seen one of them, he doubted Jesus, and then later we&#039;re gonna see his twin brother, Xamot, later.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, how did we get through how did we get through four gospels and I never talked about doubting Tomax?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I&#039;ve been sit I&#039;ve been sitting on the Thomas and Samoht joke for a long time, waiting for an opportunity to drop that one, because he&#039;s the twin. He&#039;s Thomas the twin. Thomas Didymus, the twin. I was I thought maybe when we got to Acts of Thomas or something. There&#039;s so many books attributed to Thomas. We&#039;ve got the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the Acts of Thomas. There&#039;s no shortage of places I might have brought it up.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But Yeah, and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas is hashtag lit.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it sure is. But we&#039;re not talking about that today.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;re not talking about that today.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ll get there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do we have anything that we need to cover before we get into Judith? Any holidays, any upcoming celebrations. It&#039;s state fair time, but I don&#039;t believe that exists in doctrine.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, no, I actually was just checking while I was waiting for everything to get set up today. I was flipping through to see. Because obviously we pay a lot of attention to, we&#039;ve done a lot of Jewish holidays recently, because it obviously was the Jewish High Holidays is the most important ones, but also because the majority of American listeners at least are not super familiar with Jewish holidays, so we&#039;ve really focused on those. But I was like, maybe we should look more at some of the the different Saint feast days and things. We&#039;ve mentioned some, but not usually on the days when they&#039;re happening. So I actually was flipping through to see if there were any interesting ones and not really.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Great segment. Great great time that we spent on that. Good good job.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I did miss, I regret that we missed Michaelmas. We should have talked about Michaelmas a couple weeks ago. It was on September 24th. That&#039;s a very cool one to talk about. But we&#039;ll definitely be hitting, we&#039;ll probably be hitting weird Christian holidays almost every episode once we hit like November and we get to Martinmas, that&#039;s when the Christmas season, Advent and Christmas season kicks off. So we&#039;re gonna have some stuff like every episode after that for sure. So hang on til Saint Martin comes in on his white horse, and we&#039;ll be ready to talk about weird Christian festivals for like two months after that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And everybody make sure to tune in on November 1st for All Saints Day, where we read the entire golden legend.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep, don&#039;t do that actually.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;re not gonna do all the saints on All Saints Day? What&#039;s the point?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Oh Yeah, so actually that does remind me, speaking of saints, yeah. So I have two things I wanted to pick up on from last week&#039;s episode. They&#039;re not corrections per se, they&#039;re just additions. They came from our two favorite, of course, personal scholars who like to give us a hand every now and then. Number one comes from friend of the show, Ben Rowe. Regarding Saint Isidore of Seville being the patron of the internet, and I was close, I was kind of on top of it, but not quite there. So here&#039;s what he says: &amp;quot;Isidore is patron of the internet because his life&#039;s work was the assembly of a compendium of universal knowledge. He was the first Christian writer to attempt such a work, preserving abridgments of classical works and serving as the conduit through which they were known by medieval scholars.&amp;quot; And so he&#039;s basically Christian Wikipedia, ergo, he&#039;s the patron of the internet because he was the first person to try to assemble a compendium of all human knowledge. That answers that question a little bit.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; How many sonic OCs did he get through before he gave up?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I think a lot. I think there were very many echidnas. Like he built Knuckles&#039; family up big time. Anyway, here&#039;s our second piece of input from of course King of the Gnostics Jonathan Stewart. Regarding Paul and Thecla, he says, &amp;quot;If you want your crackpot theory for the week, the idea that Paul was the same as Simon Magus,&amp;quot; remember that&#039;s one we hit way back in episode three. &amp;quot;The idea that Paul and Simon Magus were the same person was pretty widespread in the ancient world, so Paul and Thecla was partly written to counteract it. Our early sources say Simon was definitely DTF,&amp;quot; if you think about the text where we talked about Simon and Helen, right? We talked about that. And also the bit about magicians corrupting wives that we talked about. And so, &amp;quot;Paul and Thecla was partly written to say that Paul is mega chaste, and of course his best lady friend isn&#039;t a sex worker but a very nice girl.&amp;quot; Not to say that sex workers aren&#039;t very nice. You understand the point. This is ancient. Anyway. So yeah, the idea that Paul and Thecla was written specifically to counteract the idea that Paul and Simon Magus were the same person, a surprisingly common conspiracy theory of the ancient ancient days.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I have a question.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Why not just do another story where Paul fights Simon Magus, like we have?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I don&#039;t know man. It wasn&#039;t enough. It didn&#039;t I mean we&#039;ve got multiple ones, we&#039;ve got at least three. One of them is in the canon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I feel like Paul and Simon Magus were the same person is the first century CE version of what if Batman was the Joker.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Or that one about how Avril Lavigne has been a clone since 1998 or whatever.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;re really... I am not looking forward to writing up the show notes on this one already.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hey man, let&#039;s talk about Judith, I guess.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do we know who wrote this and why is it Deuterocanon?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, yeah. So yeah, I got all that information ready to go. Here we go. So Judith, the name comes from the Hebrew name Yehudit, which is the feminine form of Judah and so her name either could mean &amp;quot;she is praised&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;she will be praised&amp;quot; or it just might mean &amp;quot;a Jewish woman,&amp;quot; right, in the way that Judah, the son of Jacob, gives his name to Judea and the land of Judah, and then therefore the word Jew and Jewish and Judaism all come from the name Judah. So the name Judith might just mean &amp;quot;Jewish woman.&amp;quot; The text, it&#039;s a little unclear if the original version of the text was Hebrew or Greek, because the oldest extant version that we have is the one from the Septuagint, which is where basically all of the deuterocanonical books come from. Remember the distinction is that the deuterocanonical books are books that exist in the Greek Septuagint but don&#039;t exist in the the later Hebrew canon. And that&#039;s where Protestants make the distinction between what they consider canon and what they consider Apocrypha. So the oldest version we have of Judith is Greek. The earliest Hebrew versions are from the Middle Ages, but that does not necessarily mean that the original text was not Hebrew. There are, however, certain phrases and vocabulary choices that indicate that maybe the Greek was the original with the author intentionally imitating stylistic bits from the Greek translations from the Septuagint.&lt;br /&gt;
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When was it written? Well, there are certain elements that indicate an origin in the Hasmonean period. That&#039;s the also known as the Maccabean period, the period of the dynasty of kings following Judah Maccabee following the Seleucid Empire or actually slightly overlapping with the Seleucid Empire, which you know follows up the Hellenistic era. So some of the things that indicate that this was probably from the Hasmonean period, the idea of the worship of a king as a god, which is a thing that our boy Antiochus IV Epiphanes would have wanted. And so that would be something that the Jews at this time would have specifically been rebelling against, I guess. We also see the political and military powers of the high priest in this in this book, Joachim, we see he has a lot of military powers. The supremacy of the Council of Elders, aka the Sanhedrin, we see that with Uzziah and some of the others. They have the kind of supremacy within the city. And also an overall similarity in the story to the story of Judah Maccabee and how he defeated Nicanor, 1. And so it seems most likely that this book was composed during the reign of John Hyrcanus I, which would be somewhere between 135 and 105 BCE.&lt;br /&gt;
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That said. The book as a whole is full of historical and geographical errors. We see that literally from verse one. Like verse one, continuity is out the window. It&#039;s also full of anachronisms, but a lot of people argue that these mistakes are intentional. They&#039;re meant to point out that the book is a parable or it&#039;s allegory. Some people refer to this as one of the earliest historical novels, but of course some people try to still justify some of the things in the book like why does it say that Nebuchadnezzar was king of the Assyrians? Well, maybe they really meant Ashurbanipal or Artaxerxes or someone else, you know. Even though we don&#039;t know where the village of Bethulia is, maybe it&#039;s this place or maybe it&#039;s that place.&lt;br /&gt;
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The book as a whole was probably never considered canonical by any Jewish group. Though it was probably written in the Second Temple Era by a Jewish author. It&#039;s not in the canonical Jewish text, the Masoretic text. It&#039;s not among the Dead Sea Scrolls, which is true of a lot of the books that we&#039;ve seen that are not in the canonical text, do pop up among the dead sea scrolls showing that they were important to some Jewish societies, but this is not the case with Judith. And why might that be? Well, it could be again similar to Tobit and some of the others, it might just be because of the late date in which it was composed, might be because it has a Greek origin. Maybe it&#039;s because it endorses deceit and murder as cool things to do that God is in support of, but also there&#039;s some other like unorthodox ideas that get a little more specific, including the fact that an Ammonite gets converted to Judaism, which is actually specifically forbidden in the Torah. You&#039;re not allowed to convert Ammonites. But despite the fact that this was never seen as canonical in any way, it doesn&#039;t mean it wasn&#039;t popular among Jewish communities because, give it about a thousand years after its composition, the story of Judith becomes popular as a story in poems and songs in the Talmud. There&#039;s a very popular Midrash that ends up tying Judith to Hanukkah, even though this book has nothing to do with Hanukkah. And in fact, some Jewish communities will read the story of Judith at Hanukkah, similar to the way that the story of Esther is read at Purim. And so in that way Judith kind of becomes the Hasmonean equivalent to Esther. Esther is the hero of Purim. Judith becomes the hero of Hanukkah in a way.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Question.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is there any tradition of Judith being a gift-giving figure?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, but she is tied into a food tradition that I want to get back to once we get into the story, so remind me remind me on that. I probably won&#039;t forget that one, but There is a food tradition.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So there&#039;s nothing about how if you&#039;re good all year and you do your chores and clean your plate, then Judith might bring you like a present at Hanukkah time and if you&#039;re bad she will cut your head off.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No. Strangely.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s not that? That feels like a slam dunk.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly. And you know what? Like, Look again, this is me from the outside and I understand that Hanukkah is actually not in the grand scheme of things a very important Jewish holiday and that its importance has been inflated due to its proximity to Christmas. Like I fully understand that. But I keep seeing like in pop culture Hanukkah traditions where they try to just they do these like parodies of Christmas things where you get Mensch on the bench and you get a Hanukkah Bush or whatever. But I&#039;m like, if you want to make Hanukkah cool, why don&#039;t you just say that the ghost of Judah Maccabees and the ghost of Judith are gonna come to your house? Like you already have another holiday where you leave a seat open for a ghost to come and sit there. Why can&#039;t you have Judah Maccabee the Hammer come? Why can&#039;t you have the Hebrew hammer come and hang out at your house on Hanukkah? That would be the dopest holiday. It would arguably be better than Christmas. I don&#039;t know. I&#039;m not the boss of holidays, and obviously I&#039;m not any kind of you know actual authority that should be speaking about what they should do for Hanukkah. I&#039;m just saying if you had if you had Judah Maccabee and Judith show up at your house, that would be a very cool holiday.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I just feel like Judith&#039;s entire deal is that she gets into and out of a place.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Unseen.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Undetected.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And what it in her case she takes something and brings it to other people.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s true.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Spoiler warning.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; What if someone dressed up as Judith and came in with a pinata that looked like a man&#039;s head and it was full of candy and it was Holofernes&#039; head and the kids beat that until I don&#039;t know, until gelt fell out. Wouldn&#039;t that be a very dope holiday tradition?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Just spitballing here.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; So anyway, the comparison between Judith and Esther, there we go. But also, I got another cool abrieve coming up. The biblical commentator, Nachmanides, aka the Rabbi Moses bin Nachman, aka Ramban. So he&#039;s not the Rambam, he&#039;s Ramban, because he&#039;s the son of Nachman instead of the son of Maimon, and so he&#039;s Ramban instead of Rambam. He quotes Judith pretty heavily in his biblical commentaries. So, some Jewish communities do value the story of Judith even though it was never canonical.&lt;br /&gt;
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For Christians, however, the book of Judith was included in many Christian canons, but excluded from some others. Jerome in the Vulgate put it in the Apocrypha, but later he quoted it as though it were had the same weight as Scripture. It was accepted as canon by the Nicene Council and the Council of 1442, and it was dogmatically decreed canonical at the Council of Trent in 1546. So again, like all the books of the Deuterocan, it is canon for the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, and others. So the Deuterocan again just means later. They&#039;re books later. They&#039;re from the inter quote-unquote inter-testamental period. And so it was confirmed as canonical by the Eastern Orthodox Church at the Sinod of Jerusalem in 1672. The Episcopal Church reads from Judith on the Feast of Mary Magdalene on July 22nd. However, only the Coptic Church celebrates Judith as a saint, and her feast day is September 17th, so another one that we&#039;ve just missed. And again, Protestants see it as apocryphal, i. e. not real. However Luther, Martin Luther, in his Bible that included Apocrypha, it was listed first. It was number one among the Apocrypha.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So Tobit wasn&#039;t in there or was Tobit just in a different&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Tobit was just in a different spot. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Christians like this story because Judith is seen as an example of a mulier sancta, a holy woman. She&#039;s kind of a prefiguration of the Virgin Mary. You can see that because like her name means Jewish woman. She comes from Bethulia, a city whose name means virginity. And she alone, without the help of a man, overcomes the great enemy to deliver her city from evil, right? But also she personifies the virtues of humility, justice, and fortitude, and chastity, which are opposed to her great enemy, Holofernes, who represents pride, tyranny, decadence, and lust. And so, because it&#039;s a story that&#039;s so popular with Christian communities, of course, that means that it is very popular and very well represented in the various arts. Including, very cool, a very cool thing, there&#039;s an Anglo-Saxon epic poem from about the same time as Beowulf that&#039;s all about Judith. She is transformed into an Anglo-Saxon Christian woman, which okay, but the invasion of Holofernes and his his people are kind of likened to the Viking invasions of England at around the same time. I have a very short small quote from that that I can share later in the show. The story of Judith was also, for some reason, very popular in sixteenth century French poetry. I don&#039;t know any more than that.&lt;br /&gt;
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It is, of course, a very, very popular motif in painting and sculpture. A lot of these you guys have probably seen. They&#039;re very they&#039;ve been very popular on social media lately. But depictions of Judith and Holofernes in painting and sculpture include but are by no means limited to a very famous sculpture by Donatello, one of the artists famous enough to be a Ninja Turtle, although definitely the least famous of the four Ninja Turtle artists. But more famously one that you&#039;ve probably seen, a Caravaggio painting, one by Botticelli, one by Titian, a famous Art Nouveau version by Gustav Klimt, you guys have probably seen. It&#039;s that famous really sexy one where one of the girls is out and she&#039;s holding a head. You&#039;ve probably seen that one. A version by Goya, and of course the really popular one that&#039;s been going around lately is the one by Artemisia Gentileschi where she models Judith after herself and Holofernes after a man who assaulted her. And Judith, if you didn&#039;t know, is on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. You can see her and her maidservant hiding Holofernes&#039;s head like in a pan and covering it up and trying to escape. The story of Judith also appears in music, operas and other things, including pieces by Vivaldi and Mozart, who you guys have probably heard of, and many others. And the story of Judith has been represented in many, many modern plays and pieces of modern art as well. So it&#039;s a very popular motif in art, there&#039;s no shortage of places where you can see Judith referenced in high art and popular culture. So despite, again, being part of the so-called deuterocanon or the Apocrypha, This is another story that has had a major impact on history and culture.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it rules.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it kind of rules. Yeah, it rules.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s a very good story.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s good. So you want to talk about it?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I think we should.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I think we should too. We get some errors right off the bat. Like literally chapter one verse one. It was the twelfth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. who ruled over the Assyrians in the great city of Nineveh. That&#039;s wrong. Chris, do you remember who Nebuchadnezzar was the king of?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I do not. I remember Nineveh. Nineveh was where Tobit kept finding all those bodies in the streets.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, well, Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, that&#039;s true. And Nineveh of course is most famous, I think, probably to most people from the story of Jonah, because that&#039;s where he was supposed to go and didn&#039;t want to go. But yeah, we have seen Nineveh. We of course talked about the Assyrian Empire at great length in our Isaiah episode. Nebuchadnezzar we would have encountered in our Daniel episode. Does that help at all?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, so he was Babylonian.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. So yeah, Nebuchadnezzar, who lived from about 605 to about 562 BCE, was the second ruler over the Neo-Babylonian Empire, not the Assyrian Empire. And this story is supposed to be set in the post-Babylonian exile period, right, in which point the the main  dudes of the earth were the Persians and not either the Assyrians or the Neo-Babylonians, aka the Chaldeans. And so in fact what we see here is Nebuchadnezzar as king of the Assyrians battling the Chaldeans. The Chaldeans are the Babylonians, the Neo-Babylonians, the people over whom He was actually the king. And so again, I&#039;m not going to point out like every historical error or anachronism here because there&#039;s a lot, but this is kind of the major one. The setting is wrong, the king is wrong. So like I said, even early communities accepted this as being a folktale or a parable, however, if you want to follow, you know, the idea that this is, you know, the pure inerrant word of God, then you have to think that, you know, the author was putting in intentional miscues to disguise this, or they were code words for someone else or something like that.&lt;br /&gt;
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But anyway, so Nebuchadnezzar is being challenged by King Arphaxad, who is not even quite Robin Hood real, we&#039;ll say. We know nothing about him whatsoever.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well I know about him. I know that he rules over the Medes in Ecbatana.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s true. That&#039;s right.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s Chris one, historian zero.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly. And so yeah, Ecbatana we&#039;ve seen and Medea we&#039;ve seen as well. We saw those in Tobit. Medea is the northern part of Iran, basically the part of Iran that&#039;s not Persia is Medea. And so he rallies together people of the East is the idea. This is gonna be kind of an East and West kind of dispute. And so when Arphaxad gathers together all the countries of the East, Nebuchadnezzar sends out messengers to all the people of the West in Cilicia and Damascus, Lebanon, and anti-Lebanon.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I had a question about that.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is anti-Lebanon where like evil cedar trees are from?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, absolutely. Or counterpoint, what if anti-Lebanon is actually the Earth 3 version of Lebanon, Tennessee? And that&#039;s a city that consumes Cracker Barrels instead of producing them.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;m just throwing it out there. Just throwing it out there.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. The the Anti-Monitor needs to destroy all of the infinite Cracker Barrels.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly. Yeah. Just think about it. Just think. So comics artist Tony Moore, he used to tell me we would we talk about Lebanon, Tennessee. It&#039;s the city where Cracker Barrel comes from. It&#039;s a relatively small town. It&#039;s the county seat of Wilson County, just to the east of Nashville. It&#039;s where comics artist Eric Powell lives or used to live. And it&#039;s where Cracker Barrel is from. And Tony Moore used to say that he had never been to Lebanon, in Tennessee they say &amp;quot;Lebanun&amp;quot;, not Lebanon. He said he imagined that it was just a giant Cracker Barrel-shaped factory with like smoke pouring out and just like master mold of the sentinels. It just produces smaller Cracker Barrel versions of itself that they then ship out across the southeast. So yeah, anti-Lebanon is the is the opposite of that from Earth 3.&lt;br /&gt;
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So anyway, Nebuchadnezzar tries to rally together the kingdoms of the West. And when I say West, of course, we&#039;re still talking about the western parts of the Middle East, basically. And the problem is they tell him to go heck himself, basically. They&#039;re like, &amp;quot;Nebuchadnezzar, you&#039;re one dude. I don&#039;t care. You don&#039;t scare us. No thank you.&amp;quot; And so Nebuchadnezzar is like, &amp;quot;I do not appreciate that. Here&#039;s what I&#039;m gonna do. I&#039;m gonna go out by myself, I&#039;m gonna conquer this whole army of the East, and then when I&#039;m done killing them, I&#039;m gonna come around and get my revenge on you guys for not helping me out here.&amp;quot; And that happens. So score one for Nebuchadnezzar.&lt;br /&gt;
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&amp;quot;In the seventeenth year he led his forces against King Arphaxad, defeated him in battle. overthrowing the whole army of Arphaxad and all his cavalry and all his chariots. Thus he took possession of his towns, and came to Ecbatana, captured its towers, plundered its markets, and turned its glory into disgrace. He captured Arphaxad in the mountains of Regal and struck him down with his spears, thus destroying him once and for all. Then he returned to Nineveh.&amp;quot; So yeah, he&#039;s destroyed the largest army ever combined against him and now he is ready for his revenge against the people who didn&#039;t come help him when he asked. And that&#039;s kind of what kicks off, that&#039;s the inciting incident of the book. We see Nebuchadnezzar assigning his great high general Holofernes or Holofernes And we get pretty great speech here, Chris. Do you want to look at this speech from Nebuchadnezzar? Pretty raw talk here.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s pretty dope. &amp;quot;Thus says the great king, the lord of the whole earth, Leave my presence and take with you men confident in their strength, one hundred and twenty thousand foot soldiers and twelve thousand cavalry. March out against all the land in the west, because they disobeyed my orders. Tell them to prepare earth and water, for I am coming against them in my anger, and will cover the whole face of the earth with the feet of my troops, to whom I will hand them over to be plundered. Their wounded shall fill the ravines and gullies, and the swelling river shall be filled with their dead.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, pretty raw.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So Nebuchadnezzar&#039;s mad.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Now, I have a couple questions for you here that you may or may not know the answer to.&lt;br /&gt;
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Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
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First of all, what does Holofernes mean?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s actually probably a Persian name or similar to a Persian name, I don&#039;t know exactly what it means, because there are historical people with that name or ones similar to it, and so it may have been taken from a Persian general who was a leader in the expedition that invaded the West under Artaxerxes III about 350 BC. So it might come from that, but I do not know what it means.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay. The second thing is, have we talked about earth and water on the show?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We might have, but this is another anachronism because offering up earth and water is a traditional sign of submission among the Persian Empire, and it would have been unheard of with the Assyrians and the Babylonians. So this again, you know, being written in the post-Persian Empire period is a bit of an anachronism.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. And this is something that I&#039;ve heard about before, but I could not remember if we had talked about it on the show or if it was just from listening to like episodes of Hardcore History about the tributes that you would give to someone like Xerxes, for instance.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I&#039;m pretty sure it&#039;s mentioned in 300. I think when the scout comes to visit Sparta, they asked for tributes of earth and water...&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, that&#039;s right. He asks for water and that&#039;s why he gets kicked into the well.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, that&#039;s why he gets kicked into the well. That&#039;s exactly right. Because he demands earth and water, and so he kicks him into the well. That&#039;s exactly right. Yep.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Holofernes just starts going hard on the West.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and I should point out that this army is fantastically large. Like...&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s huge! It&#039;s 132,000 people!&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it is, I mean, when I say fantastically, I mean as in fantasy large. It is stretching the bounds of credibility large. Yeah, and so basically he sets out, &amp;quot;His army was a swarm of locusts locusts like the dust of the earth, a multitude that could not be counted&amp;quot; as he spread out across the West raining Nebuchadnezzar&#039;s revenge upon all these people that wouldn&#039;t help Nebuchadnezzar against Arphaxad.&lt;br /&gt;
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And we see him come through a lot of these places. The geography is kind of mixed up, like the order of his march doesn&#039;t quite make sense. We see that he comes to the southern borders of Japheth, facing Arabia. And if you remember from one of our Genesis episodes, I guess the first one, Japheth, one of the sons of Noah, his lands were Anatolia, that is the subcontinent on which Turkey is and Europe. So the army is stretching stretching out to either Turkey or Southern Europe, depending on how you want to think about that. They surround the Midianites, those are Arabs basically.&lt;br /&gt;
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They burn their tents, and they&#039;re spreading out all over the world. Sidon and Tyre and all these places. The people eventually submit to Nebuchadnezzar and they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;look, stop, we&#039;ll we&#039;ll be your servants. Do with us whatever you will. Our lands are all yours, our flocks are yours. We&#039;ll be your slaves, just don&#039;t kill us, don&#039;t destroy everything.&amp;quot; And Holofernes is like, &amp;quot;yes, good. That is what I will do. Thank you very much for saving me some time.&amp;quot; And they start to have a big party. &amp;quot;The people welcomed him in the countryside with garlands and dances and tambourines.&amp;quot; But then, &amp;quot;Yet he demolished all their shrines and cut down their sacred groves.&amp;quot; Because this is introducing Holofernes now, not just as a military threat, but also as a religious threat, because he&#039;s coming through and saying &amp;quot;the only god is Nebuchadnezzar,&amp;quot; and so he&#039;s destroying all the temples and sacred groves and shrines. And the implication is when he eventually reaches Israel, he&#039;s gonna try and do the same thing. And so, a little sinister here on Holofernes&#039;s part. And yeah, he eventually makes his way to Judea. And the people there are naturally quite alarmed. Because...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, the the actual heading in the NRSV, because we have the little, they&#039;re not chapter headings, they&#039;re section headings, I guess, is &amp;quot;Judea on the alert.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so here&#039;s the thing, like Judea, especially this region is very hilly and mountainous. That is something that has been very much to the advantage of Israel throughout history. Of course, probably the most famous example of that is the the fortress of Masada up on the hilltop, but during the Roman siege. It&#039;s been much to their advantage, and we can see here that they describe that if they&#039;re gonna try and get into Judea, there&#039;s really only a couple of passes, and one of them is at Bethulia, and the other one is at Betomesthaim. I did not say that right. But anyway, the idea is these mountain passes are very thin. They&#039;re very narrow. They say it&#039;s only wide enough for two at a time to pass. And so they&#039;re going to buckle down and try and, speaking of 300, they&#039;re going to try and 300 this ish, right? And so that that&#039;s the plan laid out by Joachim the high priest, who again has vast political and military powers. But the people are, you know, they&#039;re freaking out a little bit. Then...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You say they&#039;re freaking out a little bit. The text says &amp;quot;They even draped the altar with sackcloth and cried out in unison, praying fervently to the God of Israel not to allow their infants to be carried off and their wives to be taken as booty, and the towns they had inherited to be destroyed, and the sanctuary to be profaned and desecrated to the malicious joy of the Gentiles.&amp;quot; That&#039;s a little more than just kind of freaking out.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; They&#039;re freaking out a lot. Judea, you might say, is on the alert Definitely. So what we get then is Holofernes calls in representatives of the people of Moab and Ammon, the Moabites and the Ammonites. Now, if you&#039;ll recall, from our second episode on Genesis, the Moabites and the Ammonites are the descendants of Lot via his daughters, right? We had that very problematic scene. But the the idea there is that that was an etiology for the origin of two long-standing historical enemies of the Israelites: the Moabites, the Ammonites. And so we see them here. So Moab would have been directly east of the Dead Sea, and Ammon would have been to the northeast. And then soon enough we&#039;re gonna see the Edomites jump in as well, who are gonna be to the southeast of the Dead Sea. So these are all neighbors of Judea. And the people of Moab and the commanders of Ammon, they come in. And Holofernes is like, &amp;quot;who are these people? What towns do they inhabit? How large is their army?&amp;quot; And that kind of stuff.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And so here we get introduced a supporting character, Achior. Achior, a leader of the Ammonites, and he basically gives the Israelite history for dummies compressed tour for Holofernes. And so most of chapter five is Achior laying out the history of the Israelites starting with Abraham up through the Babylonian exile and the return. And so we basically get everything from you know chapter twelve of Genesis up through Nehemiah, more or less, right? Ezra and Nehemiah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. But he crucially talks about that constant back and forth, the struggle with God that we talked about. Which is a key point of this story. He says, &amp;quot;As long as they did not sin against God, they prospered, for the God who hates iniquity is with them. But when they departed from the way that he had prescribed for them, they were utterly defeated in many battles and were led away captive to a foreign land.&amp;quot; So basically, Achior is saying, if they haven&#039;t sinned, you can&#039;t take them.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No matter what you do.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because God&#039;s on their side. All you gotta do is wait it out though.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; So true. And the fact that he&#039;s got that planted, that bug planted in his mind is going to be important for later as well. But while that does kind of seem moralistic and simplistic, like from Bible stories, it&#039;s definitely true. Like Samson, as long as he trusted in God, he had strength. As soon as he didn&#039;t, he lost his strength. You know? And of course the Israelites as a nation, Moses even, you know, everything&#039;s good until it&#039;s not. And then he&#039;s he doesn&#039;t trust in God. and and he&#039;s punished. And so to see it laid out this way, it&#039;s like like Samson and his hair, and the hair is the metaphor for his devotion to God, you know, as long as he keeps that, he&#039;s super strong. And so he&#039;s like, pretty sure they&#039;re on a holy streak right now, so you may not be able to do anything. What happens is Holofernes did not like that response. And so he has he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;if you love these Israelites so much, you get to die with them.&amp;quot; And so he has him bound and chained.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well well first he he gives him his own super raw speech.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh yeah, oh for sure.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is in Judith chapter 6 verse 4. &amp;quot;We will overwhelm them, their mountains will be drunk with their blood, and their fields will be full of their dead. Not even their footprints will survive our attack, they will utterly perish.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Again, I love the effort that this book puts in. Because again, this is chapter 6. Judith is 15 chapters long. Judith has not shown up yet. It&#039;s just bad guys and backstory at this point. And they&#039;re very, very strong bad guys.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, absolutely they are. This while we&#039;re while we&#039;re here, this bit right here at verse six in chapter six. Where Holofernes he says, &amp;quot;Then at my return, the sword of my army and the spear of my servants shall pierce your sides, and you shall fall among their wounded.&amp;quot; Like part of me is like, &amp;quot;Some medieval Christian guy definitely perked up at the site of `Sphere Through the Side, right?`&amp;quot; Like that&#039;s a thing where he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;What if this book is about Jesus, though?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Absolutely.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So enough, I mean, it&#039;s we already talked about the parallels with the Virgin Mary, of course, that have been latched onto, but that was one where I saw that and I was like, &amp;quot;Oh man, some guy.&amp;quot; Christians, not everything has to be for you, man. Just you don&#039;t have to put your finger in every pie. I&#039;m just I&#039;m just saying.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So anyway, yeah, they they chain up Achior, they take him to Bethulia, and they intend to hand him over to the Israelites. They basically they lay him out on a hill. And here we get introduced to some of the magistrates of Bethulia. We get Uzziah, son of Micah, Uzziah, whose name means &amp;quot;Yah is my strength.&amp;quot; It&#039;s a fairly common name for Bible characters. We&#039;ll see that name again and again in other books. And also we get Chabris, son of Gothoniel, and Charmis, son of Melchiel. So we&#039;re gonna see those three guys a couple times here, but they run out under suppressing fire from slings, which is wild.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s pretty dope, actually.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; They run out and they rescue Achior. And they bring him in, and he basically tells them, like, &amp;quot;hey man, here&#039;s what went down with Holofernes. Here&#039;s what&#039;s gonna happen.&amp;quot;  But what they don&#039;t know Is that while Achior is talking to the Israelites, meanwhile, the Moabites and then the Edomites who have not even been here, like they&#039;ve not even mentioned before. I like to imagine like I imagine that Edomites busting through the wall like the Kool-Aid man, like, &amp;quot;oh yeah, I hate Israel too.&amp;quot; And so they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;Here&#039;s the plan. You&#039;re not going to be able to storm through with your giant army through the hills because they use the geography to their advantage. What you&#039;re going to have to do is realize that they rely on these springs down at the bottom of these hills. If you fortify the springs, they won&#039;t have enough water and you can siege them that way. They&#039;ll have to surrender because without water, they&#039;ll have famine and sickness, and they&#039;ll start to die, and they&#039;ll just surrender on their own if you camp out around those springs.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And so that&#039;s the new plan and that&#039;s the plan that they start to carry out. And it works – for a while because so the Assyrian army encamped in the plane &amp;quot;And then the Israelites cried out to the Lord their God, for their courage failed, because all their enemies had surrounded them and there was no way of escape from them. Their cisterns were going dry. And on no day did they have enough water to drink, for their drinking water was rationed. Their children were listless, and the women and young men fainted from thirst and were collapsing in the streets of the town and in the gateways, and they no longer had any strength.&amp;quot; Things are going exceptionally bad. They intend to surrender, but we see Uzziah come out. And he says, &amp;quot;Courage, my brothers and sisters, let us hold out for five more days. By that time the Lord our God will turn his mercy to us again, for he will not forsake us utterly. But if these days pass by and no help comes for us, I will do as you say.&amp;quot; So yeah, things are bad in the town, there&#039;s great misery, but in those days, Judith heard about these things.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; By God! By God, that&#039;s Judith&#039;s music! What&#039;s she doing here?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh man.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so here comes Judith. Judith&#039;s great.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and we get this incredibly long and probably fictional genealogy for Judith. &amp;quot;The daughter of Merari, son of Ox,&amp;quot; from the enforcers possibly, you can&#039;t tell me no. &amp;quot;Son of Joseph, son of Oziel, son of Elkaiah, son of Ananias, son of Gideon, son of Raphain, son of Ahitub, son of Elijah, son of Hilkiah, son of Eliab, son of Nathanael, son of Salamiel, son of Sarasadai, son of Israel.&amp;quot; Most of these names do not exist elsewhere in the Bible.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Israel, we&#039;ve got. That&#039;s, that&#039;s Jacob.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, he&#039;s that dude&#039;s got a lot of sons. I do not recall one named Sarasadai. So it might be a different Israel. I don&#039;t know. These names can&#039;t be identified, basically. A lot of them are unparalleled in the Old Testament. Some of them we don&#039;t see anywhere else. But we get a little bit of her back story. We learn that Judith is a widow. Her husband&#039;s name was Manasseh, not any of the Manassehs we&#039;ve encountered before, but again that&#039;s just a common name. We learned that Manasseh worked in a barley field, and he died of heat stroke. He stood overseeing those who were binding sheaves in the field. He was overcome by the burning heat, and took to his bed and died in his town Bethulia.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So what we then learn about Judith is that she is not only a widow, she&#039;s an exceptionally pious one. She does everything she&#039;s supposed to do. She fasts every day, except for the days where it is expressly forbidden to fast. On the Sabbath and the day before the Sabbath, days before the new moon, days of the new moon, festivals, and so on. Every other day she&#039;s fasting. She wears sackcloth around her waist like she&#039;s supposed to. She wears widow&#039;s clothing. All the things that she&#039;s supposed to do. &amp;quot;No one spoke ill of her, for she feared God with great devotion.&amp;quot; So: incredibly pious. Like it&#039;s very important to note that except for the major events of deceit and murder, Judith is an incredibly pious person who follows the law of the Torah, like to the T. Even when she goes into Holofernes&#039; camp, like she still keeps Kosh. Like she&#039;s so serious about it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; In my head, Judith, at this point in the story is wearing overalls and glasses and she&#039;s got her hair in a ponytail.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But don&#039;t worry, she&#039;s about to She&#039;s All That herself.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Very soon, in fact, yeah. So she goes out to the people of Bethulia and she schools them, basically. She says...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, she says some dope shit.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, you have something you have something you want to feature here, Chris?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Do not try to bind the purposes of the Lord our God, for God is not like a human being to be threatened.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Or a mere mortal to be won over by pleading.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Absolutely. Her key message is like. &amp;quot;who are you to put God to the test today?&amp;quot; This thing where you&#039;re setting a deadline for God, five days, right? &amp;quot;Who are you to put God to the test? God is testing us, idiots,&amp;quot; right? And so she kind of bookends her speech with like, don&#039;t test God, God is testing us. And so, and I love this bit. This  is one of my favorite bits in the whole book. Uzziah comes to her and he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Oh you wanna help? Okay. Very good, sweetie. Here&#039;s how you can help. Why don&#039;t you go pray that God sends rain so we don&#039;t die of thirst?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is so good. This is so good. This is verse 32 of chapter 8.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is probably the most boss flex we have seen anybody lay out in the entire Bible so far, right? Like is there anything that parallels just like the rawness of this like dope flex right here?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Legitimately the only thing I can think of is when the soldier showed up and asked Jesus if he was Jesus and he knocked them over by saying, &amp;quot;I am.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s true. That&#039;s true. that&#039;s a pretty good one. But yeah, she says, &amp;quot;Listen to me. I&#039;m about to go do something that will go down through all generations of our descendants.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is true.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is true, because here we are.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here we are.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Over 2,000 years later talking about how raw this is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then Uzziah says &amp;quot;Go in peace and may the Lord God go before you to take vengeance on our enemies.&amp;quot; And she says, &amp;quot;God&#039;s gonna sit this one out.&amp;quot; No wait, I&#039;m sorry, that was the Punisher. The Punisher said that one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But, you know, no, God&#039;s definitely on her side, which again, not quite orthodox because she is definitely planning on breaking some commandments. But chapter nine is basically her is her prayer, her prayer to God. And so a lot of people, you know... The author does not see a moral inconsistency in Judith praying for divine help in her deceit and murder. But obviously some later scholars have. But there&#039;s still some a lot of the weight to it. The idea that it&#039;s gonna be a single woman who destroys an entire hundreds, thousands strong army, but at that time it would have been like particularly like it&#039;s definitely insult to injury, right? The fact that it&#039;s a woman who&#039;s gonna topple this entire army.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well here&#039;s what I thought was interesting about this scene, because we&#039;re moving into chapter nine now, this is the prayer of Judith. Judith references the story of Dinah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And is like there is no ambiguity for Judith about who was right in that situation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. It also helps that we learn here that Judith is of the tribe of Simeon. And Simeon was the guy who went and killed all the recently circumcised guys and burnt their city to the ground. Simeon and Levi.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Who Death Wish-ed everybody – Death Wish 3&#039;ed everybody in the book of Genesis.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, exactly. So there&#039;s a tie there, right, between the story of Simeon and Dinah and Shechem. That&#039;s very much n the background, like that&#039;s in the idea space. That&#039;s the ambient radiation of this story is is Dinah and the revenge there in the background. Definitely, definitely Judith is calling on the power of Simeon to get revenge on some dirty dudes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But like we get another pretty amazing Line from Judith here. &amp;quot;Look at their pride and send your wrath upon their heads. Give to me, a widow, the strong hand to do what I plan. By the deceit of my lips strike down the slave with the prince, and the prince with his servant, crush their arrogance by the hand of a woman.&amp;quot; Dope.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Very dope. Incredibly dope.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you&#039;re looking for a tattoo, if you&#039;re looking for a verse, something to put on the scroll around the dagger to get you through these tough times. I would say maybe the Book of Judith, chapter nine, verse ten. Is a good one?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very good. Just a scroll going around a sword stuck through the head of Holofernes. Or whoever.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And the great thing is Holofernes can look like whoever you want him to look like.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; He could look like anyone. He could look like any face that might have been at a Senate hearing in recent days. Any face.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So Judith&#039;s plan starts out like I think all great plans do. The Joker&#039;s plan in the Dark Knight, the plan in Skyfall, Star Wars.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; She&#039;s gonna get captured on purpose.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I thought you were gonna say a makeover, and then I was trying to apply that to some of those movies. The Joker, I was there with you, but then I was like, is there a makeover in Skyfall? I don&#039;t remember. Yeah, she changes out of her widow&#039;s clothes. She puts on her most beautiful clothing and jewelry. It goes to great lengths to explain how beautiful she is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Before there were montages, there was this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. &amp;quot;She combed her hair, put on a tiara, dressed herself in the festive attire that she used to wear while her husband Manasseh was living. She put sandals on her feet put on her anklets, bracelets, rings, earrings, and all other jewelry. Thus she made herself very beautiful to entice the eyes of all the men who might see her.&amp;quot; Yeah, and then, yes, as Chris says, she goes to get captured on purpose. She wanders out to the the encampment of the Assyrians, and she basically flirts her way into the tent of Holofernes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, she&#039;s not alone.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, she has a maidservant who, like we said, Ocean&#039;s 2.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do we know anything about her? Because I don&#039;t believe she&#039;s named in this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, she&#039;s not.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Unless I missed it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, I don&#039;t think there&#039;s a name or any other information about her.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s no midrash about this?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, there might be. I shouldn&#039;t say that. Yeah, there might be midrash. I don&#039;t know. I don&#039;t know them. It might be in the Talmud. if you know, give us a shout. Someone hook us up with a link to the the secret backstory of Judith&#039;s hand servant, and that would be good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Let&#039;s just call her Alfred.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ll call her Alfred. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so she goes in. All the guys in the Assyrian camp are basically Tex Avery wolves at this point. They&#039;re like, &amp;quot;who are you?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I&#039;m a daughter of the Hebrews. I&#039;m fleeing from them, for they&#039;re about to be handed over to you to be devoured. I&#039;m on my way to see Holofernes, the commander of your army, to give him a true report. I&#039;ll show him a way by which he can go and capture all the hill country without losing one of his men, captured or slain.&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;Cool, this is good. You just saved your own life by defecting to us.&amp;quot; They lead her to Holofernes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And we get this description of Holofernes in his tent. &amp;quot;The guards of Holofernes and all of his servants came out and led her into the tent. Holofernes was resting on his bed under a canopy that was woven with purple and gold, emeralds and other precious stones. When they told him of her, he came to the front of the tent with silver lamps carried before him. When Judith came into the presence of Holofernes and his servants, they all marveled at the beauty of her face. She prostrated herself and did obeisance to him, but his slaves raised her up.&amp;quot; So I want to take a minute because this is the one quote that I have from the Anglo-Saxon epic poem about Judith. This is the description of this scene. &amp;quot;There was hung all golden a fair fly net round the bed of the folk leader that the baleful one, the chief of warriors, might look through on each child of the brave who came therein, and none might look on him.&amp;quot; So the idea here is that this gold links chained canopy is like a mosquito net and it&#039;s designed in such a way that he can see out but people can&#039;t see in. And so that gives him you know kind of an upper hand over there. But that&#039;s that&#039;s the only little quote I have from the Anglo-Saxon Judith. I&#039;ll probably try and find– I&#039;m sure there&#039;s a text of it online that I can link to for anyone who might be interested in that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Okay, so here we&#039;re at chapter 11 now, and what I love about this is like there is a clear demarcation now where pretty much everything Judith says is a complete equivocation where it&#039;s true on the surface, but it has another meaning. So if you&#039;re looking for like examples of this kind of verbal irony, a lot of it plays on the idea of her using the phrase, &amp;quot;my lord,&amp;quot; right? Holofernes, of course, assumes that she means him when in fact she&#039;s talking about you know, capital L Lord, God. So when she says something like, &amp;quot;If you follow the words of your servant, God will accomplish something through you, and my Lord will not fail to achieve his purposes.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s the first thing she says to him.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s like at the end when there&#039;s the flashback.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And like the coffee cup drops.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; The coffee cup is dropping. You cut back to like, &amp;quot;oh I see what you mean now,&amp;quot; yeah. Yeah, this is starting to set up all the bits, and if you&#039;re paying close attention, especially if you know what&#039;s going to happen, you can see her sowing the seeds, and there&#039;s definitely a strong air of dramatic irony about so much of what she says, because she&#039;s always like, &amp;quot;Yes, my lord will prevail.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Something that no one will ever forget is about to happen today.&amp;quot; Right? That kind of stuff is is happening all the time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And so what she says to him, her information to him is that she repeats the things that Achior had told him before, the idea that Israel&#039;s strength waxes and wanes with their devotion to God. And she says, &amp;quot;I happen to know that because of the dire thirst that the people are experiencing, the famine and the drought, their faith is at an all-time low. It&#039;s absolutely ebbing at this point, to the point where they are eating and drinking food and wine that they&#039;re not supposed to. They&#039;re planning to kill livestock that had been set aside for God. They&#039;re consuming the first fruits of the grain which is set aside for God. The tithes of wine and oil they&#039;re going to use.&amp;quot; And so what she says to him, and this is important, like it seems like a weird detail, but it&#039;s important to the heist. She says, &amp;quot;Every night in the middle of the night, I need to go out of your tent and out into the valley to pray to God. And God will tell me when they&#039;re being their most unfaithful, and that&#039;s when you can go and attack. So I&#039;m here and I&#039;m gonna go out of your tent every night, out into the valley and I&#039;m gonna pray.&amp;quot; And so she sets this up and establishes this early on. And Holofernes is like, &amp;quot;this sounds great. I&#039;m on board.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and then she tells him, this might as well be &amp;quot;and then Judith turned and winked to us.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Uh-huh.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; She tells him T&amp;quot;hen I will lead you through Judea until you come to Jerusalem. There I will set your throne.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep, again.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That could not be more ominous.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; All true. It&#039;s all true In a technical sense, it is all true. Yeah, and so then we get this established for a couple of days. Judith and Holofernes...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Holofernes then goes, &amp;quot;Sounds great.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Sounds great. I&#039;m very on board. I&#039;m incredibly on board to all the things you just said.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And she&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Yeah, I think you&#039;re going to get &#039;a head&#039; in this war.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah, oh yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;I&#039;ll make sure to stay sharp when I go out at night.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We start getting the pattern established where she spends her days with Holofernes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;As soon as I hear the good word from God, I&#039;ll &#039;be-heading&#039; back to this tent.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; There we go.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; To let you know.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; There is. Hey Chris, why do you keep &#039;cutting me off?&#039; Anyway, so yeah, the pattern is established. She spends the day with Holofernes in the tent, at night she goes out in the middle of the night to pray. So Holofernes&#039; guards and servants are used to her going out in the middle of the night.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And as you mentioned, she she only eats and drinks her own food that her and her maid brought.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; He invites her to a banquet and he&#039;s like, I have all this stuff, and she&#039;s like &amp;quot;Nah, I have this big bag full of kosher food and I&#039;m just gonna eat that.&amp;quot; And he&#039;s and he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Well if your supply runs out, will you eat with me?&amp;quot; And she&#039;s like &amp;quot;Don&#039;t worry, it&#039;s not gonna run out.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, I won&#039;t be staying that long.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. No, she says, &amp;quot;your servant will not use up the supplies I have with me before the Lord carries out by my hand what he has determined.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Let&#039;s not get ahead of ourselves.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And then once again, we finally get to the day. It&#039;s happening.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is happening.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Judith rolls up into Holofernes&#039; tent. Holofernes is the thirst is real with my dude.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, both in both senses.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. He had been waiting for an opportunity to seduce her, so he says, &amp;quot;Have a drink and be merry with us.&amp;quot; And Judith says, &amp;quot;I will gladly drink, my lord, because today is the greatest day of my whole life.&amp;quot; And then she proceeds to straight Marion Ravenwood him and get him trashed.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. And so here&#039;s where that mid-rosh comes in. Okay? According to the the midrash about Judith, the way she gets him to keep drinking wine is she keeps feeding him cheese, and the cheese makes him thirsty. Or phleghmy or something, I don&#039;t know. So he keeps drinking wine, and because of all that cheese, he gets drunk because he has to drink all the wine to wash down his cheese. And so, some people eat a lot of cheese at Hanukkah. And so I I know that&#039;s not as popular as some as obviously latkes or like sufganiyot or whatever else you might eat, the fried foods that you eat at Hanukkah. But I do know some Groups do eat cheese. Let me know if you eat cheese at Hanukkah, also let me know if you eat those mozzarella sticks because then you got the fried thing going on. for Judah Maccabee and you got the cheese for Judith. So please let me know if you just like you you hit a TGI Fridays for Hanukkah and you&#039;re just like unlimited. mozzo sticks, please. Oh, that didn&#039;t I didn&#039;t mean to say matzah, but like mozzarella. Whatever. Maybe matzah breaded mozzarella. Let me know. Just let me know if you got that fried cheese going on at Hanukkah because you can. It&#039;s here in Bible. Yeah, now Holofernes&#039;s good and drunk.  He&#039;s completely turnt. And so the slaves are leaving because they know what&#039;s supposed to be happening now. Right? This is like the fourth day in the tenth, so it&#039;s basically third date rules, I guess.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And Judith&#039;s like, &amp;quot;hey, if you hear any chopping noises or screaming for help. Totally normal. Don&#039;t worry about it.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;That&#039;s just how that&#039;s just how we do it in Bethulia. So if you if you hear any...&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;If like if you hear like a man&#039;s voice saying &#039;what are you doing with that sword?&#039;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Totally it&#039;s a metaphor, we don&#039;t need to get into it, but just everything&#039;s totally, totally norms.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Yeah, this is this is just how my people do. If you do it different in Assyria, I&#039;m sorry.&amp;quot; Yeah, so everyone&#039;s cleared out except for Judith and Holofernes. She takes down Holofernes&#039;s own sword.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s three major players in this. There&#039;s Judith, there&#039;s Holofernes, and there&#039;s Holofernes&#039;s sword. &amp;quot;Now indeed is the time to help your heritage and to carry out my design to destroy the enemies who have risen up against us.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s a good prayer if you&#039;re about to behead somebody.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Here&#039;s what I think is the most brutal detail in this entire story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That it takes two chops?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It takes two. She doesn&#039;t get all the way through with the first one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So, yeah, she cut through his neck twice with all her might, cut off his head, rolls the body onto the floor, then steals his canopy. And then we see why she have that giant bag for food? Well it&#039;s her s-s-sneaking-sneaking out a head bag. It&#039;s Ocean&#039;s 2, baby. Ocean&#039;s 2. That bag&#039;s there for a reason. And then we see like she and her handmaid go out to the valley to pray, and everyone&#039;s like, &amp;quot;that is normal. That has what is what has been happening every night,&amp;quot; Except they&#039;re not going to pray, they&#039;re going to run back to Bethulia. And so, like, very well thought out heist, head heist. It&#039;s still robbery. They just stole a man&#039;s head. That&#039;s what it was.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean, at this point, he&#039;s not using it. It belongs to Judith.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s Judith&#039;s now. Why steal a diamond when you can steal the head of the general of your greatest enemies? Yeah, so pretending that they&#039;re going back to the valley to pray, they make their way back to the hills where the people of Bethulia greet her, and are kind of wigged out that she managed to do this thing. She pulls the head out of the bag and says, &amp;quot;Look, the head of Holofernes, the commander of the Assyrian army, and also his canopy, which I stole for some reason.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;The Lord has struck him down by the hands of a woman. As the Lord lives who has protected me in the way I went, I swear that it was my face that seduced him in his destruction, and that he committed no sin with me to defile and shame me.&amp;quot; That&#039;s an important detail, right? Because, she has to prove that she did not actually do the deed with him. He was just thirsty for her face. And to prove that she remained completely chaste. The people are astonished.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And we get this kind of cool detail when Achior comes in. &amp;quot;They summon Achior from the house of Uzziah. He came in and he saw the head of Holofernes and he fainted.&amp;quot; This is cool. This is...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Normal.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is cool because we also got that set up earlier when when he kicks Achior out, Holofernes says to him, he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;You&#039;re not gonna see you&#039;re not gonna see my face again until the day of my victory.&amp;quot; And here it here it is. It&#039;s not his victory, but victory over him, I suppose. And so yeah, Achior is the first to thank God for the for the death of Holofernes and the destruction of the Assyrian army. And so here, yeah, in complete flagrant disregard for Deuteronomy 23:3, they convert Achior to Judaism and he&#039;s circumcised and everything. That verse says that Ammonites and Moabites...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Two chops.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
 &#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Moabites and Ammonites cannot be converted. Yeah. Oh yeah, two chops, yeah. Moabites and Ammonites can&#039;t be converted to Judaism because, it turns out, because they did not bring out food and water for the Israelites when they returned from the desert they were supposed to have a bigger party for them and as a result they&#039;re not allowed into heaven, etc. I know Judaism doesn&#039;t have heaven per se, but you know what I mean. They&#039;re not allowed into covenant with God.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
 So yeah, they hang the head of Holofernes on the wall, and then their plan is Judith sends their army to come out as if they&#039;re about to attack. And so when the Assyrians wake up in the morning, they look and they see, &amp;quot;oh shoot, the Israelites are coming, go wake up Holofernes.&amp;quot; And so then when Bagoas, this is the name of Holofernes&#039; eunuch, who&#039;s in charge of stuff, including women, as eunuchs frequently were. He goes and knocks at the entry of the tent, because he supposed that Holofernes was sleeping with Judith, &amp;quot;But when no one answered he opened it and went into the bedchamber, found him sprawled on the floor dead, with his head missing. He cried out with a loud voice and wept and groaned and shouted and torn his tore his clothes.&amp;quot; And so yeah, the Assyrians start to panic, they start to run away, that doubles down. When Uzziah sends messengers out to the other villages of the Israelites, and now the full Israelite army comes and is able to chase off the Assyrians who are now literally headless. The head of their head has been cut off, and so they have no commander. And they basically get chased back. to Assyria.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Look, Holofernes is the Death Star. We got it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like he&#039;s the thing. They do have a hundred and seventy thousand other dudes there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. None of them it turns out were good at army. So, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I am not at all cheapening Judas actions. I&#039;m saying it is established: there are a hundred and seventy thousand people surrounding Jerusalem at this point.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Quick comparison. During the reign of Augustus, the Roman army numbered 250,000.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Entirely. For the empire.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. This is again, an implausible number of people.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s a very large number of people. It&#039;s a San Diego Comic-Con of people.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And you know what? If someone cut off Wil Wheaton&#039;s head, they would have run away too.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Definitely not advocating it. Definitely not advocating it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Definitely not. I&#039;m not saying, I&#039;m not saying I&#039;m not advocating violence against Wil Wheaton. I&#039;m just saying that if you cut off Wil Wheaton&#039;s head, the entirety of San Diego Comic-Con would run through the whole district. They&#039;d be gone.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That is fair. That is fair.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We get the again truly implausible detail that it took them thirty days to plunder the camp. There could not have been that much stuff there. But Judith gets the tent of Holofernes with all of his silverware and his beds, his bowls, his furniture. She loads them up on a cart and she brings them back with the intent to dedicate them all to God because again, Judith is a very pious and devout woman who always does the right thing. We get ivy-wreathed wands, we get olive wreaths. That&#039;s another clue that this is probably in a post-Hellenistic world because that&#039;s a thing that Greek people did, olive wreaths, that&#039;s not a Jewish thing. And then we get Judith&#039;s hymn of Thanksgiving, which is basically, she writes an epic ballad about herself from the perspective of a personified Israel. Which is pretty baller.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Pretty great. And then much like we did last week, we have a woman with agency who accomplishes something great and then lives a long and happy life.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we see her live to the age of 105. She never marries again. She stay she remains a widow for the rest of her life, even though she&#039;s the most beautiful woman in Israel. She is she&#039;s the face she&#039;s the face that killed 175,000 men.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Canonically, &amp;quot;her sandal ravished his eyes.&amp;quot; That&#039;s how hot she is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. Her shoes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Her shoes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Unless it&#039;s just Unless we are to believe that Judith 169 is just telling us that Holofernes was like a foot guy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Could be both. Could be both.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Could be both.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Could be both.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Could be both.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And yeah, so she lives to be 105, she never remarries. she is honored by the whole country. Despite the fact that many men tried to woo her, she did not give in. 105, she grew old. She set her maid free. She died in Bethulia, she&#039;s buried next to her husband, and then all of her belongings, which were great wealth, we know, because she took the highest and best plunder from the camp of Holofernes, all of that was distributed to her relatives in accordance with the law. So even post-death, Judith is still following the Torah to a T.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and the entire House of Israel mourned her passing for seven days, which is pretty good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; They lowered Holofernes&#039; head to half staff.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah, they just flew that gold canopy on a flagpole. So what do you think, Chris?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I think the story of Judith is pretty great, is what I think.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we had zero miracles.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Zero miracles.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Another thing that ties it into Esther a little bit, right? Esther pretty famously the canonical book that does not explicitly mention God, although God is mentioned many, many times in this book, we don&#039;t see active use of his hand. And yeah, no miracle healing fish or angels popping down to do anything. Yeah, it&#039;s just...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, Raphael does not show up to go fight Satan in Egypt at any point in this story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is a regular non-flaming and eye-covered sword that chops off Holofernes&#039; head. Also, as you mentioned, solidly written, like engagingly written, and translated, we specifically, I think we mentioned this at the beginning. We used the NRSV version of this story. But like very fun and action-packed. A good one to read, I think.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and it&#039;s it&#039;s not that long either. It&#039;s yeah, sixteen chapters. In my edition of the NRSV it takes up it&#039;s about twenty pages, but that includes lots of footnotes. So you could probably find it shorter than that. So if you if you haven&#039;t read it yet, I do recommend maybe giving this one a read. It&#039;s very cool. It&#039;s a really good one. And you can see why it&#039;s a popular inspiration for different pieces of art. I will definitely be posting a gallery of different paintings and sculptures of Judith on our Tumblr. for this week.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Did you have a verse that we didn&#039;t already talk about?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039;  I think we basically covered all the ones I wrote down as possibilities because The first one I wanna wanted to talk about was the was from [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judith%206%3A2-6&amp;amp;version=NRSVUE Holofernes&#039; speech about the about the valleys filling with blood]. That was one. Then I considered possibly [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judith%208%3A32-34&amp;amp;version=NRSVUE Judith&#039;s very raw drop about doing something that will go down through all the generations.] And then I also considered 13:4, which was... oh yeah, this is her prayer right before she kills Holofernes. &amp;quot;O Lord God of Almighty look in this hour on the work of my hands for the exaltation of Jerusalem. Now indeed is the time to help your heritage and to carry out my design to destroy the enemies who have risen up against us.&amp;quot; So I had all those picked, but we covered we kinda covered all of them during the show, which I kind of figured we would because there&#039;s so many very raw speeches in this one. Did you have one, Chris?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We already did them, but I specifically highlighted [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judith%208%3A32-34&amp;amp;version=NRSVUE 8:32], which is Judith announcing that she is gonna go down in history.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Calling her shot.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer or George Washington. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Or Judith.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But I think the the winners in this one are Judith 9:9-10.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Judith chapter nine verses nine through ten: &amp;quot;Look at their pride, and send your wrath upon their heads. Give to me, a widow, the strong hand to do what I plan. By the deceit of my lips strike down the slave with the prince and the prince with his servant; crush their arrogance by the hand of a woman.&amp;quot; Especially that last bit. That is solid. Solid stuff...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very choice.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; ...from our pal the Bible. So that is the story of Judith. Very, very fun. But we are going to come back next week with the first part of a two-part Halloween Scare-tacular.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s right. Yeah, two-part Spook-toberfest. We&#039;re gonna do the one where the devil descended to hell, The Gospel of Nicodemus, aka the Acts of Pilate, aka the Descent into Hell. We&#039;re gonna see Jesus, what he did on his Saturday off between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, that&#039;s right, everybody. It&#039;s time for the harrowing of hell.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s the one. There&#039;s some other stuff that happens.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know I love it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Some other stuff happens too.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know I love it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But yeah. We&#039;re definitely gonna see Satan as a character with with lines that say stuff. So yeah, we&#039;re gonna get a little bit of a rehash of the the crucifixion and resurrection, but plenty of stuff in hell. We&#039;re gonna see the return of many of these patriarchs that we have encountered recently. Some names that should be familiar. But yeah, it should be a fun time. Part one of a two-part Spooktoberfest, Spooktacular, Boo-serbration. I don&#039;t know. I&#039;ve completely lost it there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But that is gonna be next week. And I am very excited about it. You know that&#039;s a story I&#039;ve been talking about since we started that I did not know was not in the canonical Bible.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But I think that that goes to your point. Like this this stuff exists even to me in pop culture.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Until we&#039;re back in action here, where can everybody find us, Benito?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so like I&#039;ve been mentioning throughout the show, if you want to see supplementary materials like links, we posted a lot of links to articles given to us by our good friend David Wolkin, recently. We also post images of art related to the stories that we do, also fan art when we get it. We had a very choice piece of Thecla art that came in this past week that you guys should absolutely go check out if you haven&#039;t seen it. It&#039;s definitely Thecla shrouded in fire, a vat full of dead seals and so on. You can find all that stuff on our Tumblr at [https://apocrypals.tumblr.com apocrypals dot tumbler dot com]. Follow us there. We also post links, especially to things that you can&#039;t find or may not be able to find in a print version of the Bible. When we read things like, for example, the Gospel of Nicodemus, we&#039;ll have links on our site that you can find there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Also, if you enjoy the show and you want to help us continue to make the show, if you want to help support us a little bit monetarily, you can do so by going to [https://ko-fi.com/apocrypals K O dash F I dot com slash apocrypals]. That&#039;s [https://ko-fi.com/apocrypals kofi dot com slash apocrypals], where you basically can help support the show in the form of a tip in multiples of $3. So if you feel like we&#039;re doing a good job and you want to help us continue to make the show, pay for things like hosting, music, reference books, and that kind of stuff that we use on the show, drop us a little bit of cash to show your appreciation. We appreciate it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you can&#039;t do that, or you just don&#039;t want to do that, but you do want to still help the show, not in a monetary fashion, you can do that by dropping us a review on your favorite podcaster of choice, whether that be iTunes. Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, I don&#039;t think has reviews, but you know, especially iTunes, if you give us a rating and a review, or Apple Podcasts, I suppose they call it now, but give us a give us a rating and review. We&#039;ve gotten some really nice reviews in the last week. Like sometimes it&#039;ll go a while without any reviews, but we&#039;ve gotten like four in the last couple of days that were all really great and we super appreciate you guys doing that. So yeah, leaving us rating and reviews help us get featured, help us bump up that Christian comedy chart, which is our our number one goal, obviously.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I feel like the number one goal is the clutch @Pontifex retweet.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, still waiting on that. We do definitely have a Catholic priest from Alabama who plays the guitar, who&#039;s very much in our corner, and we appreciate that. He&#039;s also dropped us some money at Kofi, which I appreciate, super appreciate. I know he&#039;s listening to this and will hear this. I think he&#039;s a couple episodes behind, but we definitely appreciate that. But yeah, still waiting for that @Pontifix. Otherwise, if you want to find me, I&#039;m on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, just search for Benito Cereno. You&#039;ll find me. I&#039;m there. Chris, what about you?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You can find all of my stuff by going to [https://the-isb.com T H E dash I S B dot com]. That has links to all the stuff that I write around the web and also has links to comic books that I write. The Army of Darkness Halloween special is coming out soon. That has stories by both of us. Me and my writing partner, Chad Bowers and Benito did stories in there. I&#039;ve also got Infinity Wars Sleepwalker coming out now. Chad and I wrote that one with art by Todd Nauck, and it&#039;s really fun. If you&#039;ve ever wondered what the insides of the Infinity Stones look like, then Sleepwalker will take you on a tour. And I got to see the the reality stone interior today for the first time, like full color finished. It&#039;s great.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I love it. I gotta tell you, Chris, it&#039;s very good. I read it, it&#039;s very good. Like it&#039;s been a long time. It&#039;s been a long time since I&#039;ve bought... There&#039;s been a like a comic book event story where I&#039;ve bought all the tie-ins. It might have been like Final Crisis might have been the last time I did that. And Final Crisis might literally be the only other time I&#039;ve ever done this. But I&#039;ve bought every tie-in to Infinity Wars like and Infinity Countdown before that. And like you had stuff for that. You did the Darkhawk story. And like everything has been good. All of these Infinity Warp stories have been very cool. The Sleepwalker is very cool. I was very glad to see the return of Silhouette, one of my favorite characters, even though I know that was Chad&#039;s addition and not yours, because you did not read early 90s New Warriors. But I&#039;ve been saying for years that Silhouette is ripe for a return. Like this is the era in which Silhouette could flourish and nobody&#039;s been using her. So I&#039;m glad to see her pop up in your book. That was very cool.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; People were very excited about her. You&#039;re not alone.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Also, this is the first place I have said this, because it came in while we were recording, actually.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Dracula the Unconquered number four is done.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hey!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That is a comic that&#039;s been in the works for years. Dracula the Unconquered was a series that I started with Steve Downer and Josh Croc. Seven years ago.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, alright.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Number four is done.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Nice.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So I&#039;m very excited about it. This is it&#039;s probably gonna be out on Halloween on Comixology and it&#039;s got Carmilla in it. This is the Carmilla issue that I&#039;m very excited about, and it it looks great. And I&#039;m very excited for people to read it. I really – it&#039;s been long enough since I wrote it that I kinda read it for the first time today and it was really fun.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and if people if people have not read that, you should check it out because the premise is what if Dracula was also an Uncle Scrooge? It&#039;s very good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, what if Dracula had world traveling adventures with his young lady sidekick?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; In Europe in 1901. so that&#039;s that, everybody. Also, Benito, you&#039;ve got a bunch of Halloween comics, but we we&#039;re we&#039;re plugging, we can&#039;t we can&#039;t be here all day.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, no, no, no, definitely not.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Check all that stuff out. Thank you for listening. So be here next week when we talk about the gospel of Nicodemus. Until then, for Benito Cereno, I&#039;ve been Chris Sims. Benito, peace be with you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And also with you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music: &amp;quot;Heads Will Roll&amp;quot; by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Ocean%27s_Two_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1059</id>
		<title>Ocean&#039;s Two (Transcript)</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Ocean%27s_Two_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1059"/>
		<updated>2026-02-09T13:18:42Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&#039;&#039;&#039;Chris Sims:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;For their mighty one did not fall by the hands of the young men, nor did the sons of the Titans strike him down, nor did tall giants set upon him, but Judith, daughter of Merari, with the beauty of her countenance, undid him.&amp;quot; The Book of Judith, chapter 16, verse 6.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music: &amp;quot;Heads Will Roll&amp;quot; by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hello everybody and welcome to Apocrypals. It&#039;s the podcast where two non-believers read through the Bible, but we try not to be jerks about it. My name is Chris Sims. With me as always is the other set of footprints, Benito Cereno. Benito, how are you on this crisp fall afternoon?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;Benito Cereno:&#039;&#039;&#039; Really good man. Yeah, it&#039;s it is very crisp here too. We definitely had a significant temperature drop following some of that rain that we got here the other day.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I say crisp, it&#039;s like seventy degrees out.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh really? It&#039;s like fifty-five probably here right now.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is the first day in a while that has felt nice.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; As opposed to being sweltering and wet.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I&#039;m I&#039;m really I&#039;m all about that hoodie weather. Like that&#039;s my that&#039;s my ideal, so I&#039;m very happy that we&#039;re finally getting there. Although, you know, we&#039;ll get it for a week and then it&#039;ll be 80 again, I&#039;m sure, soon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s usually how it goes, but you and I, we&#039;re some we&#039;re some gentlemen who like layers.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s true.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not just as in like underground caves where we plot and scheme, but like multiple clothings over our torsos.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, both versions of that particular homonym. Yeah. I guess it&#039;s a homophone, don&#039;t correct me. I hear you out there at your Twitters already, it&#039;s homophones.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Checkity-checkity-check. That&#039;s the typing. That&#039;s what&#039;s happening right now. Benito, what are we doing this week here on the show where that we&#039;re supposed to be reading the Bible?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, hey, we&#039;re we&#039;re doing another one about about a woman with some agency. We&#039;re doing the book of Judith. From the Deuterocanon, aka the Capital A Apocrypha. I feel like maybe we shouldn&#039;t be squandering them, but at the same time, it feels like the right time to have powerful women doing some murders, cloaked in fire, etc. on our show. Feels like the appropriate time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It feels like a very good time to be discussing Judith. Now I will say, right up at the start, Judith does not cloak herself in fire. She does not cast lightning down upon man-eating seals.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s not gonna happen this week. I apologize for anyone who might have been misled.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this book is surprisingly miracle-free.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But it&#039;s pretty raw.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s completely raw. And it&#039;s basically it&#039;s Ocean&#039;s Eight if the goal was a murder instead of a robbery. And also there was only two women. So it&#039;s like Ocean&#039;s 2.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oceans 2 but a murder. That&#039;s a completely different kind of movie than Ocean&#039;s Eight. Right. You understand that, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I mean yeah, it&#039;s yeah. But it&#039;s definitely a heist. Everything is planned out. This is a very tightly plotted book, actually, where like there&#039;s a lot of stuff set up. A lot of stuff pays off. And if you&#039;re listening to this and you&#039;re in high school and you&#039;re trying to learn about the figurative device that is irony? This is an excellent book because it&#039;s got all the ironies. You got your verbal ironies, you got your dramatic ironies, you got your situational ironies. They&#039;re all here. Every single one of them. This is a super ironic book. Not in like a Rod Serling sense, but in the in the literary sense, it&#039;s got all of &#039;em. And yeah, everything&#039;s just so tight because it&#039;ll be like you see Judith doing things and you&#039;re like, huh, why&#039;s she doing that? Don&#039;t worry, it&#039;s gonna pay off because she knew what she was doing.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You are absolutely right. From a plot standpoint, you know me. I&#039;ve been frustrated with a lot of these before.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This one is: there are no frustrations with the Book of Judith. The only thing I have is that Judith herself does not show up until like chapter eight.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s true. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s a lot of build-up and it and it pays off.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, the the heroine of the story doesn&#039;t show up until halfway through. But even if we were to look at this from a structural point of view, it&#039;s very cool. We won&#039;t have to go into it because I don&#039;t want to have to explain to everybody what chiasmus is, but this is built on a two-tiered chiasmus structure where the first half, pre-Judith appearance, follows... it&#039;s like a reflex reflexive thing. It&#039;s like that the Rorschach-focused issue of Watchmen where it starts and ends the same way with the reflection in the middle. If you imagine like that, that&#039;s kind of what a chiastic structure is. And the two halves of this book, everything before Judith and everything starting with Judith to the end, it&#039;s it&#039;s two perfect reflexive structures like that. You can look more into that, but we don&#039;t have time to go into all that. But it&#039;s very cool. It&#039;s very tight from a structural point of view is what I&#039;m what I&#039;m getting at. This is a very well-composed book.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You&#039;re basically saying it&#039;s twice as good as Watchmen.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I am saying that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Or alternately like about 1.8 times as good as that issue of G. I. Joe about Tomax and Xamot that the same gimmick.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah, that&#039;s what I&#039;m getting at.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; When did Tomax and Xamot show up in the Bible, by the way?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ve already seen one of them, he doubted Jesus, and then later we&#039;re gonna see his twin brother, Xamot, later.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, how did we get through how did we get through four gospels and I never talked about doubting Tomax?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I&#039;ve been sit I&#039;ve been sitting on the Thomas and Samoht joke for a long time, waiting for an opportunity to drop that one, because he&#039;s the twin. He&#039;s Thomas the twin. Thomas Didymus, the twin. I was I thought maybe when we got to Acts of Thomas or something. There&#039;s so many books attributed to Thomas. We&#039;ve got the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the Acts of Thomas. There&#039;s no shortage of places I might have brought it up.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But Yeah, and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas is hashtag lit.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it sure is. But we&#039;re not talking about that today.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;re not talking about that today.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ll get there.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do we have anything that we need to cover before we get into Judith? Any holidays, any upcoming celebrations. It&#039;s state fair time, but I don&#039;t believe that exists in doctrine.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, no, I actually was just checking while I was waiting for everything to get set up today. I was flipping through to see. Because obviously we pay a lot of attention to, we&#039;ve done a lot of Jewish holidays recently, because it obviously was the Jewish High Holidays is the most important ones, but also because the majority of American listeners at least are not super familiar with Jewish holidays, so we&#039;ve really focused on those. But I was like, maybe we should look more at some of the the different Saint feast days and things. We&#039;ve mentioned some, but not usually on the days when they&#039;re happening. So I actually was flipping through to see if there were any interesting ones and not really.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Great segment. Great great time that we spent on that. Good good job.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I did miss, I regret that we missed Michaelmas. We should have talked about Michaelmas a couple weeks ago. It was on September 24th. That&#039;s a very cool one to talk about. But we&#039;ll definitely be hitting, we&#039;ll probably be hitting weird Christian holidays almost every episode once we hit like November and we get to Martinmas, that&#039;s when the Christmas season, Advent and Christmas season kicks off. So we&#039;re gonna have some stuff like every episode after that for sure. So hang on til Saint Martin comes in on his white horse, and we&#039;ll be ready to talk about weird Christian festivals for like two months after that.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And everybody make sure to tune in on November 1st for All Saints Day, where we read the entire golden legend.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep, don&#039;t do that actually.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;re not gonna do all the saints on All Saints Day? What&#039;s the point?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Oh Yeah, so actually that does remind me, speaking of saints, yeah. So I have two things I wanted to pick up on from last week&#039;s episode. They&#039;re not corrections per se, they&#039;re just additions. They came from our two favorite, of course, personal scholars who like to give us a hand every now and then. Number one comes from friend of the show, Ben Rowe. Regarding Saint Isidore of Seville being the patron of the internet, and I was close, I was kind of on top of it, but not quite there. So here&#039;s what he says: &amp;quot;Isidore is patron of the internet because his life&#039;s work was the assembly of a compendium of universal knowledge. He was the first Christian writer to attempt such a work, preserving abridgments of classical works and serving as the conduit through which they were known by medieval scholars.&amp;quot; And so he&#039;s basically Christian Wikipedia, ergo, he&#039;s the patron of the internet because he was the first person to try to assemble a compendium of all human knowledge. That answers that question a little bit.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; How many sonic OCs did he get through before he gave up?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I think a lot. I think there were very many echidnas. Like he built Knuckles&#039; family up big time. Anyway, here&#039;s our second piece of input from of course King of the Gnostics Jonathan Stewart. Regarding Paul and Thecla, he says, &amp;quot;If you want your crackpot theory for the week, the idea that Paul was the same as Simon Magus,&amp;quot; remember that&#039;s one we hit way back in episode three. &amp;quot;The idea that Paul and Simon Magus were the same person was pretty widespread in the ancient world, so Paul and Thecla was partly written to counteract it. Our early sources say Simon was definitely DTF,&amp;quot; if you think about the text where we talked about Simon and Helen, right? We talked about that. And also the bit about magicians corrupting wives that we talked about. And so, &amp;quot;Paul and Thecla was partly written to say that Paul is mega chaste, and of course his best lady friend isn&#039;t a sex worker but a very nice girl.&amp;quot; Not to say that sex workers aren&#039;t very nice. You understand the point. This is ancient. Anyway. So yeah, the idea that Paul and Thecla was written specifically to counteract the idea that Paul and Simon Magus were the same person, a surprisingly common conspiracy theory of the ancient ancient days.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I have a question.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Why not just do another story where Paul fights Simon Magus, like we have?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I don&#039;t know man. It wasn&#039;t enough. It didn&#039;t I mean we&#039;ve got multiple ones, we&#039;ve got at least three. One of them is in the canon.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I feel like Paul and Simon Magus were the same person is the first century CE version of what if Batman was the Joker.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Or that one about how Avril Lavigne has been a clone since 1998 or whatever.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;re really... I am not looking forward to writing up the show notes on this one already.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hey man, let&#039;s talk about Judith, I guess.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do we know who wrote this and why is it Deuterocanon?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, yeah. So yeah, I got all that information ready to go. Here we go. So Judith, the name comes from the Hebrew name Yehudit, which is the feminine form of Judah and so her name either could mean &amp;quot;she is praised&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;she will be praised&amp;quot; or it just might mean &amp;quot;a Jewish woman,&amp;quot; right, in the way that Judah, the son of Jacob, gives his name to Judea and the land of Judah, and then therefore the word Jew and Jewish and Judaism all come from the name Judah. So the name Judith might just mean &amp;quot;Jewish woman.&amp;quot; The text, it&#039;s a little unclear if the original version of the text was Hebrew or Greek, because the oldest extant version that we have is the one from the Septuagint, which is where basically all of the deuterocanonical books come from. Remember the distinction is that the deuterocanonical books are books that exist in the Greek Septuagint but don&#039;t exist in the the later Hebrew canon. And that&#039;s where Protestants make the distinction between what they consider canon and what they consider Apocrypha. So the oldest version we have of Judith is Greek. The earliest Hebrew versions are from the Middle Ages, but that does not necessarily mean that the original text was not Hebrew. There are, however, certain phrases and vocabulary choices that indicate that maybe the Greek was the original with the author intentionally imitating stylistic bits from the Greek translations from the Septuagint.&lt;br /&gt;
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When was it written? Well, there are certain elements that indicate an origin in the Hasmonean period. That&#039;s the also known as the Maccabean period, the period of the dynasty of kings following Judah Maccabee following the Seleucid Empire or actually slightly overlapping with the Seleucid Empire, which you know follows up the Hellenistic era. So some of the things that indicate that this was probably from the Hasmonean period, the idea of the worship of a king as a god, which is a thing that our boy Antiochus IV Epiphanes would have wanted. And so that would be something that the Jews at this time would have specifically been rebelling against, I guess. We also see the political and military powers of the high priest in this in this book, Joachim, we see he has a lot of military powers. The supremacy of the Council of Elders, aka the Sanhedrin, we see that with Uzziah and some of the others. They have the kind of supremacy within the city. And also an overall similarity in the story to the story of Judah Maccabee and how he defeated Nicanor, 1. And so it seems most likely that this book was composed during the reign of John Hyrcanus I, which would be somewhere between 135 and 105 BCE.&lt;br /&gt;
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That said. The book as a whole is full of historical and geographical errors. We see that literally from verse one. Like verse one, continuity is out the window. It&#039;s also full of anachronisms, but a lot of people argue that these mistakes are intentional. They&#039;re meant to point out that the book is a parable or it&#039;s allegory. Some people refer to this as one of the earliest historical novels, but of course some people try to still justify some of the things in the book like why does it say that Nebuchadnezzar was king of the Assyrians? Well, maybe they really meant Ashurbanipal or Artaxerxes or someone else, you know. Even though we don&#039;t know where the village of Bethulia is, maybe it&#039;s this place or maybe it&#039;s that place.&lt;br /&gt;
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The book as a whole was probably never considered canonical by any Jewish group. Though it was probably written in the Second Temple Era by a Jewish author. It&#039;s not in the canonical Jewish text, the Masoretic text. It&#039;s not among the Dead Sea Scrolls, which is true of a lot of the books that we&#039;ve seen that are not in the canonical text, do pop up among the dead sea scrolls showing that they were important to some Jewish societies, but this is not the case with Judith. And why might that be? Well, it could be again similar to Tobit and some of the others, it might just be because of the late date in which it was composed, might be because it has a Greek origin. Maybe it&#039;s because it endorses deceit and murder as cool things to do that God is in support of, but also there&#039;s some other like unorthodox ideas that get a little more specific, including the fact that an Ammonite gets converted to Judaism, which is actually specifically forbidden in the Torah. You&#039;re not allowed to convert Ammonites. But despite the fact that this was never seen as canonical in any way, it doesn&#039;t mean it wasn&#039;t popular among Jewish communities because, give it about a thousand years after its composition, the story of Judith becomes popular as a story in poems and songs in the Talmud. There&#039;s a very popular Midrash that ends up tying Judith to Hanukkah, even though this book has nothing to do with Hanukkah. And in fact, some Jewish communities will read the story of Judith at Hanukkah, similar to the way that the story of Esther is read at Purim. And so in that way Judith kind of becomes the Hasmonean equivalent to Esther. Esther is the hero of Purim. Judith becomes the hero of Hanukkah in a way.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Question.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is there any tradition of Judith being a gift-giving figure?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, but she is tied into a food tradition that I want to get back to once we get into the story, so remind me remind me on that. I probably won&#039;t forget that one, but There is a food tradition.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So there&#039;s nothing about how if you&#039;re good all year and you do your chores and clean your plate, then Judith might bring you like a present at Hanukkah time and if you&#039;re bad she will cut your head off.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No. Strangely.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s not that? That feels like a slam dunk.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly. And you know what? Like, Look again, this is me from the outside and I understand that Hanukkah is actually not in the grand scheme of things a very important Jewish holiday and that its importance has been inflated due to its proximity to Christmas. Like I fully understand that. But I keep seeing like in pop culture Hanukkah traditions where they try to just they do these like parodies of Christmas things where you get Mensch on the bench and you get a Hanukkah Bush or whatever. But I&#039;m like, if you want to make Hanukkah cool, why don&#039;t you just say that the ghost of Judah Maccabees and the ghost of Judith are gonna come to your house? Like you already have another holiday where you leave a seat open for a ghost to come and sit there. Why can&#039;t you have Judah Maccabee the Hammer come? Why can&#039;t you have the Hebrew hammer come and hang out at your house on Hanukkah? That would be the dopest holiday. It would arguably be better than Christmas. I don&#039;t know. I&#039;m not the boss of holidays, and obviously I&#039;m not any kind of you know actual authority that should be speaking about what they should do for Hanukkah. I&#039;m just saying if you had if you had Judah Maccabee and Judith show up at your house, that would be a very cool holiday.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I just feel like Judith&#039;s entire deal is that she gets into and out of a place.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Unseen.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Undetected.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And what it in her case she takes something and brings it to other people.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s true.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Spoiler warning.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; What if someone dressed up as Judith and came in with a pinata that looked like a man&#039;s head and it was full of candy and it was Holofernes&#039; head and the kids beat that until I don&#039;t know, until gelt fell out. Wouldn&#039;t that be a very dope holiday tradition?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Just spitballing here.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; So anyway, the comparison between Judith and Esther, there we go. But also, I got another cool abrieve coming up. The biblical commentator, Nachmanides, aka the Rabbi Moses bin Nachman, aka Ramban. So he&#039;s not the Rambam, he&#039;s Ramban, because he&#039;s the son of Nachman instead of the son of Maimon, and so he&#039;s Ramban instead of Rambam. He quotes Judith pretty heavily in his biblical commentaries. So, some Jewish communities do value the story of Judith even though it was never canonical.&lt;br /&gt;
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For Christians, however, the book of Judith was included in many Christian canons, but excluded from some others. Jerome in the Vulgate put it in the Apocrypha, but later he quoted it as though it were had the same weight as Scripture. It was accepted as canon by the Nicene Council and the Council of 1442, and it was dogmatically decreed canonical at the Council of Trent in 1546. So again, like all the books of the Deuterocan, it is canon for the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, and others. So the Deuterocan again just means later. They&#039;re books later. They&#039;re from the inter quote-unquote inter-testamental period. And so it was confirmed as canonical by the Eastern Orthodox Church at the Sinod of Jerusalem in 1672. The Episcopal Church reads from Judith on the Feast of Mary Magdalene on July 22nd. However, only the Coptic Church celebrates Judith as a saint, and her feast day is September 17th, so another one that we&#039;ve just missed. And again, Protestants see it as apocryphal, i. e. not real. However Luther, Martin Luther, in his Bible that included Apocrypha, it was listed first. It was number one among the Apocrypha.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So Tobit wasn&#039;t in there or was Tobit just in a different&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Tobit was just in a different spot. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Christians like this story because Judith is seen as an example of a mulier sancta, a holy woman. She&#039;s kind of a prefiguration of the Virgin Mary. You can see that because like her name means Jewish woman. She comes from Bethulia, a city whose name means virginity. And she alone, without the help of a man, overcomes the great enemy to deliver her city from evil, right? But also she personifies the virtues of humility, justice, and fortitude, and chastity, which are opposed to her great enemy, Holofernes, who represents pride, tyranny, decadence, and lust. And so, because it&#039;s a story that&#039;s so popular with Christian communities, of course, that means that it is very popular and very well represented in the various arts. Including, very cool, a very cool thing, there&#039;s an Anglo-Saxon epic poem from about the same time as Beowulf that&#039;s all about Judith. She is transformed into an Anglo-Saxon Christian woman, which okay, but the invasion of Holofernes and his his people are kind of likened to the Viking invasions of England at around the same time. I have a very short small quote from that that I can share later in the show. The story of Judith was also, for some reason, very popular in sixteenth century French poetry. I don&#039;t know any more than that.&lt;br /&gt;
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It is, of course, a very, very popular motif in painting and sculpture. A lot of these you guys have probably seen. They&#039;re very they&#039;ve been very popular on social media lately. But depictions of Judith and Holofernes in painting and sculpture include but are by no means limited to a very famous sculpture by Donatello, one of the artists famous enough to be a Ninja Turtle, although definitely the least famous of the four Ninja Turtle artists. But more famously one that you&#039;ve probably seen, a Caravaggio painting, one by Botticelli, one by Titian, a famous Art Nouveau version by Gustav Klimt, you guys have probably seen. It&#039;s that famous really sexy one where one of the girls is out and she&#039;s holding a head. You&#039;ve probably seen that one. A version by Goya, and of course the really popular one that&#039;s been going around lately is the one by Artemisia Gentileschi where she models Judith after herself and Holofernes after a man who assaulted her. And Judith, if you didn&#039;t know, is on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. You can see her and her maidservant hiding Holofernes&#039;s head like in a pan and covering it up and trying to escape. The story of Judith also appears in music, operas and other things, including pieces by Vivaldi and Mozart, who you guys have probably heard of, and many others. And the story of Judith has been represented in many, many modern plays and pieces of modern art as well. So it&#039;s a very popular motif in art, there&#039;s no shortage of places where you can see Judith referenced in high art and popular culture. So despite, again, being part of the so-called deuterocanon or the Apocrypha, This is another story that has had a major impact on history and culture.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it rules.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it kind of rules. Yeah, it rules.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s a very good story.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s good. So you want to talk about it?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I think we should.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I think we should too. We get some errors right off the bat. Like literally chapter one verse one. It was the twelfth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. who ruled over the Assyrians in the great city of Nineveh. That&#039;s wrong. Chris, do you remember who Nebuchadnezzar was the king of?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I do not. I remember Nineveh. Nineveh was where Tobit kept finding all those bodies in the streets.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, well, Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, that&#039;s true. And Nineveh of course is most famous, I think, probably to most people from the story of Jonah, because that&#039;s where he was supposed to go and didn&#039;t want to go. But yeah, we have seen Nineveh. We of course talked about the Assyrian Empire at great length in our Isaiah episode. Nebuchadnezzar we would have encountered in our Daniel episode. Does that help at all?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, so he was Babylonian.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. So yeah, Nebuchadnezzar, who lived from about 605 to about 562 BCE, was the second ruler over the Neo-Babylonian Empire, not the Assyrian Empire. And this story is supposed to be set in the post-Babylonian exile period, right, in which point the the main  dudes of the earth were the Persians and not either the Assyrians or the Neo-Babylonians, aka the Chaldeans. And so in fact what we see here is Nebuchadnezzar as king of the Assyrians battling the Chaldeans. The Chaldeans are the Babylonians, the Neo-Babylonians, the people over whom He was actually the king. And so again, I&#039;m not going to point out like every historical error or anachronism here because there&#039;s a lot, but this is kind of the major one. The setting is wrong, the king is wrong. So like I said, even early communities accepted this as being a folktale or a parable, however, if you want to follow, you know, the idea that this is, you know, the pure inerrant word of God, then you have to think that, you know, the author was putting in intentional miscues to disguise this, or they were code words for someone else or something like that.&lt;br /&gt;
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But anyway, so Nebuchadnezzar is being challenged by King Arphaxad, who is not even quite Robin Hood real, we&#039;ll say. We know nothing about him whatsoever.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well I know about him. I know that he rules over the Medes in Ecbatana.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s true. That&#039;s right.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s Chris one, historian zero.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly. And so yeah, Ecbatana we&#039;ve seen and Medea we&#039;ve seen as well. We saw those in Tobit. Medea is the northern part of Iran, basically the part of Iran that&#039;s not Persia is Medea. And so he rallies together people of the East is the idea. This is gonna be kind of an East and West kind of dispute. And so when Arphaxad gathers together all the countries of the East, Nebuchadnezzar sends out messengers to all the people of the West in Cilicia and Damascus, Lebanon, and anti-Lebanon.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I had a question about that.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is anti-Lebanon where like evil cedar trees are from?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, absolutely. Or counterpoint, what if anti-Lebanon is actually the Earth 3 version of Lebanon, Tennessee? And that&#039;s a city that consumes Cracker Barrels instead of producing them.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;m just throwing it out there. Just throwing it out there.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. The the Anti-Monitor needs to destroy all of the infinite Cracker Barrels.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly. Yeah. Just think about it. Just think. So comics artist Tony Moore, he used to tell me we would we talk about Lebanon, Tennessee. It&#039;s the city where Cracker Barrel comes from. It&#039;s a relatively small town. It&#039;s the county seat of Wilson County, just to the east of Nashville. It&#039;s where comics artist Eric Powell lives or used to live. And it&#039;s where Cracker Barrel is from. And Tony Moore used to say that he had never been to Lebanon, in Tennessee they say &amp;quot;Lebanun&amp;quot;, not Lebanon. He said he imagined that it was just a giant Cracker Barrel-shaped factory with like smoke pouring out and just like master mold of the sentinels. It just produces smaller Cracker Barrel versions of itself that they then ship out across the southeast. So yeah, anti-Lebanon is the is the opposite of that from Earth 3.&lt;br /&gt;
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So anyway, Nebuchadnezzar tries to rally together the kingdoms of the West. And when I say West, of course, we&#039;re still talking about the western parts of the Middle East, basically. And the problem is they tell him to go heck himself, basically. They&#039;re like, &amp;quot;Nebuchadnezzar, you&#039;re one dude. I don&#039;t care. You don&#039;t scare us. No thank you.&amp;quot; And so Nebuchadnezzar is like, &amp;quot;I do not appreciate that. Here&#039;s what I&#039;m gonna do. I&#039;m gonna go out by myself, I&#039;m gonna conquer this whole army of the East, and then when I&#039;m done killing them, I&#039;m gonna come around and get my revenge on you guys for not helping me out here.&amp;quot; And that happens. So score one for Nebuchadnezzar.&lt;br /&gt;
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&amp;quot;In the seventeenth year he led his forces against King Arphaxad, defeated him in battle. overthrowing the whole army of Arphaxad and all his cavalry and all his chariots. Thus he took possession of his towns, and came to Ecbatana, captured its towers, plundered its markets, and turned its glory into disgrace. He captured Arphaxad in the mountains of Regal and struck him down with his spears, thus destroying him once and for all. Then he returned to Nineveh.&amp;quot; So yeah, he&#039;s destroyed the largest army ever combined against him and now he is ready for his revenge against the people who didn&#039;t come help him when he asked. And that&#039;s kind of what kicks off, that&#039;s the inciting incident of the book. We see Nebuchadnezzar assigning his great high general Holofernes or Holofernes And we get pretty great speech here, Chris. Do you want to look at this speech from Nebuchadnezzar? Pretty raw talk here.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s pretty dope. &amp;quot;Thus says the great king, the lord of the whole earth, Leave my presence and take with you men confident in their strength, one hundred and twenty thousand foot soldiers and twelve thousand cavalry. March out against all the land in the west, because they disobeyed my orders. Tell them to prepare earth and water, for I am coming against them in my anger, and will cover the whole face of the earth with the feet of my troops, to whom I will hand them over to be plundered. Their wounded shall fill the ravines and gullies, and the swelling river shall be filled with their dead.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, pretty raw.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So Nebuchadnezzar&#039;s mad.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Now, I have a couple questions for you here that you may or may not know the answer to.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
First of all, what does Holofernes mean?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s actually probably a Persian name or similar to a Persian name, I don&#039;t know exactly what it means, because there are historical people with that name or ones similar to it, and so it may have been taken from a Persian general who was a leader in the expedition that invaded the West under Artaxerxes III about 350 BC. So it might come from that, but I do not know what it means.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay. The second thing is, have we talked about earth and water on the show?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We might have, but this is another anachronism because offering up earth and water is a traditional sign of submission among the Persian Empire, and it would have been unheard of with the Assyrians and the Babylonians. So this again, you know, being written in the post-Persian Empire period is a bit of an anachronism.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. And this is something that I&#039;ve heard about before, but I could not remember if we had talked about it on the show or if it was just from listening to like episodes of Hardcore History about the tributes that you would give to someone like Xerxes, for instance.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I&#039;m pretty sure it&#039;s mentioned in 300. I think when the scout comes to visit Sparta, they asked for tributes of earth and water...&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, that&#039;s right. He asks for water and that&#039;s why he gets kicked into the well.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, that&#039;s why he gets kicked into the well. That&#039;s exactly right. Because he demands earth and water, and so he kicks him into the well. That&#039;s exactly right. Yep.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Holofernes just starts going hard on the West.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and I should point out that this army is fantastically large. Like...&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s huge! It&#039;s 132,000 people!&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it is, I mean, when I say fantastically, I mean as in fantasy large. It is stretching the bounds of credibility large. Yeah, and so basically he sets out, &amp;quot;His army was a swarm of locusts locusts like the dust of the earth, a multitude that could not be counted&amp;quot; as he spread out across the West raining Nebuchadnezzar&#039;s revenge upon all these people that wouldn&#039;t help Nebuchadnezzar against Arphaxad.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And we see him come through a lot of these places. The geography is kind of mixed up, like the order of his march doesn&#039;t quite make sense. We see that he comes to the southern borders of Japheth, facing Arabia. And if you remember from one of our Genesis episodes, I guess the first one, Japheth, one of the sons of Noah, his lands were Anatolia, that is the subcontinent on which Turkey is and Europe. So the army is stretching stretching out to either Turkey or Southern Europe, depending on how you want to think about that. They surround the Midianites, those are Arabs basically.&lt;br /&gt;
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They burn their tents, and they&#039;re spreading out all over the world. Sidon and Tyre and all these places. The people eventually submit to Nebuchadnezzar and they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;look, stop, we&#039;ll we&#039;ll be your servants. Do with us whatever you will. Our lands are all yours, our flocks are yours. We&#039;ll be your slaves, just don&#039;t kill us, don&#039;t destroy everything.&amp;quot; And Holofernes is like, &amp;quot;yes, good. That is what I will do. Thank you very much for saving me some time.&amp;quot; And they start to have a big party. &amp;quot;The people welcomed him in the countryside with garlands and dances and tambourines.&amp;quot; But then, &amp;quot;Yet he demolished all their shrines and cut down their sacred groves.&amp;quot; Because this is introducing Holofernes now, not just as a military threat, but also as a religious threat, because he&#039;s coming through and saying &amp;quot;the only god is Nebuchadnezzar,&amp;quot; and so he&#039;s destroying all the temples and sacred groves and shrines. And the implication is when he eventually reaches Israel, he&#039;s gonna try and do the same thing. And so, a little sinister here on Holofernes&#039;s part. And yeah, he eventually makes his way to Judea. And the people there are naturally quite alarmed. Because...&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, the the actual heading in the NRSV, because we have the little, they&#039;re not chapter headings, they&#039;re section headings, I guess, is &amp;quot;Judea on the alert.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so here&#039;s the thing, like Judea, especially this region is very hilly and mountainous. That is something that has been very much to the advantage of Israel throughout history. Of course, probably the most famous example of that is the the fortress of Masada up on the hilltop, but during the Roman siege. It&#039;s been much to their advantage, and we can see here that they describe that if they&#039;re gonna try and get into Judea, there&#039;s really only a couple of passes, and one of them is at Bethulia, and the other one is at Betomesthaim. I did not say that right. But anyway, the idea is these mountain passes are very thin. They&#039;re very narrow. They say it&#039;s only wide enough for two at a time to pass. And so they&#039;re going to buckle down and try and, speaking of 300, they&#039;re going to try and 300 this ish, right? And so that that&#039;s the plan laid out by Joachim the high priest, who again has vast political and military powers. But the people are, you know, they&#039;re freaking out a little bit. Then...&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You say they&#039;re freaking out a little bit. The text says &amp;quot;They even draped the altar with sackcloth and cried out in unison, praying fervently to the God of Israel not to allow their infants to be carried off and their wives to be taken as booty, and the towns they had inherited to be destroyed, and the sanctuary to be profaned and desecrated to the malicious joy of the Gentiles.&amp;quot; That&#039;s a little more than just kind of freaking out.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; They&#039;re freaking out a lot. Judea, you might say, is on the alert Definitely. So what we get then is Holofernes calls in representatives of the people of Moab and Ammon, the Moabites and the Ammonites. Now, if you&#039;ll recall, from our second episode on Genesis, the Moabites and the Ammonites are the descendants of Lot via his daughters, right? We had that very problematic scene. But the the idea there is that that was an etiology for the origin of two long-standing historical enemies of the Israelites: the Moabites, the Ammonites. And so we see them here. So Moab would have been directly east of the Dead Sea, and Ammon would have been to the northeast. And then soon enough we&#039;re gonna see the Edomites jump in as well, who are gonna be to the southeast of the Dead Sea. So these are all neighbors of Judea. And the people of Moab and the commanders of Ammon, they come in. And Holofernes is like, &amp;quot;who are these people? What towns do they inhabit? How large is their army?&amp;quot; And that kind of stuff.&lt;br /&gt;
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And so here we get introduced a supporting character, Achior. Achior, a leader of the Ammonites, and he basically gives the Israelite history for dummies compressed tour for Holofernes. And so most of chapter five is Achior laying out the history of the Israelites starting with Abraham up through the Babylonian exile and the return. And so we basically get everything from you know chapter twelve of Genesis up through Nehemiah, more or less, right? Ezra and Nehemiah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. But he crucially talks about that constant back and forth, the struggle with God that we talked about. Which is a key point of this story. He says, &amp;quot;As long as they did not sin against God, they prospered, for the God who hates iniquity is with them. But when they departed from the way that he had prescribed for them, they were utterly defeated in many battles and were led away captive to a foreign land.&amp;quot; So basically, Achior is saying, if they haven&#039;t sinned, you can&#039;t take them.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No matter what you do.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because God&#039;s on their side. All you gotta do is wait it out though.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; So true. And the fact that he&#039;s got that planted, that bug planted in his mind is going to be important for later as well. But while that does kind of seem moralistic and simplistic, like from Bible stories, it&#039;s definitely true. Like Samson, as long as he trusted in God, he had strength. As soon as he didn&#039;t, he lost his strength. You know? And of course the Israelites as a nation, Moses even, you know, everything&#039;s good until it&#039;s not. And then he&#039;s he doesn&#039;t trust in God. and and he&#039;s punished. And so to see it laid out this way, it&#039;s like like Samson and his hair, and the hair is the metaphor for his devotion to God, you know, as long as he keeps that, he&#039;s super strong. And so he&#039;s like, pretty sure they&#039;re on a holy streak right now, so you may not be able to do anything. What happens is Holofernes did not like that response. And so he has he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;if you love these Israelites so much, you get to die with them.&amp;quot; And so he has him bound and chained.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well well first he he gives him his own super raw speech.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh yeah, oh for sure.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is in Judith chapter 6 verse 4. &amp;quot;We will overwhelm them, their mountains will be drunk with their blood, and their fields will be full of their dead. Not even their footprints will survive our attack, they will utterly perish.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Again, I love the effort that this book puts in. Because again, this is chapter 6. Judith is 15 chapters long. Judith has not shown up yet. It&#039;s just bad guys and backstory at this point. And they&#039;re very, very strong bad guys.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, absolutely they are. This while we&#039;re while we&#039;re here, this bit right here at verse six in chapter six. Where Holofernes he says, &amp;quot;Then at my return, the sword of my army and the spear of my servants shall pierce your sides, and you shall fall among their wounded.&amp;quot; Like part of me is like, &amp;quot;Some medieval Christian guy definitely perked up at the site of `Sphere Through the Side, right?`&amp;quot; Like that&#039;s a thing where he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;What if this book is about Jesus, though?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Absolutely.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So enough, I mean, it&#039;s we already talked about the parallels with the Virgin Mary, of course, that have been latched onto, but that was one where I saw that and I was like, &amp;quot;Oh man, some guy.&amp;quot; Christians, not everything has to be for you, man. Just you don&#039;t have to put your finger in every pie. I&#039;m just I&#039;m just saying.&lt;br /&gt;
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So anyway, yeah, they they chain up Achior, they take him to Bethulia, and they intend to hand him over to the Israelites. They basically they lay him out on a hill. And here we get introduced to some of the magistrates of Bethulia. We get Uzziah, son of Micah, Uzziah, whose name means &amp;quot;Yah is my strength.&amp;quot; It&#039;s a fairly common name for Bible characters. We&#039;ll see that name again and again in other books. And also we get Chabris, son of Gothoniel, and Charmis, son of Melchiel. So we&#039;re gonna see those three guys a couple times here, but they run out under suppressing fire from slings, which is wild.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s pretty dope, actually.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; They run out and they rescue Achior. And they bring him in, and he basically tells them, like, &amp;quot;hey man, here&#039;s what went down with Holofernes. Here&#039;s what&#039;s gonna happen.&amp;quot;  But what they don&#039;t know Is that while Achior is talking to the Israelites, meanwhile, the Moabites and then the Edomites who have not even been here, like they&#039;ve not even mentioned before. I like to imagine like I imagine that Edomites busting through the wall like the Kool-Aid man, like, &amp;quot;oh yeah, I hate Israel too.&amp;quot; And so they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;Here&#039;s the plan. You&#039;re not going to be able to storm through with your giant army through the hills because they use the geography to their advantage. What you&#039;re going to have to do is realize that they rely on these springs down at the bottom of these hills. If you fortify the springs, they won&#039;t have enough water and you can siege them that way. They&#039;ll have to surrender because without water, they&#039;ll have famine and sickness, and they&#039;ll start to die, and they&#039;ll just surrender on their own if you camp out around those springs.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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And so that&#039;s the new plan and that&#039;s the plan that they start to carry out. And it works – for a while because so the Assyrian army encamped in the plane &amp;quot;And then the Israelites cried out to the Lord their God, for their courage failed, because all their enemies had surrounded them and there was no way of escape from them. Their cisterns were going dry. And on no day did they have enough water to drink, for their drinking water was rationed. Their children were listless, and the women and young men fainted from thirst and were collapsing in the streets of the town and in the gateways, and they no longer had any strength.&amp;quot; Things are going exceptionally bad. They intend to surrender, but we see Uzziah come out. And he says, &amp;quot;Courage, my brothers and sisters, let us hold out for five more days. By that time the Lord our God will turn his mercy to us again, for he will not forsake us utterly. But if these days pass by and no help comes for us, I will do as you say.&amp;quot; So yeah, things are bad in the town, there&#039;s great misery, but in those days, Judith heard about these things.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; By God! By God, that&#039;s Judith&#039;s music! What&#039;s she doing here?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh man.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so here comes Judith. Judith&#039;s great.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and we get this incredibly long and probably fictional genealogy for Judith. &amp;quot;The daughter of Merari, son of Ox,&amp;quot; from the enforcers possibly, you can&#039;t tell me no. &amp;quot;Son of Joseph, son of Oziel, son of Elkaiah, son of Ananias, son of Gideon, son of Raphain, son of Ahitub, son of Elijah, son of Hilkiah, son of Eliab, son of Nathanael, son of Salamiel, son of Sarasadai, son of Israel.&amp;quot; Most of these names do not exist elsewhere in the Bible.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Israel, we&#039;ve got. That&#039;s, that&#039;s Jacob.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, he&#039;s that dude&#039;s got a lot of sons. I do not recall one named Sarasadai. So it might be a different Israel. I don&#039;t know. These names can&#039;t be identified, basically. A lot of them are unparalleled in the Old Testament. Some of them we don&#039;t see anywhere else. But we get a little bit of her back story. We learn that Judith is a widow. Her husband&#039;s name was Manasseh, not any of the Manassehs we&#039;ve encountered before, but again that&#039;s just a common name. We learned that Manasseh worked in a barley field, and he died of heat stroke. He stood overseeing those who were binding sheaves in the field. He was overcome by the burning heat, and took to his bed and died in his town Bethulia.&lt;br /&gt;
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So what we then learn about Judith is that she is not only a widow, she&#039;s an exceptionally pious one. She does everything she&#039;s supposed to do. She fasts every day, except for the days where it is expressly forbidden to fast. On the Sabbath and the day before the Sabbath, days before the new moon, days of the new moon, festivals, and so on. Every other day she&#039;s fasting. She wears sackcloth around her waist like she&#039;s supposed to. She wears widow&#039;s clothing. All the things that she&#039;s supposed to do. &amp;quot;No one spoke ill of her, for she feared God with great devotion.&amp;quot; So: incredibly pious. Like it&#039;s very important to note that except for the major events of deceit and murder, Judith is an incredibly pious person who follows the law of the Torah, like to the T. Even when she goes into Holofernes&#039; camp, like she still keeps Kosh. Like she&#039;s so serious about it.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; In my head, Judith, at this point in the story is wearing overalls and glasses and she&#039;s got her hair in a ponytail.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But don&#039;t worry, she&#039;s about to She&#039;s All That herself.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Very soon, in fact, yeah. So she goes out to the people of Bethulia and she schools them, basically. She says...&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, she says some dope shit.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, you have something you have something you want to feature here, Chris?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Do not try to bind the purposes of the Lord our God, for God is not like a human being to be threatened.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Or a mere mortal to be won over by pleading.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Absolutely. Her key message is like. &amp;quot;who are you to put God to the test today?&amp;quot; This thing where you&#039;re setting a deadline for God, five days, right? &amp;quot;Who are you to put God to the test? God is testing us, idiots,&amp;quot; right? And so she kind of bookends her speech with like, don&#039;t test God, God is testing us. And so, and I love this bit. This  is one of my favorite bits in the whole book. Uzziah comes to her and he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Oh you wanna help? Okay. Very good, sweetie. Here&#039;s how you can help. Why don&#039;t you go pray that God sends rain so we don&#039;t die of thirst?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is so good. This is so good. This is verse 32 of chapter 8.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is probably the most boss flex we have seen anybody lay out in the entire Bible so far, right? Like is there anything that parallels just like the rawness of this like dope flex right here?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Legitimately the only thing I can think of is when the soldier showed up and asked Jesus if he was Jesus and he knocked them over by saying, &amp;quot;I am.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s true. That&#039;s true. that&#039;s a pretty good one. But yeah, she says, &amp;quot;Listen to me. I&#039;m about to go do something that will go down through all generations of our descendants.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is true.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is true, because here we are.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here we are.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Over 2,000 years later talking about how raw this is.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then Uzziah says &amp;quot;Go in peace and may the Lord God go before you to take vengeance on our enemies.&amp;quot; And she says, &amp;quot;God&#039;s gonna sit this one out.&amp;quot; No wait, I&#039;m sorry, that was the Punisher. The Punisher said that one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But, you know, no, God&#039;s definitely on her side, which again, not quite orthodox because she is definitely planning on breaking some commandments. But chapter nine is basically her is her prayer, her prayer to God. And so a lot of people, you know... The author does not see a moral inconsistency in Judith praying for divine help in her deceit and murder. But obviously some later scholars have. But there&#039;s still some a lot of the weight to it. The idea that it&#039;s gonna be a single woman who destroys an entire hundreds, thousands strong army, but at that time it would have been like particularly like it&#039;s definitely insult to injury, right? The fact that it&#039;s a woman who&#039;s gonna topple this entire army.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well here&#039;s what I thought was interesting about this scene, because we&#039;re moving into chapter nine now, this is the prayer of Judith. Judith references the story of Dinah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And is like there is no ambiguity for Judith about who was right in that situation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. It also helps that we learn here that Judith is of the tribe of Simeon. And Simeon was the guy who went and killed all the recently circumcised guys and burnt their city to the ground. Simeon and Levi.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Who Death Wish-ed everybody – Death Wish 3&#039;ed everybody in the book of Genesis.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, exactly. So there&#039;s a tie there, right, between the story of Simeon and Dinah and Shechem. That&#039;s very much n the background, like that&#039;s in the idea space. That&#039;s the ambient radiation of this story is is Dinah and the revenge there in the background. Definitely, definitely Judith is calling on the power of Simeon to get revenge on some dirty dudes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But like we get another pretty amazing Line from Judith here. &amp;quot;Look at their pride and send your wrath upon their heads. Give to me, a widow, the strong hand to do what I plan. By the deceit of my lips strike down the slave with the prince, and the prince with his servant, crush their arrogance by the hand of a woman.&amp;quot; Dope.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Very dope. Incredibly dope.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you&#039;re looking for a tattoo, if you&#039;re looking for a verse, something to put on the scroll around the dagger to get you through these tough times. I would say maybe the Book of Judith, chapter nine, verse ten. Is a good one?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very good. Just a scroll going around a sword stuck through the head of Holofernes. Or whoever.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And the great thing is Holofernes can look like whoever you want him to look like.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; He could look like anyone. He could look like any face that might have been at a Senate hearing in recent days. Any face.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So Judith&#039;s plan starts out like I think all great plans do. The Joker&#039;s plan in the Dark Knight, the plan in Skyfall, Star Wars.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; She&#039;s gonna get captured on purpose.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I thought you were gonna say a makeover, and then I was trying to apply that to some of those movies. The Joker, I was there with you, but then I was like, is there a makeover in Skyfall? I don&#039;t remember. Yeah, she changes out of her widow&#039;s clothes. She puts on her most beautiful clothing and jewelry. It goes to great lengths to explain how beautiful she is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Before there were montages, there was this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. &amp;quot;She combed her hair, put on a tiara, dressed herself in the festive attire that she used to wear while her husband Manasseh was living. She put sandals on her feet put on her anklets, bracelets, rings, earrings, and all other jewelry. Thus she made herself very beautiful to entice the eyes of all the men who might see her.&amp;quot; Yeah, and then, yes, as Chris says, she goes to get captured on purpose. She wanders out to the the encampment of the Assyrians, and she basically flirts her way into the tent of Holofernes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, she&#039;s not alone.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, she has a maidservant who, like we said, Ocean&#039;s 2.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do we know anything about her? Because I don&#039;t believe she&#039;s named in this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, she&#039;s not.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Unless I missed it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, I don&#039;t think there&#039;s a name or any other information about her.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s no midrash about this?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, there might be. I shouldn&#039;t say that. Yeah, there might be midrash. I don&#039;t know. I don&#039;t know them. It might be in the Talmud. if you know, give us a shout. Someone hook us up with a link to the the secret backstory of Judith&#039;s hand servant, and that would be good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Let&#039;s just call her Alfred.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ll call her Alfred. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so she goes in. All the guys in the Assyrian camp are basically Tex Avery wolves at this point. They&#039;re like, &amp;quot;who are you?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I&#039;m a daughter of the Hebrews. I&#039;m fleeing from them, for they&#039;re about to be handed over to you to be devoured. I&#039;m on my way to see Holofernes, the commander of your army, to give him a true report. I&#039;ll show him a way by which he can go and capture all the hill country without losing one of his men, captured or slain.&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;Cool, this is good. You just saved your own life by defecting to us.&amp;quot; They lead her to Holofernes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And we get this description of Holofernes in his tent. &amp;quot;The guards of Holofernes and all of his servants came out and led her into the tent. Holofernes was resting on his bed under a canopy that was woven with purple and gold, emeralds and other precious stones. When they told him of her, he came to the front of the tent with silver lamps carried before him. When Judith came into the presence of Holofernes and his servants, they all marveled at the beauty of her face. She prostrated herself and did obeisance to him, but his slaves raised her up.&amp;quot; So I want to take a minute because this is the one quote that I have from the Anglo-Saxon epic poem about Judith. This is the description of this scene. &amp;quot;There was hung all golden a fair fly net round the bed of the folk leader that the baleful one, the chief of warriors, might look through on each child of the brave who came therein, and none might look on him.&amp;quot; So the idea here is that this gold links chained canopy is like a mosquito net and it&#039;s designed in such a way that he can see out but people can&#039;t see in. And so that gives him you know kind of an upper hand over there. But that&#039;s that&#039;s the only little quote I have from the Anglo-Saxon Judith. I&#039;ll probably try and find– I&#039;m sure there&#039;s a text of it online that I can link to for anyone who might be interested in that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Okay, so here we&#039;re at chapter 11 now, and what I love about this is like there is a clear demarcation now where pretty much everything Judith says is a complete equivocation where it&#039;s true on the surface, but it has another meaning. So if you&#039;re looking for like examples of this kind of verbal irony, a lot of it plays on the idea of her using the phrase, &amp;quot;my lord,&amp;quot; right? Holofernes, of course, assumes that she means him when in fact she&#039;s talking about you know, capital L Lord, God. So when she says something like, &amp;quot;If you follow the words of your servant, God will accomplish something through you, and my Lord will not fail to achieve his purposes.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s the first thing she says to him.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s like at the end when there&#039;s the flashback.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And like the coffee cup drops.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; The coffee cup is dropping. You cut back to like, &amp;quot;oh I see what you mean now,&amp;quot; yeah. Yeah, this is starting to set up all the bits, and if you&#039;re paying close attention, especially if you know what&#039;s going to happen, you can see her sowing the seeds, and there&#039;s definitely a strong air of dramatic irony about so much of what she says, because she&#039;s always like, &amp;quot;Yes, my lord will prevail.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Something that no one will ever forget is about to happen today.&amp;quot; Right? That kind of stuff is is happening all the time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And so what she says to him, her information to him is that she repeats the things that Achior had told him before, the idea that Israel&#039;s strength waxes and wanes with their devotion to God. And she says, &amp;quot;I happen to know that because of the dire thirst that the people are experiencing, the famine and the drought, their faith is at an all-time low. It&#039;s absolutely ebbing at this point, to the point where they are eating and drinking food and wine that they&#039;re not supposed to. They&#039;re planning to kill livestock that had been set aside for God. They&#039;re consuming the first fruits of the grain which is set aside for God. The tithes of wine and oil they&#039;re going to use.&amp;quot; And so what she says to him, and this is important, like it seems like a weird detail, but it&#039;s important to the heist. She says, &amp;quot;Every night in the middle of the night, I need to go out of your tent and out into the valley to pray to God. And God will tell me when they&#039;re being their most unfaithful, and that&#039;s when you can go and attack. So I&#039;m here and I&#039;m gonna go out of your tent every night, out into the valley and I&#039;m gonna pray.&amp;quot; And so she sets this up and establishes this early on. And Holofernes is like, &amp;quot;this sounds great. I&#039;m on board.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and then she tells him, this might as well be &amp;quot;and then Judith turned and winked to us.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Uh-huh.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; She tells him T&amp;quot;hen I will lead you through Judea until you come to Jerusalem. There I will set your throne.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep, again.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That could not be more ominous.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; All true. It&#039;s all true In a technical sense, it is all true. Yeah, and so then we get this established for a couple of days. Judith and Holofernes...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Holofernes then goes, &amp;quot;Sounds great.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Sounds great. I&#039;m very on board. I&#039;m incredibly on board to all the things you just said.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And she&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Yeah, I think you&#039;re going to get &#039;a head&#039; in this war.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah, oh yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;I&#039;ll make sure to stay sharp when I go out at night.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We start getting the pattern established where she spends her days with Holofernes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;As soon as I hear the good word from God, I&#039;ll &#039;be-heading&#039; back to this tent.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; There we go.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; To let you know.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; There is. Hey Chris, why do you keep &#039;cutting me off?&#039; Anyway, so yeah, the pattern is established. She spends the day with Holofernes in the tent, at night she goes out in the middle of the night to pray. So Holofernes&#039; guards and servants are used to her going out in the middle of the night.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And as you mentioned, she she only eats and drinks her own food that her and her maid brought.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; He invites her to a banquet and he&#039;s like, I have all this stuff, and she&#039;s like &amp;quot;Nah, I have this big bag full of kosher food and I&#039;m just gonna eat that.&amp;quot; And he&#039;s and he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Well if your supply runs out, will you eat with me?&amp;quot; And she&#039;s like &amp;quot;Don&#039;t worry, it&#039;s not gonna run out.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, I won&#039;t be staying that long.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. No, she says, &amp;quot;your servant will not use up the supplies I have with me before the Lord carries out by my hand what he has determined.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Let&#039;s not get ahead of ourselves.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And then once again, we finally get to the day. It&#039;s happening.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is happening.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Judith rolls up into Holofernes&#039; tent. Holofernes is the thirst is real with my dude.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, both in both senses.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. He had been waiting for an opportunity to seduce her, so he says, &amp;quot;Have a drink and be merry with us.&amp;quot; And Judith says, &amp;quot;I will gladly drink, my lord, because today is the greatest day of my whole life.&amp;quot; And then she proceeds to straight Marion Ravenwood him and get him trashed.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. And so here&#039;s where that mid-rosh comes in. Okay? According to the the midrash about Judith, the way she gets him to keep drinking wine is she keeps feeding him cheese, and the cheese makes him thirsty. Or phleghmy or something, I don&#039;t know. So he keeps drinking wine, and because of all that cheese, he gets drunk because he has to drink all the wine to wash down his cheese. And so, some people eat a lot of cheese at Hanukkah. And so I I know that&#039;s not as popular as some as obviously latkes or like sufganiyot or whatever else you might eat, the fried foods that you eat at Hanukkah. But I do know some Groups do eat cheese. Let me know if you eat cheese at Hanukkah, also let me know if you eat those mozzarella sticks because then you got the fried thing going on. for Judah Maccabee and you got the cheese for Judith. So please let me know if you just like you you hit a TGI Fridays for Hanukkah and you&#039;re just like unlimited. mozzo sticks, please. Oh, that didn&#039;t I didn&#039;t mean to say matzah, but like mozzarella. Whatever. Maybe matzah breaded mozzarella. Let me know. Just let me know if you got that fried cheese going on at Hanukkah because you can. It&#039;s here in Bible. Yeah, now Holofernes&#039;s good and drunk.  He&#039;s completely turnt. And so the slaves are leaving because they know what&#039;s supposed to be happening now. Right? This is like the fourth day in the tenth, so it&#039;s basically third date rules, I guess.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And Judith&#039;s like, &amp;quot;hey, if you hear any chopping noises or screaming for help. Totally normal. Don&#039;t worry about it.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;That&#039;s just how that&#039;s just how we do it in Bethulia. So if you if you hear any...&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;If like if you hear like a man&#039;s voice saying &#039;what are you doing with that sword?&#039;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Totally it&#039;s a metaphor, we don&#039;t need to get into it, but just everything&#039;s totally, totally norms.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Yeah, this is this is just how my people do. If you do it different in Assyria, I&#039;m sorry.&amp;quot; Yeah, so everyone&#039;s cleared out except for Judith and Holofernes. She takes down Holofernes&#039;s own sword.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s three major players in this. There&#039;s Judith, there&#039;s Holofernes, and there&#039;s Holofernes&#039;s sword. &amp;quot;Now indeed is the time to help your heritage and to carry out my design to destroy the enemies who have risen up against us.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s a good prayer if you&#039;re about to behead somebody.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Here&#039;s what I think is the most brutal detail in this entire story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That it takes two chops?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It takes two. She doesn&#039;t get all the way through with the first one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So, yeah, she cut through his neck twice with all her might, cut off his head, rolls the body onto the floor, then steals his canopy. And then we see why she have that giant bag for food? Well it&#039;s her s-s-sneaking-sneaking out a head bag. It&#039;s Ocean&#039;s 2, baby. Ocean&#039;s 2. That bag&#039;s there for a reason. And then we see like she and her handmaid go out to the valley to pray, and everyone&#039;s like, &amp;quot;that is normal. That has what is what has been happening every night,&amp;quot; Except they&#039;re not going to pray, they&#039;re going to run back to Bethulia. And so, like, very well thought out heist, head heist. It&#039;s still robbery. They just stole a man&#039;s head. That&#039;s what it was.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean, at this point, he&#039;s not using it. It belongs to Judith.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s Judith&#039;s now. Why steal a diamond when you can steal the head of the general of your greatest enemies? Yeah, so pretending that they&#039;re going back to the valley to pray, they make their way back to the hills where the people of Bethulia greet her, and are kind of wigged out that she managed to do this thing. She pulls the head out of the bag and says, &amp;quot;Look, the head of Holofernes, the commander of the Assyrian army, and also his canopy, which I stole for some reason.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;The Lord has struck him down by the hands of a woman. As the Lord lives who has protected me in the way I went, I swear that it was my face that seduced him in his destruction, and that he committed no sin with me to defile and shame me.&amp;quot; That&#039;s an important detail, right? Because, she has to prove that she did not actually do the deed with him. He was just thirsty for her face. And to prove that she remained completely chaste. The people are astonished.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And we get this kind of cool detail when Achior comes in. &amp;quot;They summon Achior from the house of Uzziah. He came in and he saw the head of Holofernes and he fainted.&amp;quot; This is cool. This is...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Normal.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is cool because we also got that set up earlier when when he kicks Achior out, Holofernes says to him, he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;You&#039;re not gonna see you&#039;re not gonna see my face again until the day of my victory.&amp;quot; And here it here it is. It&#039;s not his victory, but victory over him, I suppose. And so yeah, Achior is the first to thank God for the for the death of Holofernes and the destruction of the Assyrian army. And so here, yeah, in complete flagrant disregard for Deuteronomy 23:3, they convert Achior to Judaism and he&#039;s circumcised and everything. That verse says that Ammonites and Moabites...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Two chops.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
 &#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Moabites and Ammonites cannot be converted. Yeah. Oh yeah, two chops, yeah. Moabites and Ammonites can&#039;t be converted to Judaism because, it turns out, because they did not bring out food and water for the Israelites when they returned from the desert they were supposed to have a bigger party for them and as a result they&#039;re not allowed into heaven, etc. I know Judaism doesn&#039;t have heaven per se, but you know what I mean. They&#039;re not allowed into covenant with God.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
 So yeah, they hang the head of Holofernes on the wall, and then their plan is Judith sends their army to come out as if they&#039;re about to attack. And so when the Assyrians wake up in the morning, they look and they see, &amp;quot;oh shoot, the Israelites are coming, go wake up Holofernes.&amp;quot; And so then when Bagoas, this is the name of Holofernes&#039; eunuch, who&#039;s in charge of stuff, including women, as eunuchs frequently were. He goes and knocks at the entry of the tent, because he supposed that Holofernes was sleeping with Judith, &amp;quot;But when no one answered he opened it and went into the bedchamber, found him sprawled on the floor dead, with his head missing. He cried out with a loud voice and wept and groaned and shouted and torn his tore his clothes.&amp;quot; And so yeah, the Assyrians start to panic, they start to run away, that doubles down. When Uzziah sends messengers out to the other villages of the Israelites, and now the full Israelite army comes and is able to chase off the Assyrians who are now literally headless. The head of their head has been cut off, and so they have no commander. And they basically get chased back. to Assyria.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Look, Holofernes is the Death Star. We got it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like he&#039;s the thing. They do have a hundred and seventy thousand other dudes there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. None of them it turns out were good at army. So, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I am not at all cheapening Judas actions. I&#039;m saying it is established: there are a hundred and seventy thousand people surrounding Jerusalem at this point.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Quick comparison. During the reign of Augustus, the Roman army numbered 250,000.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Entirely. For the empire.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. This is again, an implausible number of people.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s a very large number of people. It&#039;s a San Diego Comic-Con of people.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And you know what? If someone cut off Wil Wheaton&#039;s head, they would have run away too.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Definitely not advocating it. Definitely not advocating it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Definitely not. I&#039;m not saying, I&#039;m not saying I&#039;m not advocating violence against Wil Wheaton. I&#039;m just saying that if you cut off Wil Wheaton&#039;s head, the entirety of San Diego Comic-Con would run through the whole district. They&#039;d be gone.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That is fair. That is fair.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We get the again truly implausible detail that it took them thirty days to plunder the camp. There could not have been that much stuff there. But Judith gets the tent of Holofernes with all of his silverware and his beds, his bowls, his furniture. She loads them up on a cart and she brings them back with the intent to dedicate them all to God because again, Judith is a very pious and devout woman who always does the right thing. We get ivy-wreathed wands, we get olive wreaths. That&#039;s another clue that this is probably in a post-Hellenistic world because that&#039;s a thing that Greek people did, olive wreaths, that&#039;s not a Jewish thing. And then we get Judith&#039;s hymn of Thanksgiving, which is basically, she writes an epic ballad about herself from the perspective of a personified Israel. Which is pretty baller.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Pretty great. And then much like we did last week, we have a woman with agency who accomplishes something great and then lives a long and happy life.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we see her live to the age of 105. She never marries again. She stay she remains a widow for the rest of her life, even though she&#039;s the most beautiful woman in Israel. She is she&#039;s the face she&#039;s the face that killed 175,000 men.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Canonically, &amp;quot;her sandal ravished his eyes.&amp;quot; That&#039;s how hot she is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. Her shoes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Her shoes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Unless it&#039;s just Unless we are to believe that Judith 169 is just telling us that Holofernes was like a foot guy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Could be both. Could be both.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Could be both.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Could be both.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Could be both.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And yeah, so she lives to be 105, she never remarries. she is honored by the whole country. Despite the fact that many men tried to woo her, she did not give in. 105, she grew old. She set her maid free. She died in Bethulia, she&#039;s buried next to her husband, and then all of her belongings, which were great wealth, we know, because she took the highest and best plunder from the camp of Holofernes, all of that was distributed to her relatives in accordance with the law. So even post-death, Judith is still following the Torah to a T.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and the entire House of Israel mourned her passing for seven days, which is pretty good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; They lowered Holofernes&#039; head to half staff.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah, they just flew that gold canopy on a flagpole. So what do you think, Chris?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I think the story of Judith is pretty great, is what I think.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we had zero miracles.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Zero miracles.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Another thing that ties it into Esther a little bit, right? Esther pretty famously the canonical book that does not explicitly mention God, although God is mentioned many, many times in this book, we don&#039;t see active use of his hand. And yeah, no miracle healing fish or angels popping down to do anything. Yeah, it&#039;s just...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, Raphael does not show up to go fight Satan in Egypt at any point in this story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is a regular non-flaming and eye-covered sword that chops off Holofernes&#039; head. Also, as you mentioned, solidly written, like engagingly written, and translated, we specifically, I think we mentioned this at the beginning. We used the NRSV version of this story. But like very fun and action-packed. A good one to read, I think.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and it&#039;s it&#039;s not that long either. It&#039;s yeah, sixteen chapters. In my edition of the NRSV it takes up it&#039;s about twenty pages, but that includes lots of footnotes. So you could probably find it shorter than that. So if you if you haven&#039;t read it yet, I do recommend maybe giving this one a read. It&#039;s very cool. It&#039;s a really good one. And you can see why it&#039;s a popular inspiration for different pieces of art. I will definitely be posting a gallery of different paintings and sculptures of Judith on our Tumblr. for this week.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Did you have a verse that we didn&#039;t already talk about?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039;  I think we basically covered all the ones I wrote down as possibilities because The first one I wanna wanted to talk about was the was from [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judith%206%3A2-6&amp;amp;version=NRSVUE Holofernes&#039; speech about the about the valleys filling with blood]. That was one. Then I considered possibly [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judith%208%3A32-34&amp;amp;version=NRSVUE Judith&#039;s very raw drop about doing something that will go down through all the generations.] And then I also considered 13:4, which was... oh yeah, this is her prayer right before she kills Holofernes. &amp;quot;So O Lord God of Almighty look in this hour on the work of my hands for the exaltation of Jerusalem. Now indeed is the time to help your heritage and to carry out my design to destroy the enemies who have risen up against us.&amp;quot; So I had all those picked, but we covered we kinda covered all of them during the show, which I kind of figured we would because there&#039;s so many very raw speeches in this one. Did you have one, Chris?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We already did them, but I specifically highlighted [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judith%208%3A32-34&amp;amp;version=NRSVUE 8:32], which is Judith announcing that she is gonna go down in history.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Calling her shot.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer or George Washington. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Or Judith.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But I think the the winners in this one are Judith 9:9-10.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Judith chapter nine verses nine through ten: &amp;quot;Look at their pride, and send your wrath upon their heads. Give to me, a widow, the strong hand to do what I plan. By the deceit of my lips strike down the slave with the prince and the prince with his servant; crush their arrogance by the hand of a woman.&amp;quot; Especially that last bit. That is solid. Solid stuff...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very choice.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; ...from our pal the Bible. So that is the story of Judith. Very, very fun. But we are going to come back next week with the first part of a two-part Halloween Scare-tacular.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s right. Yeah, two-part Spook-toberfest. We&#039;re gonna do the one where the devil descended to hell, The Gospel of Nicodemus, aka the Acts of Pilate, aka the Descent into Hell. We&#039;re gonna see Jesus, what he did on his Saturday off between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, that&#039;s right, everybody. It&#039;s time for the harrowing of hell.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s the one. There&#039;s some other stuff that happens.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know I love it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Some other stuff happens too.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know I love it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But yeah. We&#039;re definitely gonna see Satan as a character with with lines that say stuff. So yeah, we&#039;re gonna get a little bit of a rehash of the the crucifixion and resurrection, but plenty of stuff in hell. We&#039;re gonna see the return of many of these patriarchs that we have encountered recently. Some names that should be familiar. But yeah, it should be a fun time. Part one of a two-part Spooktoberfest, Spooktacular, Boo-serbration. I don&#039;t know. I&#039;ve completely lost it there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But that is gonna be next week. And I am very excited about it. You know that&#039;s a story I&#039;ve been talking about since we started that I did not know was not in the canonical Bible.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But I think that that goes to your point. Like this this stuff exists even to me in pop culture.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Until we&#039;re back in action here, where can everybody find us, Benito?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so like I&#039;ve been mentioning throughout the show, if you want to see supplementary materials like links, we posted a lot of links to articles given to us by our good friend David Wolkin, recently. We also post images of art related to the stories that we do, also fan art when we get it. We had a very choice piece of Thecla art that came in this past week that you guys should absolutely go check out if you haven&#039;t seen it. It&#039;s definitely Thecla shrouded in fire, a vat full of dead seals and so on. You can find all that stuff on our Tumblr at [https://apocrypals.tumblr.com apocrypals dot tumbler dot com]. Follow us there. We also post links, especially to things that you can&#039;t find or may not be able to find in a print version of the Bible. When we read things like, for example, the Gospel of Nicodemus, we&#039;ll have links on our site that you can find there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Also, if you enjoy the show and you want to help us continue to make the show, if you want to help support us a little bit monetarily, you can do so by going to [https://ko-fi.com/apocrypals K O dash F I dot com slash apocrypals]. That&#039;s [https://ko-fi.com/apocrypals kofi dot com slash apocrypals], where you basically can help support the show in the form of a tip in multiples of $3. So if you feel like we&#039;re doing a good job and you want to help us continue to make the show, pay for things like hosting, music, reference books, and that kind of stuff that we use on the show, drop us a little bit of cash to show your appreciation. We appreciate it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you can&#039;t do that, or you just don&#039;t want to do that, but you do want to still help the show, not in a monetary fashion, you can do that by dropping us a review on your favorite podcaster of choice, whether that be iTunes. Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, I don&#039;t think has reviews, but you know, especially iTunes, if you give us a rating and a review, or Apple Podcasts, I suppose they call it now, but give us a give us a rating and review. We&#039;ve gotten some really nice reviews in the last week. Like sometimes it&#039;ll go a while without any reviews, but we&#039;ve gotten like four in the last couple of days that were all really great and we super appreciate you guys doing that. So yeah, leaving us rating and reviews help us get featured, help us bump up that Christian comedy chart, which is our our number one goal, obviously.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I feel like the number one goal is the clutch @Pontifex retweet.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, still waiting on that. We do definitely have a Catholic priest from Alabama who plays the guitar, who&#039;s very much in our corner, and we appreciate that. He&#039;s also dropped us some money at Kofi, which I appreciate, super appreciate. I know he&#039;s listening to this and will hear this. I think he&#039;s a couple episodes behind, but we definitely appreciate that. But yeah, still waiting for that @Pontifix. Otherwise, if you want to find me, I&#039;m on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, just search for Benito Cereno. You&#039;ll find me. I&#039;m there. Chris, what about you?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You can find all of my stuff by going to [https://the-isb.com T H E dash I S B dot com]. That has links to all the stuff that I write around the web and also has links to comic books that I write. The Army of Darkness Halloween special is coming out soon. That has stories by both of us. Me and my writing partner, Chad Bowers and Benito did stories in there. I&#039;ve also got Infinity Wars Sleepwalker coming out now. Chad and I wrote that one with art by Todd Nauck, and it&#039;s really fun. If you&#039;ve ever wondered what the insides of the Infinity Stones look like, then Sleepwalker will take you on a tour. And I got to see the the reality stone interior today for the first time, like full color finished. It&#039;s great.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I love it. I gotta tell you, Chris, it&#039;s very good. I read it, it&#039;s very good. Like it&#039;s been a long time. It&#039;s been a long time since I&#039;ve bought... There&#039;s been a like a comic book event story where I&#039;ve bought all the tie-ins. It might have been like Final Crisis might have been the last time I did that. And Final Crisis might literally be the only other time I&#039;ve ever done this. But I&#039;ve bought every tie-in to Infinity Wars like and Infinity Countdown before that. And like you had stuff for that. You did the Darkhawk story. And like everything has been good. All of these Infinity Warp stories have been very cool. The Sleepwalker is very cool. I was very glad to see the return of Silhouette, one of my favorite characters, even though I know that was Chad&#039;s addition and not yours, because you did not read early 90s New Warriors. But I&#039;ve been saying for years that Silhouette is ripe for a return. Like this is the era in which Silhouette could flourish and nobody&#039;s been using her. So I&#039;m glad to see her pop up in your book. That was very cool.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; People were very excited about her. You&#039;re not alone.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Also, this is the first place I have said this, because it came in while we were recording, actually.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Dracula the Unconquered number four is done.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hey!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That is a comic that&#039;s been in the works for years. Dracula the Unconquered was a series that I started with Steve Downer and Josh Croc. Seven years ago.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, alright.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Number four is done.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Nice.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So I&#039;m very excited about it. This is it&#039;s probably gonna be out on Halloween on Comixology and it&#039;s got Carmilla in it. This is the Carmilla issue that I&#039;m very excited about, and it it looks great. And I&#039;m very excited for people to read it. I really – it&#039;s been long enough since I wrote it that I kinda read it for the first time today and it was really fun.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and if people if people have not read that, you should check it out because the premise is what if Dracula was also an Uncle Scrooge? It&#039;s very good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, what if Dracula had world traveling adventures with his young lady sidekick?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; In Europe in 1901. so that&#039;s that, everybody. Also, Benito, you&#039;ve got a bunch of Halloween comics, but we we&#039;re we&#039;re plugging, we can&#039;t we can&#039;t be here all day.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, no, no, no, definitely not.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Check all that stuff out. Thank you for listening. So be here next week when we talk about the gospel of Nicodemus. Until then, for Benito Cereno, I&#039;ve been Chris Sims. Benito, peace be with you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And also with you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music: &amp;quot;Heads Will Roll&amp;quot; by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Ocean%27s_Two&amp;diff=497</id>
		<title>Ocean&#039;s Two</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Ocean%27s_Two&amp;diff=497"/>
		<updated>2026-02-09T02:07:17Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: /* Favorite Verses */&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/7183298/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
Get ready, Theophiloi, because it&#039;s time for a tightly plotted heist story about our favorite Deuterocanonical heroine, Judith! We&#039;ll be heading into a slice of the Apocrypha with some sharp commentary that cuts right to the good stuff. Get to listening, chop chop! Plus: Some very good and suggestions for improving Hanukkah that you can implement in your own celebrations!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion: The ironies (all of them), Doubting Tomax, a prelude to Martinmas, St. Isadore the Hedgehog, an extended digression about Simon Magus and Avril Lavigne, The RAMBAN, Antilebanon, the Cracker Barrel Master Mold, earth and water, the most boss flex in the entire Bible, getting captured on purpose, Alfred, cheese plots, a Comic-Con of soldiers, and whether Holofernes was just a foot guy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Hymnal: &amp;quot;Heads Will Roll&amp;quot; by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Offertory: If you enjoy the show, head to ko-fi.com/apocrypals and send us a love offering! We absolutely appreciate it!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Opening Verse==&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;For their mighty one did not fall by the hands of the young men, nor did the sons of the Titans strike him down, nor did tall giants set upon him, but Judith, daughter of Merari, with the beauty of her countenance, undid him.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 16:6&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Favorite Verses==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Look at their pride, and send your wrath upon their heads. Give to me, a widow, the strong hand to do what I plan. By the deceit of my lips strike down the slave with the prince and the prince with his servant; &amp;lt;u&amp;gt;crush their arrogance by the hand of a woman&amp;lt;/u&amp;gt;.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 9:9-10 &amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;The mountains will be soaked with their blood, and the valleys will be filled with their corpses.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 6:4 &amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Then Judith said to them, &#039;Listen to me. I am about to do something that will go down through all generations of our people.&#039;&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 8:32&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auzfTPp4moA Heads Will Roll] by Yeah Yeah Yeahs&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Choice Quotes==&lt;br /&gt;
(Help fill this in by checking out the [[ Ocean&#039;s Two (Transcript)|transcript]].)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Deuterocanon]]&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Maimonides]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Ocean%27s_Two&amp;diff=496</id>
		<title>Ocean&#039;s Two</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Ocean%27s_Two&amp;diff=496"/>
		<updated>2026-02-09T02:05:36Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/7183298/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
Get ready, Theophiloi, because it&#039;s time for a tightly plotted heist story about our favorite Deuterocanonical heroine, Judith! We&#039;ll be heading into a slice of the Apocrypha with some sharp commentary that cuts right to the good stuff. Get to listening, chop chop! Plus: Some very good and suggestions for improving Hanukkah that you can implement in your own celebrations!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion: The ironies (all of them), Doubting Tomax, a prelude to Martinmas, St. Isadore the Hedgehog, an extended digression about Simon Magus and Avril Lavigne, The RAMBAN, Antilebanon, the Cracker Barrel Master Mold, earth and water, the most boss flex in the entire Bible, getting captured on purpose, Alfred, cheese plots, a Comic-Con of soldiers, and whether Holofernes was just a foot guy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Hymnal: &amp;quot;Heads Will Roll&amp;quot; by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Offertory: If you enjoy the show, head to ko-fi.com/apocrypals and send us a love offering! We absolutely appreciate it!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Opening Verse==&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;For their mighty one did not fall by the hands of the young men, nor did the sons of the Titans strike him down, nor did tall giants set upon him, but Judith, daughter of Merari, with the beauty of her countenance, undid him.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 16:6&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Favorite Verses==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Look at their pride, and send your wrath upon their heads. Give to me, a widow, the strong hand to do what I plan. By the deceit of my lips strike down the slave with the prince and the prince with his servant; &amp;lt;u&amp;gt;crush their arrogance by the hand of a woman&amp;lt;/u&amp;gt;.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 9:9-10 &amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;The mountains will be soaked with their blood, and the valleys will be filled with their corpses.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Book of Judith 6:4 &amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auzfTPp4moA Heads Will Roll] by Yeah Yeah Yeahs&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Choice Quotes==&lt;br /&gt;
(Help fill this in by checking out the [[ Ocean&#039;s Two (Transcript)|transcript]].)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Deuterocanon]]&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Maimonides]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Ocean%27s_Two_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1058</id>
		<title>Ocean&#039;s Two (Transcript)</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Ocean%27s_Two_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1058"/>
		<updated>2026-02-09T01:50:15Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: Created page with &amp;quot;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;Chris Sims:&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039; &amp;quot;For their mighty one did not fall by the hands of the young men, nor did the sons of the Titans strike him down, nor did tall giants set upon him, but Judith, daughter of Merari, with the beauty of her countenance, undid him.&amp;quot; The Book of Judith, chapter 16, verse 6.  [Music: &amp;quot;Heads Will Roll&amp;quot; by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs]  &amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;C:&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039; Hello everybody and welcome to Apocrypals. It&amp;#039;s the podcast where two non-believers read through the Bible, but we try not to b...&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&#039;&#039;&#039;Chris Sims:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;For their mighty one did not fall by the hands of the young men, nor did the sons of the Titans strike him down, nor did tall giants set upon him, but Judith, daughter of Merari, with the beauty of her countenance, undid him.&amp;quot; The Book of Judith, chapter 16, verse 6.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music: &amp;quot;Heads Will Roll&amp;quot; by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hello everybody and welcome to Apocrypals. It&#039;s the podcast where two non-believers read through the Bible, but we try not to be jerks about it. My name is Chris Sims. With me as always is the other set of footprints, Benito Cereno. Benito, how are you on this crisp fall afternoon?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;Benito Cereno:&#039;&#039;&#039; Really good man. Yeah, it&#039;s it is very crisp here too. We definitely had a significant temperature drop following some of that rain that we got here the other day.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I say crisp, it&#039;s like seventy degrees out.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh really? It&#039;s like fifty-five probably here right now.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is the first day in a while that has felt nice.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; As opposed to being sweltering and wet.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I&#039;m I&#039;m really I&#039;m all about that hoodie weather. Like that&#039;s my that&#039;s my ideal, so I&#039;m very happy that we&#039;re finally getting there. Although, you know, we&#039;ll get it for a week and then it&#039;ll be 80 again, I&#039;m sure, soon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s usually how it goes, but you and I, we&#039;re some we&#039;re some gentlemen who like layers.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s true.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not just as in like underground caves where we plot and scheme, but like multiple clothings over our torsos.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, both versions of that particular homonym. Yeah. I guess it&#039;s a homophone, don&#039;t correct me. I hear you out there at your Twitters already, it&#039;s homophones.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Checkity-checkity-check. That&#039;s the typing. That&#039;s what&#039;s happening right now. Benito, what are we doing this week here on the show where that we&#039;re supposed to be reading the Bible?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, hey, we&#039;re we&#039;re doing another one about about a woman with some agency. We&#039;re doing the book of Judith. From the Deuterocanon, aka the Capital A Apocrypha. I feel like maybe we shouldn&#039;t be squandering them, but at the same time, it feels like the right time to have powerful women doing some murders, cloaked in fire, etc. on our show. Feels like the appropriate time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It feels like a very good time to be discussing Judith. Now I will say, right up at the start, Judith does not cloak herself in fire. She does not cast lightning down upon man-eating seals.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s not gonna happen this week. I apologize for anyone who might have been misled.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this book is surprisingly miracle-free.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But it&#039;s pretty raw.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s completely raw. And it&#039;s basically it&#039;s Ocean&#039;s Eight if the goal was a murder instead of a robbery. And also there was only two women. So it&#039;s like Ocean&#039;s 2.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oceans 2 but a murder. That&#039;s a completely different kind of movie than Ocean&#039;s Eight. Right. You understand that, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I mean yeah, it&#039;s yeah. But it&#039;s definitely a heist. Everything is planned out. This is a very tightly plotted book, actually, where like there&#039;s a lot of stuff set up. A lot of stuff pays off. And if you&#039;re listening to this and you&#039;re in high school and you&#039;re trying to learn about the figurative device that is irony? This is an excellent book because it&#039;s got all the ironies. You got your verbal ironies, you got your dramatic ironies, you got your situational ironies. They&#039;re all here. Every single one of them. This is a super ironic book. Not in like a Rod Serling sense, but in the in the literary sense, it&#039;s got all of &#039;em. And yeah, everything&#039;s just so tight because it&#039;ll be like you see Judith doing things and you&#039;re like, huh, why&#039;s she doing that? Don&#039;t worry, it&#039;s gonna pay off because she knew what she was doing.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You are absolutely right. From a plot standpoint, you know me. I&#039;ve been frustrated with a lot of these before.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This one is: there are no frustrations with the Book of Judith. The only thing I have is that Judith herself does not show up until like chapter eight.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s true. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s a lot of build-up and it and it pays off.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, the the heroine of the story doesn&#039;t show up until halfway through. But even if we were to look at this from a structural point of view, it&#039;s very cool. We won&#039;t have to go into it because I don&#039;t want to have to explain to everybody what chiasmus is, but this is built on a two-tiered chiasmus structure where the first half, pre-Judith appearance, follows... it&#039;s like a reflex reflexive thing. It&#039;s like that the Rorschach-focused issue of Watchmen where it starts and ends the same way with the reflection in the middle. If you imagine like that, that&#039;s kind of what a chiastic structure is. And the two halves of this book, everything before Judith and everything starting with Judith to the end, it&#039;s it&#039;s two perfect reflexive structures like that. You can look more into that, but we don&#039;t have time to go into all that. But it&#039;s very cool. It&#039;s very tight from a structural point of view is what I&#039;m what I&#039;m getting at. This is a very well-composed book.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You&#039;re basically saying it&#039;s twice as good as Watchmen.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I am saying that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Or alternately like about 1.8 times as good as that issue of G. I. Joe about Tomax and Xamot that the same gimmick.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah, that&#039;s what I&#039;m getting at.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; When did Tomax and Xamot show up in the Bible, by the way?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ve already seen one of them, he doubted Jesus, and then later we&#039;re gonna see his twin brother, Xamot, later.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, how did we get through how did we get through four gospels and I never talked about doubting Tomax?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I&#039;ve been sit I&#039;ve been sitting on the Thomas and Samoht joke for a long time, waiting for an opportunity to drop that one, because he&#039;s the twin. He&#039;s Thomas the twin. Thomas Didymus, the twin. I was I thought maybe when we got to Acts of Thomas or something. There&#039;s so many books attributed to Thomas. We&#039;ve got the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the Acts of Thomas. There&#039;s no shortage of places I might have brought it up.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But Yeah, and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas is hashtag lit.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it sure is. But we&#039;re not talking about that today.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;re not talking about that today.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ll get there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do we have anything that we need to cover before we get into Judith? Any holidays, any upcoming celebrations. It&#039;s state fair time, but I don&#039;t believe that exists in doctrine.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, no, I actually was just checking while I was waiting for everything to get set up today. I was flipping through to see. Because obviously we pay a lot of attention to, we&#039;ve done a lot of Jewish holidays recently, because it obviously was the Jewish High Holidays is the most important ones, but also because the majority of American listeners at least are not super familiar with Jewish holidays, so we&#039;ve really focused on those. But I was like, maybe we should look more at some of the the different Saint feast days and things. We&#039;ve mentioned some, but not usually on the days when they&#039;re happening. So I actually was flipping through to see if there were any interesting ones and not really.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Great segment. Great great time that we spent on that. Good good job.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I did miss, I regret that we missed Michaelmas. We should have talked about Michaelmas a couple weeks ago. It was on September 24th. That&#039;s a very cool one to talk about. But we&#039;ll definitely be hitting, we&#039;ll probably be hitting weird Christian holidays almost every episode once we hit like November and we get to Martinmas, that&#039;s when the Christmas season, Advent and Christmas season kicks off. So we&#039;re gonna have some stuff like every episode after that for sure. So hang on til Saint Martin comes in on his white horse, and we&#039;ll be ready to talk about weird Christian festivals for like two months after that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And everybody make sure to tune in on November 1st for All Saints Day, where we read the entire golden legend.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep, don&#039;t do that actually.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;re not gonna do all the saints on All Saints Day? What&#039;s the point?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Oh Yeah, so actually that does remind me, speaking of saints, yeah. So I have two things I wanted to pick up on from last week&#039;s episode. They&#039;re not corrections per se, they&#039;re just additions. They came from our two favorite, of course, personal scholars who like to give us a hand every now and then. Number one comes from friend of the show, Ben Rowe. Regarding Saint Isidore of Seville being the patron of the internet, and I was close, I was kind of on top of it, but not quite there. So here&#039;s what he says: &amp;quot;Isidore is patron of the internet because his life&#039;s work was the assembly of a compendium of universal knowledge. He was the first Christian writer to attempt such a work, preserving abridgments of classical works and serving as the conduit through which they were known by medieval scholars.&amp;quot; And so he&#039;s basically Christian Wikipedia, ergo, he&#039;s the patron of the internet because he was the first person to try to assemble a compendium of all human knowledge. That answers that question a little bit.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; How many sonic OCs did he get through before he gave up?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I think a lot. I think there were very many echidnas. Like he built Knuckles&#039; family up big time. Anyway, here&#039;s our second piece of input from of course King of the Gnostics Jonathan Stewart. Regarding Paul and Thecla, he says, &amp;quot;If you want your crackpot theory for the week, the idea that Paul was the same as Simon Magus,&amp;quot; remember that&#039;s one we hit way back in episode three. &amp;quot;The idea that Paul and Simon Magus were the same person was pretty widespread in the ancient world, so Paul and Thecla was partly written to counteract it. Our early sources say Simon was definitely DTF,&amp;quot; if you think about the text where we talked about Simon and Helen, right? We talked about that. And also the bit about magicians corrupting wives that we talked about. And so, &amp;quot;Paul and Thecla was partly written to say that Paul is mega chaste, and of course his best lady friend isn&#039;t a sex worker but a very nice girl.&amp;quot; Not to say that sex workers aren&#039;t very nice. You understand the point. This is ancient. Anyway. So yeah, the idea that Paul and Thecla was written specifically to counteract the idea that Paul and Simon Magus were the same person, a surprisingly common conspiracy theory of the ancient ancient days.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I have a question.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Why not just do another story where Paul fights Simon Magus, like we have?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I don&#039;t know man. It wasn&#039;t enough. It didn&#039;t I mean we&#039;ve got multiple ones, we&#039;ve got at least three. One of them is in the canon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I feel like Paul and Simon Magus were the same person is the first century CE version of what if Batman was the Joker.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Or that one about how Avril Lavigne has been a clone since 1998 or whatever.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;re really... I am not looking forward to writing up the show notes on this one already.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hey man, let&#039;s talk about Judith, I guess.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do we know who wrote this and why is it Deuterocanon?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, yeah. So yeah, I got all that information ready to go. Here we go. So Judith, the name comes from the Hebrew name Yehudit, which is the feminine form of Judah and so her name either could mean &amp;quot;she is praised&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;she will be praised&amp;quot; or it just might mean &amp;quot;a Jewish woman,&amp;quot; right, in the way that Judah, the son of Jacob, gives his name to Judea and the land of Judah, and then therefore the word Jew and Jewish and Judaism all come from the name Judah. So the name Judith might just mean &amp;quot;Jewish woman.&amp;quot; The text, it&#039;s a little unclear if the original version of the text was Hebrew or Greek, because the oldest extant version that we have is the one from the Septuagint, which is where basically all of the deuterocanonical books come from. Remember the distinction is that the deuterocanonical books are books that exist in the Greek Septuagint but don&#039;t exist in the the later Hebrew canon. And that&#039;s where Protestants make the distinction between what they consider canon and what they consider Apocrypha. So the oldest version we have of Judith is Greek. The earliest Hebrew versions are from the Middle Ages, but that does not necessarily mean that the original text was not Hebrew. There are, however, certain phrases and vocabulary choices that indicate that maybe the Greek was the original with the author intentionally imitating stylistic bits from the Greek translations from the Septuagint.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
When was it written? Well, there are certain elements that indicate an origin in the Hasmonean period. That&#039;s the also known as the Maccabean period, the period of the dynasty of kings following Judah Maccabee following the Seleucid Empire or actually slightly overlapping with the Seleucid Empire, which you know follows up the Hellenistic era. So some of the things that indicate that this was probably from the Hasmonean period, the idea of the worship of a king as a god, which is a thing that our boy Antiochus IV Epiphanes would have wanted. And so that would be something that the Jews at this time would have specifically been rebelling against, I guess. We also see the political and military powers of the high priest in this in this book, Joachim, we see he has a lot of military powers. The supremacy of the Council of Elders, aka the Sanhedrin, we see that with Uzziah and some of the others. They have the kind of supremacy within the city. And also an overall similarity in the story to the story of Judah Maccabee and how he defeated Nicanor, 1. And so it seems most likely that this book was composed during the reign of John Hyrcanus I, which would be somewhere between 135 and 105 BCE.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
That said. The book as a whole is full of historical and geographical errors. We see that literally from verse one. Like verse one, continuity is out the window. It&#039;s also full of anachronisms, but a lot of people argue that these mistakes are intentional. They&#039;re meant to point out that the book is a parable or it&#039;s allegory. Some people refer to this as one of the earliest historical novels, but of course some people try to still justify some of the things in the book like why does it say that Nebuchadnezzar was king of the Assyrians? Well, maybe they really meant Ashurbanipal or Artaxerxes or someone else, you know. Even though we don&#039;t know where the village of Bethulia is, maybe it&#039;s this place or maybe it&#039;s that place.&lt;br /&gt;
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The book as a whole was probably never considered canonical by any Jewish group. Though it was probably written in the Second Temple Era by a Jewish author. It&#039;s not in the canonical Jewish text, the Masoretic text. It&#039;s not among the Dead Sea Scrolls, which is true of a lot of the books that we&#039;ve seen that are not in the canonical text, do pop up among the dead sea scrolls showing that they were important to some Jewish societies, but this is not the case with Judith. And why might that be? Well, it could be again similar to Tobit and some of the others, it might just be because of the late date in which it was composed, might be because it has a Greek origin. Maybe it&#039;s because it endorses deceit and murder as cool things to do that God is in support of, but also there&#039;s some other like unorthodox ideas that get a little more specific, including the fact that an Ammonite gets converted to Judaism, which is actually specifically forbidden in the Torah. You&#039;re not allowed to convert Ammonites. But despite the fact that this was never seen as canonical in any way, it doesn&#039;t mean it wasn&#039;t popular among Jewish communities because, give it about a thousand years after its composition, the story of Judith becomes popular as a story in poems and songs in the Talmud. There&#039;s a very popular Midrash that ends up tying Judith to Hanukkah, even though this book has nothing to do with Hanukkah. And in fact, some Jewish communities will read the story of Judith at Hanukkah, similar to the way that the story of Esther is read at Purim. And so in that way Judith kind of becomes the Hasmonean equivalent to Esther. Esther is the hero of Purim. Judith becomes the hero of Hanukkah in a way.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Question.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is there any tradition of Judith being a gift-giving figure?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, but she is tied into a food tradition that I want to get back to once we get into the story, so remind me remind me on that. I probably won&#039;t forget that one, but There is a food tradition.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So there&#039;s nothing about how if you&#039;re good all year and you do your chores and clean your plate, then Judith might bring you like a present at Hanukkah time and if you&#039;re bad she will cut your head off.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No. Strangely.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s not that? That feels like a slam dunk.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly. And you know what? Like, Look again, this is me from the outside and I understand that Hanukkah is actually not in the grand scheme of things a very important Jewish holiday and that its importance has been inflated due to its proximity to Christmas. Like I fully understand that. But I keep seeing like in pop culture Hanukkah traditions where they try to just they do these like parodies of Christmas things where you get Mensch on the bench and you get a Hanukkah Bush or whatever. But I&#039;m like, if you want to make Hanukkah cool, why don&#039;t you just say that the ghost of Judah Maccabees and the ghost of Judith are gonna come to your house? Like you already have another holiday where you leave a seat open for a ghost to come and sit there. Why can&#039;t you have Judah Maccabee the Hammer come? Why can&#039;t you have the Hebrew hammer come and hang out at your house on Hanukkah? That would be the dopest holiday. It would arguably be better than Christmas. I don&#039;t know. I&#039;m not the boss of holidays, and obviously I&#039;m not any kind of you know actual authority that should be speaking about what they should do for Hanukkah. I&#039;m just saying if you had if you had Judah Maccabee and Judith show up at your house, that would be a very cool holiday.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I just feel like Judith&#039;s entire deal is that she gets into and out of a place.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Unseen.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Undetected.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And what it in her case she takes something and brings it to other people.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s true.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Spoiler warning.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; What if someone dressed up as Judith and came in with a pinata that looked like a man&#039;s head and it was full of candy and it was Holofernes&#039; head and the kids beat that until I don&#039;t know, until gelt fell out. Wouldn&#039;t that be a very dope holiday tradition?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Just spitballing here.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; So anyway, the comparison between Judith and Esther, there we go. But also, I got another cool abrieve coming up. The biblical commentator, Nachmanides, aka the Rabbi Moses bin Nachman, aka Ramban. So he&#039;s not the Rambam, he&#039;s Ramban, because he&#039;s the son of Nachman instead of the son of Maimon, and so he&#039;s Ramban instead of Rambam. He quotes Judith pretty heavily in his biblical commentaries. So, some Jewish communities do value the story of Judith even though it was never canonical.&lt;br /&gt;
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For Christians, however, the book of Judith was included in many Christian canons, but excluded from some others. Jerome in the Vulgate put it in the Apocrypha, but later he quoted it as though it were had the same weight as Scripture. It was accepted as canon by the Nicene Council and the Council of 1442, and it was dogmatically decreed canonical at the Council of Trent in 1546. So again, like all the books of the Deuterocan, it is canon for the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, and others. So the Deuterocan again just means later. They&#039;re books later. They&#039;re from the inter quote-unquote inter-testamental period. And so it was confirmed as canonical by the Eastern Orthodox Church at the Sinod of Jerusalem in 1672. The Episcopal Church reads from Judith on the Feast of Mary Magdalene on July 22nd. However, only the Coptic Church celebrates Judith as a saint, and her feast day is September 17th, so another one that we&#039;ve just missed. And again, Protestants see it as apocryphal, i. e. not real. However Luther, Martin Luther, in his Bible that included Apocrypha, it was listed first. It was number one among the Apocrypha.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So Tobit wasn&#039;t in there or was Tobit just in a different&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Tobit was just in a different spot. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Christians like this story because Judith is seen as an example of a mulier sancta, a holy woman. She&#039;s kind of a prefiguration of the Virgin Mary. You can see that because like her name means Jewish woman. She comes from Bethulia, a city whose name means virginity. And she alone, without the help of a man, overcomes the great enemy to deliver her city from evil, right? But also she personifies the virtues of humility, justice, and fortitude, and chastity, which are opposed to her great enemy, Holofernes, who represents pride, tyranny, decadence, and lust. And so, because it&#039;s a story that&#039;s so popular with Christian communities, of course, that means that it is very popular and very well represented in the various arts. Including, very cool, a very cool thing, there&#039;s an Anglo-Saxon epic poem from about the same time as Beowulf that&#039;s all about Judith. She is transformed into an Anglo-Saxon Christian woman, which okay, but the invasion of Holofernes and his his people are kind of likened to the Viking invasions of England at around the same time. I have a very short small quote from that that I can share later in the show. The story of Judith was also, for some reason, very popular in sixteenth century French poetry. I don&#039;t know any more than that.&lt;br /&gt;
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It is, of course, a very, very popular motif in painting and sculpture. A lot of these you guys have probably seen. They&#039;re very they&#039;ve been very popular on social media lately. But depictions of Judith and Holofernes in painting and sculpture include but are by no means limited to a very famous sculpture by Donatello, one of the artists famous enough to be a Ninja Turtle, although definitely the least famous of the four Ninja Turtle artists. But more famously one that you&#039;ve probably seen, a Caravaggio painting, one by Botticelli, one by Titian, a famous Art Nouveau version by Gustav Klimt, you guys have probably seen. It&#039;s that famous really sexy one where one of the girls is out and she&#039;s holding a head. You&#039;ve probably seen that one. A version by Goya, and of course the really popular one that&#039;s been going around lately is the one by Artemisia Gentileschi where she models Judith after herself and Holofernes after a man who assaulted her. And Judith, if you didn&#039;t know, is on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. You can see her and her maidservant hiding Holofernes&#039;s head like in a pan and covering it up and trying to escape. The story of Judith also appears in music, operas and other things, including pieces by Vivaldi and Mozart, who you guys have probably heard of, and many others. And the story of Judith has been represented in many, many modern plays and pieces of modern art as well. So it&#039;s a very popular motif in art, there&#039;s no shortage of places where you can see Judith referenced in high art and popular culture. So despite, again, being part of the so-called deuterocanon or the Apocrypha, This is another story that has had a major impact on history and culture.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it rules.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it kind of rules. Yeah, it rules.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s a very good story.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s good. So you want to talk about it?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I think we should.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I think we should too. We get some errors right off the bat. Like literally chapter one verse one. It was the twelfth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. who ruled over the Assyrians in the great city of Nineveh. That&#039;s wrong. Chris, do you remember who Nebuchadnezzar was the king of?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I do not. I remember Nineveh. Nineveh was where Tobit kept finding all those bodies in the streets.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, well, Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, that&#039;s true. And Nineveh of course is most famous, I think, probably to most people from the story of Jonah, because that&#039;s where he was supposed to go and didn&#039;t want to go. But yeah, we have seen Nineveh. We of course talked about the Assyrian Empire at great length in our Isaiah episode. Nebuchadnezzar we would have encountered in our Daniel episode. Does that help at all?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, so he was Babylonian.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. So yeah, Nebuchadnezzar, who lived from about 605 to about 562 BCE, was the second ruler over the Neo-Babylonian Empire, not the Assyrian Empire. And this story is supposed to be set in the post-Babylonian exile period, right, in which point the the main  dudes of the earth were the Persians and not either the Assyrians or the Neo-Babylonians, aka the Chaldeans. And so in fact what we see here is Nebuchadnezzar as king of the Assyrians battling the Chaldeans. The Chaldeans are the Babylonians, the Neo-Babylonians, the people over whom He was actually the king. And so again, I&#039;m not going to point out like every historical error or anachronism here because there&#039;s a lot, but this is kind of the major one. The setting is wrong, the king is wrong. So like I said, even early communities accepted this as being a folktale or a parable, however, if you want to follow, you know, the idea that this is, you know, the pure inerrant word of God, then you have to think that, you know, the author was putting in intentional miscues to disguise this, or they were code words for someone else or something like that.&lt;br /&gt;
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But anyway, so Nebuchadnezzar is being challenged by King Arphaxad, who is not even quite Robin Hood real, we&#039;ll say. We know nothing about him whatsoever.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well I know about him. I know that he rules over the Medes in Ecbatana.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s true. That&#039;s right.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s Chris one, historian zero.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly. And so yeah, Ecbatana we&#039;ve seen and Medea we&#039;ve seen as well. We saw those in Tobit. Medea is the northern part of Iran, basically the part of Iran that&#039;s not Persia is Medea. And so he rallies together people of the East is the idea. This is gonna be kind of an East and West kind of dispute. And so when Arphaxad gathers together all the countries of the East, Nebuchadnezzar sends out messengers to all the people of the West in Cilicia and Damascus, Lebanon, and anti-Lebanon.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I had a question about that.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is anti-Lebanon where like evil cedar trees are from?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, absolutely. Or counterpoint, what if anti-Lebanon is actually the Earth 3 version of Lebanon, Tennessee? And that&#039;s a city that consumes Cracker Barrels instead of producing them.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;m just throwing it out there. Just throwing it out there.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. The the Anti-Monitor needs to destroy all of the infinite Cracker Barrels.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly. Yeah. Just think about it. Just think. So comics artist Tony Moore, he used to tell me we would we talk about Lebanon, Tennessee. It&#039;s the city where Cracker Barrel comes from. It&#039;s a relatively small town. It&#039;s the county seat of Wilson County, just to the east of Nashville. It&#039;s where comics artist Eric Powell lives or used to live. And it&#039;s where Cracker Barrel is from. And Tony Moore used to say that he had never been to Lebanon, in Tennessee they say &amp;quot;Lebanun&amp;quot;, not Lebanon. He said he imagined that it was just a giant Cracker Barrel-shaped factory with like smoke pouring out and just like master mold of the sentinels. It just produces smaller Cracker Barrel versions of itself that they then ship out across the southeast. So yeah, anti-Lebanon is the is the opposite of that from Earth 3.&lt;br /&gt;
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So anyway, Nebuchadnezzar tries to rally together the kingdoms of the West. And when I say West, of course, we&#039;re still talking about the western parts of the Middle East, basically. And the problem is they tell him to go heck himself, basically. They&#039;re like, &amp;quot;Nebuchadnezzar, you&#039;re one dude. I don&#039;t care. You don&#039;t scare us. No thank you.&amp;quot; And so Nebuchadnezzar is like, &amp;quot;I do not appreciate that. Here&#039;s what I&#039;m gonna do. I&#039;m gonna go out by myself, I&#039;m gonna conquer this whole army of the East, and then when I&#039;m done killing them, I&#039;m gonna come around and get my revenge on you guys for not helping me out here.&amp;quot; And that happens. So score one for Nebuchadnezzar.&lt;br /&gt;
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&amp;quot;In the seventeenth year he led his forces against King Arphaxad, defeated him in battle. overthrowing the whole army of Arphaxad and all his cavalry and all his chariots. Thus he took possession of his towns, and came to Ecbatana, captured its towers, plundered its markets, and turned its glory into disgrace. He captured Arphaxad in the mountains of Regal and struck him down with his spears, thus destroying him once and for all. Then he returned to Nineveh.&amp;quot; So yeah, he&#039;s destroyed the largest army ever combined against him and now he is ready for his revenge against the people who didn&#039;t come help him when he asked. And that&#039;s kind of what kicks off, that&#039;s the inciting incident of the book. We see Nebuchadnezzar assigning his great high general Holofernes or Holofernes And we get pretty great speech here, Chris. Do you want to look at this speech from Nebuchadnezzar? Pretty raw talk here.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s pretty dope. &amp;quot;Thus says the great king, the lord of the whole earth, Leave my presence and take with you men confident in their strength, one hundred and twenty thousand foot soldiers and twelve thousand cavalry. March out against all the land in the west, because they disobeyed my orders. Tell them to prepare earth and water, for I am coming against them in my anger, and will cover the whole face of the earth with the feet of my troops, to whom I will hand them over to be plundered. Their wounded shall fill the ravines and gullies, and the swelling river shall be filled with their dead.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, pretty raw.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So Nebuchadnezzar&#039;s mad.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Now, I have a couple questions for you here that you may or may not know the answer to.&lt;br /&gt;
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Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
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First of all, what does Holofernes mean?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s actually probably a Persian name or similar to a Persian name, I don&#039;t know exactly what it means, because there are historical people with that name or ones similar to it, and so it may have been taken from a Persian general who was a leader in the expedition that invaded the West under Artaxerxes III about 350 BC. So it might come from that, but I do not know what it means.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay. The second thing is, have we talked about earth and water on the show?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We might have, but this is another anachronism because offering up earth and water is a traditional sign of submission among the Persian Empire, and it would have been unheard of with the Assyrians and the Babylonians. So this again, you know, being written in the post-Persian Empire period is a bit of an anachronism.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. And this is something that I&#039;ve heard about before, but I could not remember if we had talked about it on the show or if it was just from listening to like episodes of Hardcore History about the tributes that you would give to someone like Xerxes, for instance.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I&#039;m pretty sure it&#039;s mentioned in 300. I think when the scout comes to visit Sparta, they asked for tributes of earth and water...&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, that&#039;s right. He asks for water and that&#039;s why he gets kicked into the well.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, that&#039;s why he gets kicked into the well. That&#039;s exactly right. Because he demands earth and water, and so he kicks him into the well. That&#039;s exactly right. Yep.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Holofernes just starts going hard on the West.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and I should point out that this army is fantastically large. Like...&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s huge! It&#039;s 132,000 people!&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it is, I mean, when I say fantastically, I mean as in fantasy large. It is stretching the bounds of credibility large. Yeah, and so basically he sets out, &amp;quot;His army was a swarm of locusts locusts like the dust of the earth, a multitude that could not be counted&amp;quot; as he spread out across the West raining Nebuchadnezzar&#039;s revenge upon all these people that wouldn&#039;t help Nebuchadnezzar against Arphaxad.&lt;br /&gt;
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And we see him come through a lot of these places. The geography is kind of mixed up, like the order of his march doesn&#039;t quite make sense. We see that he comes to the southern borders of Japheth, facing Arabia. And if you remember from one of our Genesis episodes, I guess the first one, Japheth, one of the sons of Noah, his lands were Anatolia, that is the subcontinent on which Turkey is and Europe. So the army is stretching stretching out to either Turkey or Southern Europe, depending on how you want to think about that. They surround the Midianites, those are Arabs basically.&lt;br /&gt;
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They burn their tents, and they&#039;re spreading out all over the world. Sidon and Tyre and all these places. The people eventually submit to Nebuchadnezzar and they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;look, stop, we&#039;ll we&#039;ll be your servants. Do with us whatever you will. Our lands are all yours, our flocks are yours. We&#039;ll be your slaves, just don&#039;t kill us, don&#039;t destroy everything.&amp;quot; And Holofernes is like, &amp;quot;yes, good. That is what I will do. Thank you very much for saving me some time.&amp;quot; And they start to have a big party. &amp;quot;The people welcomed him in the countryside with garlands and dances and tambourines.&amp;quot; But then, &amp;quot;Yet he demolished all their shrines and cut down their sacred groves.&amp;quot; Because this is introducing Holofernes now, not just as a military threat, but also as a religious threat, because he&#039;s coming through and saying &amp;quot;the only god is Nebuchadnezzar,&amp;quot; and so he&#039;s destroying all the temples and sacred groves and shrines. And the implication is when he eventually reaches Israel, he&#039;s gonna try and do the same thing. And so, a little sinister here on Holofernes&#039;s part. And yeah, he eventually makes his way to Judea. And the people there are naturally quite alarmed. Because...&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, the the actual heading in the NRSV, because we have the little, they&#039;re not chapter headings, they&#039;re section headings, I guess, is &amp;quot;Judea on the alert.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so here&#039;s the thing, like Judea, especially this region is very hilly and mountainous. That is something that has been very much to the advantage of Israel throughout history. Of course, probably the most famous example of that is the the fortress of Masada up on the hilltop, but during the Roman siege. It&#039;s been much to their advantage, and we can see here that they describe that if they&#039;re gonna try and get into Judea, there&#039;s really only a couple of passes, and one of them is at Bethulia, and the other one is at Betomesthaim. I did not say that right. But anyway, the idea is these mountain passes are very thin. They&#039;re very narrow. They say it&#039;s only wide enough for two at a time to pass. And so they&#039;re going to buckle down and try and, speaking of 300, they&#039;re going to try and 300 this ish, right? And so that that&#039;s the plan laid out by Joachim the high priest, who again has vast political and military powers. But the people are, you know, they&#039;re freaking out a little bit. Then...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You say they&#039;re freaking out a little bit. The text says &amp;quot;They even draped the altar with sackcloth and cried out in unison, praying fervently to the God of Israel not to allow their infants to be carried off and their wives to be taken as booty, and the towns they had inherited to be destroyed, and the sanctuary to be profaned and desecrated to the malicious joy of the Gentiles.&amp;quot; That&#039;s a little more than just kind of freaking out.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; They&#039;re freaking out a lot. Judea, you might say, is on the alert Definitely. So what we get then is Holofernes calls in representatives of the people of Moab and Ammon, the Moabites and the Ammonites. Now, if you&#039;ll recall, from our second episode on Genesis, the Moabites and the Ammonites are the descendants of Lot via his daughters, right? We had that very problematic scene. But the the idea there is that that was an etiology for the origin of two long-standing historical enemies of the Israelites: the Moabites, the Ammonites. And so we see them here. So Moab would have been directly east of the Dead Sea, and Ammon would have been to the northeast. And then soon enough we&#039;re gonna see the Edomites jump in as well, who are gonna be to the southeast of the Dead Sea. So these are all neighbors of Judea. And the people of Moab and the commanders of Ammon, they come in. And Holofernes is like, &amp;quot;who are these people? What towns do they inhabit? How large is their army?&amp;quot; And that kind of stuff.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And so here we get introduced a supporting character, Achior. Achior, a leader of the Ammonites, and he basically gives the Israelite history for dummies compressed tour for Holofernes. And so most of chapter five is Achior laying out the history of the Israelites starting with Abraham up through the Babylonian exile and the return. And so we basically get everything from you know chapter twelve of Genesis up through Nehemiah, more or less, right? Ezra and Nehemiah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. But he crucially talks about that constant back and forth, the struggle with God that we talked about. Which is a key point of this story. He says, &amp;quot;As long as they did not sin against God, they prospered, for the God who hates iniquity is with them. But when they departed from the way that he had prescribed for them, they were utterly defeated in many battles and were led away captive to a foreign land.&amp;quot; So basically, Achior is saying, if they haven&#039;t sinned, you can&#039;t take them.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No matter what you do.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because God&#039;s on their side. All you gotta do is wait it out though.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; So true. And the fact that he&#039;s got that planted, that bug planted in his mind is going to be important for later as well. But while that does kind of seem moralistic and simplistic, like from Bible stories, it&#039;s definitely true. Like Samson, as long as he trusted in God, he had strength. As soon as he didn&#039;t, he lost his strength. You know? And of course the Israelites as a nation, Moses even, you know, everything&#039;s good until it&#039;s not. And then he&#039;s he doesn&#039;t trust in God. and and he&#039;s punished. And so to see it laid out this way, it&#039;s like like Samson and his hair, and the hair is the metaphor for his devotion to God, you know, as long as he keeps that, he&#039;s super strong. And so he&#039;s like, pretty sure they&#039;re on a holy streak right now, so you may not be able to do anything. What happens is Holofernes did not like that response. And so he has he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;if you love these Israelites so much, you get to die with them.&amp;quot; And so he has him bound and chained.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well well first he he gives him his own super raw speech.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh yeah, oh for sure.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is in Judith chapter 6 verse 4. &amp;quot;We will overwhelm them, their mountains will be drunk with their blood, and their fields will be full of their dead. Not even their footprints will survive our attack, they will utterly perish.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Again, I love the effort that this book puts in. Because again, this is chapter 6. Judith is 15 chapters long. Judith has not shown up yet. It&#039;s just bad guys and backstory at this point. And they&#039;re very, very strong bad guys.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, absolutely they are. This while we&#039;re while we&#039;re here, this bit right here at verse six in chapter six. Where Holofernes he says, &amp;quot;Then at my return, the sword of my army and the spear of my servants shall pierce your sides, and you shall fall among their wounded.&amp;quot; Like part of me is like, &amp;quot;Some medieval Christian guy definitely perked up at the site of `Sphere Through the Side, right?`&amp;quot; Like that&#039;s a thing where he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;What if this book is about Jesus, though?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Absolutely.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So enough, I mean, it&#039;s we already talked about the parallels with the Virgin Mary, of course, that have been latched onto, but that was one where I saw that and I was like, &amp;quot;Oh man, some guy.&amp;quot; Christians, not everything has to be for you, man. Just you don&#039;t have to put your finger in every pie. I&#039;m just I&#039;m just saying.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So anyway, yeah, they they chain up Achior, they take him to Bethulia, and they intend to hand him over to the Israelites. They basically they lay him out on a hill. And here we get introduced to some of the magistrates of Bethulia. We get Uzziah, son of Micah, Uzziah, whose name means &amp;quot;Yah is my strength.&amp;quot; It&#039;s a fairly common name for Bible characters. We&#039;ll see that name again and again in other books. And also we get Chabris, son of Gothoniel, and Charmis, son of Melchiel. So we&#039;re gonna see those three guys a couple times here, but they run out under suppressing fire from slings, which is wild.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s pretty dope, actually.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; They run out and they rescue Achior. And they bring him in, and he basically tells them, like, &amp;quot;hey man, here&#039;s what went down with Holofernes. Here&#039;s what&#039;s gonna happen.&amp;quot;  But what they don&#039;t know Is that while Achior is talking to the Israelites, meanwhile, the Moabites and then the Edomites who have not even been here, like they&#039;ve not even mentioned before. I like to imagine like I imagine that Edomites busting through the wall like the Kool-Aid man, like, &amp;quot;oh yeah, I hate Israel too.&amp;quot; And so they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;Here&#039;s the plan. You&#039;re not going to be able to storm through with your giant army through the hills because they use the geography to their advantage. What you&#039;re going to have to do is realize that they rely on these springs down at the bottom of these hills. If you fortify the springs, they won&#039;t have enough water and you can siege them that way. They&#039;ll have to surrender because without water, they&#039;ll have famine and sickness, and they&#039;ll start to die, and they&#039;ll just surrender on their own if you camp out around those springs.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And so that&#039;s the new plan and that&#039;s the plan that they start to carry out. And it works – for a while because so the Assyrian army encamped in the plane &amp;quot;And then the Israelites cried out to the Lord their God, for their courage failed, because all their enemies had surrounded them and there was no way of escape from them. Their cisterns were going dry. And on no day did they have enough water to drink, for their drinking water was rationed. Their children were listless, and the women and young men fainted from thirst and were collapsing in the streets of the town and in the gateways, and they no longer had any strength.&amp;quot; Things are going exceptionally bad. They intend to surrender, but we see Uzziah come out. And he says, &amp;quot;Courage, my brothers and sisters, let us hold out for five more days. By that time the Lord our God will turn his mercy to us again, for he will not forsake us utterly. But if these days pass by and no help comes for us, I will do as you say.&amp;quot; So yeah, things are bad in the town, there&#039;s great misery, but in those days, Judith heard about these things.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; By God! By God, that&#039;s Judith&#039;s music! What&#039;s she doing here?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh man.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so here comes Judith. Judith&#039;s great.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and we get this incredibly long and probably fictional genealogy for Judith. &amp;quot;The daughter of Merari, son of Ox,&amp;quot; from the enforcers possibly, you can&#039;t tell me no. &amp;quot;Son of Joseph, son of Oziel, son of Elkaiah, son of Ananias, son of Gideon, son of Raphain, son of Ahitub, son of Elijah, son of Hilkiah, son of Eliab, son of Nathanael, son of Salamiel, son of Sarasadai, son of Israel.&amp;quot; Most of these names do not exist elsewhere in the Bible.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Israel, we&#039;ve got. That&#039;s, that&#039;s Jacob.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, he&#039;s that dude&#039;s got a lot of sons. I do not recall one named Sarasadai. So it might be a different Israel. I don&#039;t know. These names can&#039;t be identified, basically. A lot of them are unparalleled in the Old Testament. Some of them we don&#039;t see anywhere else. But we get a little bit of her back story. We learn that Judith is a widow. Her husband&#039;s name was Manasseh, not any of the Manassehs we&#039;ve encountered before, but again that&#039;s just a common name. We learned that Manasseh worked in a barley field, and he died of heat stroke. He stood overseeing those who were binding sheaves in the field. He was overcome by the burning heat, and took to his bed and died in his town Bethulia.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So what we then learn about Judith is that she is not only a widow, she&#039;s an exceptionally pious one. She does everything she&#039;s supposed to do. She fasts every day, except for the days where it is expressly forbidden to fast. On the Sabbath and the day before the Sabbath, days before the new moon, days of the new moon, festivals, and so on. Every other day she&#039;s fasting. She wears sackcloth around her waist like she&#039;s supposed to. She wears widow&#039;s clothing. All the things that she&#039;s supposed to do. &amp;quot;No one spoke ill of her, for she feared God with great devotion.&amp;quot; So: incredibly pious. Like it&#039;s very important to note that except for the major events of deceit and murder, Judith is an incredibly pious person who follows the law of the Torah, like to the T. Even when she goes into Holofernes&#039; camp, like she still keeps Kosh. Like she&#039;s so serious about it.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; In my head, Judith, at this point in the story is wearing overalls and glasses and she&#039;s got her hair in a ponytail.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But don&#039;t worry, she&#039;s about to She&#039;s All That herself.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Very soon, in fact, yeah. So she goes out to the people of Bethulia and she schools them, basically. She says...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, she says some dope shit.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, you have something you have something you want to feature here, Chris?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Do not try to bind the purposes of the Lord our God, for God is not like a human being to be threatened.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Or a mere mortal to be won over by pleading.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Absolutely. Her key message is like. &amp;quot;who are you to put God to the test today?&amp;quot; This thing where you&#039;re setting a deadline for God, five days, right? &amp;quot;Who are you to put God to the test? God is testing us, idiots,&amp;quot; right? And so she kind of bookends her speech with like, don&#039;t test God, God is testing us. And so, and I love this bit. This  is one of my favorite bits in the whole book. Uzziah comes to her and he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Oh you wanna help? Okay. Very good, sweetie. Here&#039;s how you can help. Why don&#039;t you go pray that God sends rain so we don&#039;t die of thirst?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is so good. This is so good. This is verse 32 of chapter 8.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is probably the most boss flex we have seen anybody lay out in the entire Bible so far, right? Like is there anything that parallels just like the rawness of this like dope flex right here?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Legitimately the only thing I can think of is when the soldier showed up and asked Jesus if he was Jesus and he knocked them over by saying, &amp;quot;I am.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s true. That&#039;s true. that&#039;s a pretty good one. But yeah, she says, &amp;quot;Listen to me. I&#039;m about to go do something that will go down through all generations of our descendants.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is true.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is true, because here we are.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here we are.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Over 2,000 years later talking about how raw this is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then Uzziah says &amp;quot;Go in peace and may the Lord God go before you to take vengeance on our enemies.&amp;quot; And she says, &amp;quot;God&#039;s gonna sit this one out.&amp;quot; No wait, I&#039;m sorry, that was the Punisher. The Punisher said that one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But, you know, no, God&#039;s definitely on her side, which again, not quite orthodox because she is definitely planning on breaking some commandments. But chapter nine is basically her is her prayer, her prayer to God. And so a lot of people, you know... The author does not see a moral inconsistency in Judith praying for divine help in her deceit and murder. But obviously some later scholars have. But there&#039;s still some a lot of the weight to it. The idea that it&#039;s gonna be a single woman who destroys an entire hundreds, thousands strong army, but at that time it would have been like particularly like it&#039;s definitely insult to injury, right? The fact that it&#039;s a woman who&#039;s gonna topple this entire army.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well here&#039;s what I thought was interesting about this scene, because we&#039;re moving into chapter nine now, this is the prayer of Judith. Judith references the story of Dinah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And is like there is no ambiguity for Judith about who was right in that situation.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. It also helps that we learn here that Judith is of the tribe of Simeon. And Simeon was the guy who went and killed all the recently circumcised guys and burnt their city to the ground. Simeon and Levi.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Who Death Wish-ed everybody – Death Wish 3&#039;ed everybody in the book of Genesis.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, exactly. So there&#039;s a tie there, right, between the story of Simeon and Dinah and Shechem. That&#039;s very much n the background, like that&#039;s in the idea space. That&#039;s the ambient radiation of this story is is Dinah and the revenge there in the background. Definitely, definitely Judith is calling on the power of Simeon to get revenge on some dirty dudes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But like we get another pretty amazing Line from Judith here. &amp;quot;Look at their pride and send your wrath upon their heads. Give to me, a widow, the strong hand to do what I plan. By the deceit of my lips strike down the slave with the prince, and the prince with his servant, crush their arrogance by the hand of a woman.&amp;quot; Dope.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Very dope. Incredibly dope.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you&#039;re looking for a tattoo, if you&#039;re looking for a verse, something to put on the scroll around the dagger to get you through these tough times. I would say maybe the Book of Judith, chapter nine, verse ten. Is a good one?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very good. Just a scroll going around a sword stuck through the head of Holofernes. Or whoever.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And the great thing is Holofernes can look like whoever you want him to look like.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; He could look like anyone. He could look like any face that might have been at a Senate hearing in recent days. Any face.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So Judith&#039;s plan starts out like I think all great plans do. The Joker&#039;s plan in the Dark Knight, the plan in Skyfall, Star Wars.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; She&#039;s gonna get captured on purpose.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I thought you were gonna say a makeover, and then I was trying to apply that to some of those movies. The Joker, I was there with you, but then I was like, is there a makeover in Skyfall? I don&#039;t remember. Yeah, she changes out of her widow&#039;s clothes. She puts on her most beautiful clothing and jewelry. It goes to great lengths to explain how beautiful she is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Before there were montages, there was this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. &amp;quot;She combed her hair, put on a tiara, dressed herself in the festive attire that she used to wear while her husband Manasseh was living. She put sandals on her feet put on her anklets, bracelets, rings, earrings, and all other jewelry. Thus she made herself very beautiful to entice the eyes of all the men who might see her.&amp;quot; Yeah, and then, yes, as Chris says, she goes to get captured on purpose. She wanders out to the the encampment of the Assyrians, and she basically flirts her way into the tent of Holofernes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, she&#039;s not alone.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, she has a maidservant who, like we said, Ocean&#039;s 2.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do we know anything about her? Because I don&#039;t believe she&#039;s named in this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, she&#039;s not.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Unless I missed it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, I don&#039;t think there&#039;s a name or any other information about her.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s no midrash about this?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, there might be. I shouldn&#039;t say that. Yeah, there might be midrash. I don&#039;t know. I don&#039;t know them. It might be in the Talmud. if you know, give us a shout. Someone hook us up with a link to the the secret backstory of Judith&#039;s hand servant, and that would be good.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Let&#039;s just call her Alfred.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ll call her Alfred. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so she goes in. All the guys in the Assyrian camp are basically Tex Avery wolves at this point. They&#039;re like, &amp;quot;who are you?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I&#039;m a daughter of the Hebrews. I&#039;m fleeing from them, for they&#039;re about to be handed over to you to be devoured. I&#039;m on my way to see Holofernes, the commander of your army, to give him a true report. I&#039;ll show him a way by which he can go and capture all the hill country without losing one of his men, captured or slain.&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;Cool, this is good. You just saved your own life by defecting to us.&amp;quot; They lead her to Holofernes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And we get this description of Holofernes in his tent. &amp;quot;The guards of Holofernes and all of his servants came out and led her into the tent. Holofernes was resting on his bed under a canopy that was woven with purple and gold, emeralds and other precious stones. When they told him of her, he came to the front of the tent with silver lamps carried before him. When Judith came into the presence of Holofernes and his servants, they all marveled at the beauty of her face. She prostrated herself and did obeisance to him, but his slaves raised her up.&amp;quot; So I want to take a minute because this is the one quote that I have from the Anglo-Saxon epic poem about Judith. This is the description of this scene. &amp;quot;There was hung all golden a fair fly net round the bed of the folk leader that the baleful one, the chief of warriors, might look through on each child of the brave who came therein, and none might look on him.&amp;quot; So the idea here is that this gold links chained canopy is like a mosquito net and it&#039;s designed in such a way that he can see out but people can&#039;t see in. And so that gives him you know kind of an upper hand over there. But that&#039;s that&#039;s the only little quote I have from the Anglo-Saxon Judith. I&#039;ll probably try and find– I&#039;m sure there&#039;s a text of it online that I can link to for anyone who might be interested in that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Okay, so here we&#039;re at chapter 11 now, and what I love about this is like there is a clear demarcation now where pretty much everything Judith says is a complete equivocation where it&#039;s true on the surface, but it has another meaning. So if you&#039;re looking for like examples of this kind of verbal irony, a lot of it plays on the idea of her using the phrase, &amp;quot;my lord,&amp;quot; right? Holofernes, of course, assumes that she means him when in fact she&#039;s talking about you know, capital L Lord, God. So when she says something like, &amp;quot;If you follow the words of your servant, God will accomplish something through you, and my Lord will not fail to achieve his purposes.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s the first thing she says to him.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s like at the end when there&#039;s the flashback.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And like the coffee cup drops.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; The coffee cup is dropping. You cut back to like, &amp;quot;oh I see what you mean now,&amp;quot; yeah. Yeah, this is starting to set up all the bits, and if you&#039;re paying close attention, especially if you know what&#039;s going to happen, you can see her sowing the seeds, and there&#039;s definitely a strong air of dramatic irony about so much of what she says, because she&#039;s always like, &amp;quot;Yes, my lord will prevail.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Something that no one will ever forget is about to happen today.&amp;quot; Right? That kind of stuff is is happening all the time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And so what she says to him, her information to him is that she repeats the things that Achior had told him before, the idea that Israel&#039;s strength waxes and wanes with their devotion to God. And she says, &amp;quot;I happen to know that because of the dire thirst that the people are experiencing, the famine and the drought, their faith is at an all-time low. It&#039;s absolutely ebbing at this point, to the point where they are eating and drinking food and wine that they&#039;re not supposed to. They&#039;re planning to kill livestock that had been set aside for God. They&#039;re consuming the first fruits of the grain which is set aside for God. The tithes of wine and oil they&#039;re going to use.&amp;quot; And so what she says to him, and this is important, like it seems like a weird detail, but it&#039;s important to the heist. She says, &amp;quot;Every night in the middle of the night, I need to go out of your tent and out into the valley to pray to God. And God will tell me when they&#039;re being their most unfaithful, and that&#039;s when you can go and attack. So I&#039;m here and I&#039;m gonna go out of your tent every night, out into the valley and I&#039;m gonna pray.&amp;quot; And so she sets this up and establishes this early on. And Holofernes is like, &amp;quot;this sounds great. I&#039;m on board.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and then she tells him, this might as well be &amp;quot;and then Judith turned and winked to us.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Uh-huh.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; She tells him T&amp;quot;hen I will lead you through Judea until you come to Jerusalem. There I will set your throne.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep, again.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That could not be more ominous.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; All true. It&#039;s all true In a technical sense, it is all true. Yeah, and so then we get this established for a couple of days. Judith and Holofernes...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Holofernes then goes, &amp;quot;Sounds great.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Sounds great. I&#039;m very on board. I&#039;m incredibly on board to all the things you just said.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And she&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Yeah, I think you&#039;re going to get &#039;a head&#039; in this war.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah, oh yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;I&#039;ll make sure to stay sharp when I go out at night.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We start getting the pattern established where she spends her days with Holofernes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;As soon as I hear the good word from God, I&#039;ll &#039;be-heading&#039; back to this tent.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; There we go.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; To let you know.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; There is. Hey Chris, why do you keep &#039;cutting me off?&#039; Anyway, so yeah, the pattern is established. She spends the day with Holofernes in the tent, at night she goes out in the middle of the night to pray. So Holofernes&#039; guards and servants are used to her going out in the middle of the night.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And as you mentioned, she she only eats and drinks her own food that her and her maid brought.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; He invites her to a banquet and he&#039;s like, I have all this stuff, and she&#039;s like &amp;quot;Nah, I have this big bag full of kosher food and I&#039;m just gonna eat that.&amp;quot; And he&#039;s and he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Well if your supply runs out, will you eat with me?&amp;quot; And she&#039;s like &amp;quot;Don&#039;t worry, it&#039;s not gonna run out.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, I won&#039;t be staying that long.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. No, she says, &amp;quot;your servant will not use up the supplies I have with me before the Lord carries out by my hand what he has determined.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Let&#039;s not get ahead of ourselves.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And then once again, we finally get to the day. It&#039;s happening.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is happening.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Judith rolls up into Holofernes&#039; tent. Holofernes is the thirst is real with my dude.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, both in both senses.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. He had been waiting for an opportunity to seduce her, so he says, &amp;quot;Have a drink and be merry with us.&amp;quot; And Judith says, &amp;quot;I will gladly drink, my lord, because today is the greatest day of my whole life.&amp;quot; And then she proceeds to straight Marion Ravenwood him and get him trashed.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. And so here&#039;s where that mid-rosh comes in. Okay? According to the the midrash about Judith, the way she gets him to keep drinking wine is she keeps feeding him cheese, and the cheese makes him thirsty. Or phleghmy or something, I don&#039;t know. So he keeps drinking wine, and because of all that cheese, he gets drunk because he has to drink all the wine to wash down his cheese. And so, some people eat a lot of cheese at Hanukkah. And so I I know that&#039;s not as popular as some as obviously latkes or like sufganiyot or whatever else you might eat, the fried foods that you eat at Hanukkah. But I do know some Groups do eat cheese. Let me know if you eat cheese at Hanukkah, also let me know if you eat those mozzarella sticks because then you got the fried thing going on. for Judah Maccabee and you got the cheese for Judith. So please let me know if you just like you you hit a TGI Fridays for Hanukkah and you&#039;re just like unlimited. mozzo sticks, please. Oh, that didn&#039;t I didn&#039;t mean to say matzah, but like mozzarella. Whatever. Maybe matzah breaded mozzarella. Let me know. Just let me know if you got that fried cheese going on at Hanukkah because you can. It&#039;s here in Bible. Yeah, now Holofernes&#039;s good and drunk.  He&#039;s completely turnt. And so the slaves are leaving because they know what&#039;s supposed to be happening now. Right? This is like the fourth day in the tenth, so it&#039;s basically third date rules, I guess.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And Judith&#039;s like, &amp;quot;hey, if you hear any chopping noises or screaming for help. Totally normal. Don&#039;t worry about it.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;That&#039;s just how that&#039;s just how we do it in Bethulia. So if you if you hear any...&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;If like if you hear like a man&#039;s voice saying &#039;what are you doing with that sword?&#039;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Totally it&#039;s a metaphor, we don&#039;t need to get into it, but just everything&#039;s totally, totally norms.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Yeah, this is this is just how my people do. If you do it different in Assyria, I&#039;m sorry.&amp;quot; Yeah, so everyone&#039;s cleared out except for Judith and Holofernes. She takes down Holofernes&#039;s own sword.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s three major players in this. There&#039;s Judith, there&#039;s Holofernes, and there&#039;s Holofernes&#039;s sword. &amp;quot;Now indeed is the time to help your heritage and to carry out my design to destroy the enemies who have risen up against us.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s a good prayer if you&#039;re about to behead somebody.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Here&#039;s what I think is the most brutal detail in this entire story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That it takes two chops?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It takes two. She doesn&#039;t get all the way through with the first one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So, yeah, she cut through his neck twice with all her might, cut off his head, rolls the body onto the floor, then steals his canopy. And then we see why she have that giant bag for food? Well it&#039;s her s-s-sneaking-sneaking out a head bag. It&#039;s Ocean&#039;s 2, baby. Ocean&#039;s 2. That bag&#039;s there for a reason. And then we see like she and her handmaid go out to the valley to pray, and everyone&#039;s like, &amp;quot;that is normal. That has what is what has been happening every night,&amp;quot; Except they&#039;re not going to pray, they&#039;re going to run back to Bethulia. And so, like, very well thought out heist, head heist. It&#039;s still robbery. They just stole a man&#039;s head. That&#039;s what it was.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean, at this point, he&#039;s not using it. It belongs to Judith.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s Judith&#039;s now. Why steal a diamond when you can steal the head of the general of your greatest enemies? Yeah, so pretending that they&#039;re going back to the valley to pray, they make their way back to the hills where the people of Bethulia greet her, and are kind of wigged out that she managed to do this thing. She pulls the head out of the bag and says, &amp;quot;Look, the head of Holofernes, the commander of the Assyrian army, and also his canopy, which I stole for some reason.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;The Lord has struck him down by the hands of a woman. As the Lord lives who has protected me in the way I went, I swear that it was my face that seduced him in his destruction, and that he committed no sin with me to defile and shame me.&amp;quot; That&#039;s an important detail, right? Because, she has to prove that she did not actually do the deed with him. He was just thirsty for her face. And to prove that she remained completely chaste. The people are astonished.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And we get this kind of cool detail when Achior comes in. &amp;quot;They summon Achior from the house of Uzziah. He came in and he saw the head of Holofernes and he fainted.&amp;quot; This is cool. This is...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Normal.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is cool because we also got that set up earlier when when he kicks Achior out, Holofernes says to him, he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;You&#039;re not gonna see you&#039;re not gonna see my face again until the day of my victory.&amp;quot; And here it here it is. It&#039;s not his victory, but victory over him, I suppose. And so yeah, Achior is the first to thank God for the for the death of Holofernes and the destruction of the Assyrian army. And so here, yeah, in complete flagrant disregard for Deuteronomy 23:3, they convert Achior to Judaism and he&#039;s circumcised and everything. That verse says that Ammonites and Moabites...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Two chops.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
 &#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Moabites and Ammonites cannot be converted. Yeah. Oh yeah, two chops, yeah. Moabites and Ammonites can&#039;t be converted to Judaism because, it turns out, because they did not bring out food and water for the Israelites when they returned from the desert they were supposed to have a bigger party for them and as a result they&#039;re not allowed into heaven, etc. I know Judaism doesn&#039;t have heaven per se, but you know what I mean. They&#039;re not allowed into covenant with God.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
 So yeah, they hang the head of Holofernes on the wall, and then their plan is Judith sends their army to come out as if they&#039;re about to attack. And so when the Assyrians wake up in the morning, they look and they see, &amp;quot;oh shoot, the Israelites are coming, go wake up Holofernes.&amp;quot; And so then when Bagoas, this is the name of Holofernes&#039; eunuch, who&#039;s in charge of stuff, including women, as eunuchs frequently were. He goes and knocks at the entry of the tent, because he supposed that Holofernes was sleeping with Judith, &amp;quot;But when no one answered he opened it and went into the bedchamber, found him sprawled on the floor dead, with his head missing. He cried out with a loud voice and wept and groaned and shouted and torn his tore his clothes.&amp;quot; And so yeah, the Assyrians start to panic, they start to run away, that doubles down. When Uzziah sends messengers out to the other villages of the Israelites, and now the full Israelite army comes and is able to chase off the Assyrians who are now literally headless. The head of their head has been cut off, and so they have no commander. And they basically get chased back. to Assyria.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Look, Holofernes is the Death Star. We got it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like he&#039;s the thing. They do have a hundred and seventy thousand other dudes there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. None of them it turns out were good at army. So, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I am not at all cheapening Judas actions. I&#039;m saying it is established: there are a hundred and seventy thousand people surrounding Jerusalem at this point.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Quick comparison. During the reign of Augustus, the Roman army numbered 250,000.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Entirely. For the empire.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. This is again, an implausible number of people.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s a very large number of people. It&#039;s a San Diego Comic-Con of people.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And you know what? If someone cut off Wil Wheaton&#039;s head, they would have run away too.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Definitely not advocating it. Definitely not advocating it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Definitely not. I&#039;m not saying, I&#039;m not saying I&#039;m not advocating violence against Wil Wheaton. I&#039;m just saying that if you cut off Wil Wheaton&#039;s head, the entirety of San Diego Comic-Con would run through the whole district. They&#039;d be gone.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That is fair. That is fair.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We get the again truly implausible detail that it took them thirty days to plunder the camp. There could not have been that much stuff there. But Judith gets the tent of Holofernes with all of his silverware and his beds, his bowls, his furniture. She loads them up on a cart and she brings them back with the intent to dedicate them all to God because again, Judith is a very pious and devout woman who always does the right thing. We get ivy-wreathed wands, we get olive wreaths. That&#039;s another clue that this is probably in a post-Hellenistic world because that&#039;s a thing that Greek people did, olive wreaths, that&#039;s not a Jewish thing. And then we get Judith&#039;s hymn of Thanksgiving, which is basically, she writes an epic ballad about herself from the perspective of a personified Israel. Which is pretty baller.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Pretty great. And then much like we did last week, we have a woman with agency who accomplishes something great and then lives a long and happy life.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we see her live to the age of 105. She never marries again. She stay she remains a widow for the rest of her life, even though she&#039;s the most beautiful woman in Israel. She is she&#039;s the face she&#039;s the face that killed 175,000 men.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Canonically, &amp;quot;her sandal ravished his eyes.&amp;quot; That&#039;s how hot she is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. Her shoes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Her shoes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Unless it&#039;s just Unless we are to believe that Judith 169 is just telling us that Holofernes was like a foot guy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Could be both. Could be both.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Could be both.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Could be both.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Could be both.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And yeah, so she lives to be 105, she never remarries. she is honored by the whole country. Despite the fact that many men tried to woo her, she did not give in. 105, she grew old. She set her maid free. She died in Bethulia, she&#039;s buried next to her husband, and then all of her belongings, which were great wealth, we know, because she took the highest and best plunder from the camp of Holofernes, all of that was distributed to her relatives in accordance with the law. So even post-death, Judith is still following the Torah to a T.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and the entire House of Israel mourned her passing for seven days, which is pretty good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; They lowered Holofernes&#039; head to half staff.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah, they just flew that gold canopy on a flagpole. So what do you think, Chris?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I think the story of Judith is pretty great, is what I think.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we had zero miracles.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Zero miracles.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Another thing that ties it into Esther a little bit, right? Esther pretty famously the canonical book that does not explicitly mention God, although God is mentioned many, many times in this book, we don&#039;t see active use of his hand. And yeah, no miracle healing fish or angels popping down to do anything. Yeah, it&#039;s just...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, Raphael does not show up to go fight Satan in Egypt at any point in this story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is a regular non-flaming and eye-covered sword that chops off Holofernes&#039; head. Also, as you mentioned, solidly written, like engagingly written, and translated, we specifically, I think we mentioned this at the beginning. We used the NRSV version of this story. But like very fun and action-packed. A good one to read, I think.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and it&#039;s it&#039;s not that long either. It&#039;s yeah, sixteen chapters. In my edition of the NRSV it takes up it&#039;s about twenty pages, but that includes lots of footnotes. So you could probably find it shorter than that. So if you if you haven&#039;t read it yet, I do recommend maybe giving this one a read. It&#039;s very cool. It&#039;s a really good one. And you can see why it&#039;s a popular inspiration for different pieces of art. I will definitely be posting a gallery of different paintings and sculptures of Judith on our Tumblr. for this week.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Did you have a verse that we didn&#039;t already talk about?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039;  I think we basically covered all the ones I wrote down as possibilities because The first one I wanna wanted to talk about was the was from [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judith%206%3A2-6&amp;amp;version=NRSVUE Holofernes&#039; speech about the about the valleys filling with blood]. That was one. Then I considered possibly [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judith%208%3A32-34&amp;amp;version=NRSVUE Judith&#039;s very raw drop about doing something that will go down through all the generations.] And then I also considered 13:4, which was oh yeah,this is what she this is h er prayer right before she kills Holofernes. &amp;quot;So O Lord God of Almighty look in this hour on the work of my hands for the exaltation of Jerusalem. Now indeed is the time to help your heritage and to carry out my design to destroy the enemies who have risen up against us.&amp;quot; So I had all those picked, but we covered we kinda covered all of them during the show, which I kind of figured we would because there&#039;s so many very raw speeches in this one. Did you have one, Chris?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We already did them, but I specifically highlighted [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judith%208%3A32-34&amp;amp;version=NRSVUE 8:32], which is Judith announcing that she is gonna go down in history.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Calling her shot.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer or George Washington. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Or Judith.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But I think the the winners in this one are Judith 9:9-10.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Judith chapter nine verses nine through ten: &amp;quot;Look at their pride, and send your wrath upon their heads. Give to me, a widow, the strong hand to do what I plan. By the deceit of my lips strike down the slave with the prince and the prince with his servant; crush their arrogance by the hand of a woman.&amp;quot; Especially that last bit. That is solid. Solid stuff...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very choice.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; ...from our pal the Bible. So that is the story of Judith. Very, very fun. But we are going to come back next week with the first part of a two-part Halloween Scare-tacular.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s right. Yeah, two-part Spook-toberfest. We&#039;re gonna do the one where the devil descended to hell, The Gospel of Nicodemus, aka the Acts of Pilate, aka the Descent into Hell. We&#039;re gonna see Jesus, what he did on his Saturday off between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, that&#039;s right, everybody. It&#039;s time for the harrowing of hell.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s the one. There&#039;s some other stuff that happens.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know I love it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Some other stuff happens too.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know I love it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But yeah. We&#039;re definitely gonna see Satan as a character with with lines that say stuff. So yeah, we&#039;re gonna get a little bit of a rehash of the the crucifixion and resurrection, but plenty of stuff in hell. We&#039;re gonna see the return of many of these patriarchs that we have encountered recently. Some names that should be familiar. But yeah, it should be a fun time. Part one of a two-part Spooktoberfest, Spooktacular, Boo-serbration. I don&#039;t know. I&#039;ve completely lost it there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But that is gonna be next week. And I am very excited about it. You know that&#039;s a story I&#039;ve been talking about since we started that I did not know was not in the canonical Bible.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But I think that that goes to your point. Like this this stuff exists even to me in pop culture.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Until we&#039;re back in action here, where can everybody find us, Benito?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so like I&#039;ve been mentioning throughout the show, if you want to see supplementary materials like links, we posted a lot of links to articles given to us by our good friend David Wolkin, recently. We also post images of art related to the stories that we do, also fan art when we get it. We had a very choice piece of Thecla art that came in this past week that you guys should absolutely go check out if you haven&#039;t seen it. It&#039;s definitely Thecla shrouded in fire, a vat full of dead seals and so on. You can find all that stuff on our Tumblr at [https://apocrypals.tumblr.com apocrypals dot tumbler dot com]. Follow us there. We also post links, especially to things that you can&#039;t find or may not be able to find in a print version of the Bible. When we read things like, for example, the Gospel of Nicodemus, we&#039;ll have links on our site that you can find there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Also, if you enjoy the show and you want to help us continue to make the show, if you want to help support us a little bit monetarily, you can do so by going to [https://ko-fi.com/apocrypals K O dash F I dot com slash apocrypals]. That&#039;s [https://ko-fi.com/apocrypals kofi dot com slash apocrypals], where you basically can help support the show in the form of a tip in multiples of $3. So if you feel like we&#039;re doing a good job and you want to help us continue to make the show, pay for things like hosting, music, reference books, and that kind of stuff that we use on the show, drop us a little bit of cash to show your appreciation. We appreciate it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you can&#039;t do that, or you just don&#039;t want to do that, but you do want to still help the show, not in a monetary fashion, you can do that by dropping us a review on your favorite podcaster of choice, whether that be iTunes. Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, I don&#039;t think has reviews, but you know, especially iTunes, if you give us a rating and a review, or Apple Podcasts, I suppose they call it now, but give us a give us a rating and review. We&#039;ve gotten some really nice reviews in the last week. Like sometimes it&#039;ll go a while without any reviews, but we&#039;ve gotten like four in the last couple of days that were all really great and we super appreciate you guys doing that. So yeah, leaving us rating and reviews help us get featured, help us bump up that Christian comedy chart, which is our our number one goal, obviously.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I feel like the number one goal is the clutch @Pontifex retweet.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, still waiting on that. We do definitely have a Catholic priest from Alabama who plays the guitar, who&#039;s very much in our corner, and we appreciate that. He&#039;s also dropped us some money at Kofi, which I appreciate, super appreciate. I know he&#039;s listening to this and will hear this. I think he&#039;s a couple episodes behind, but we definitely appreciate that. But yeah, still waiting for that @Pontifix. Otherwise, if you want to find me, I&#039;m on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, just search for Benito Cereno. You&#039;ll find me. I&#039;m there. Chris, what about you?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You can find all of my stuff by going to [https://the-isb.com T H E dash I S B dot com]. That has links to all the stuff that I write around the web and also has links to comic books that I write. The Army of Darkness Halloween special is coming out soon. That has stories by both of us. Me and my writing partner, Chad Bowers and Benito did stories in there. I&#039;ve also got Infinity Wars Sleepwalker coming out now. Chad and I wrote that one with art by Todd Nauck, and it&#039;s really fun. If you&#039;ve ever wondered what the insides of the Infinity Stones look like, then Sleepwalker will take you on a tour. And I got to see the the reality stone interior today for the first time, like full color finished. It&#039;s great.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I love it. I gotta tell you, Chris, it&#039;s very good. I read it, it&#039;s very good. Like it&#039;s been a long time. It&#039;s been a long time since I&#039;ve bought... There&#039;s been a like a comic book event story where I&#039;ve bought all the tie-ins. It might have been like Final Crisis might have been the last time I did that. And Final Crisis might literally be the only other time I&#039;ve ever done this. But I&#039;ve bought every tie-in to Infinity Wars like and Infinity Countdown before that. And like you had stuff for that. You did the Darkhawk story. And like everything has been good. All of these Infinity Warp stories have been very cool. The Sleepwalker is very cool. I was very glad to see the return of Silhouette, one of my favorite characters, even though I know that was Chad&#039;s addition and not yours, because you did not read early 90s New Warriors. But I&#039;ve been saying for years that Silhouette is ripe for a return. Like this is the era in which Silhouette could flourish and nobody&#039;s been using her. So I&#039;m glad to see her pop up in your book. That was very cool.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; People were very excited about her. You&#039;re not alone.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Also, this is the first place I have said this, because it came in while we were recording, actually.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Dracula the Unconquered number four is done.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hey!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That is a comic that&#039;s been in the works for years. Dracula the Unconquered was a series that I started with Steve Downer and Josh Croc. Seven years ago.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, alright.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Number four is done.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Nice.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So I&#039;m very excited about it. This is it&#039;s probably gonna be out on Halloween on Comixology and it&#039;s got Carmilla in it. This is the Carmilla issue that I&#039;m very excited about, and it it looks great. And I&#039;m very excited for people to read it. I really – it&#039;s been long enough since I wrote it that I kinda read it for the first time today and it was really fun.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and if people if people have not read that, you should check it out because the premise is what if Dracula was also an Uncle Scrooge? It&#039;s very good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, what if Dracula had world traveling adventures with his young lady sidekick?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; In Europe in 1901. so that&#039;s that, everybody. Also, Benito, you&#039;ve got a bunch of Halloween comics, but we we&#039;re we&#039;re plugging, we can&#039;t we can&#039;t be here all day.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, no, no, no, definitely not.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Check all that stuff out. Thank you for listening. So be here next week when we talk about the gospel of Nicodemus. Until then, for Benito Cereno, I&#039;ve been Chris Sims. Benito, peace be with you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And also with you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music: &amp;quot;Heads Will Roll&amp;quot; by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Episode_List&amp;diff=138</id>
		<title>Episode List</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Episode_List&amp;diff=138"/>
		<updated>2026-02-09T01:49:57Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: /* Episodes */&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;In each episode, [[Benito Cereno|Benito]] and [[Chris Sims|Chris]] read, watch or play something from the Bible (or Bible-adjacent) and talk about its history, authors, and contents. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
You can listen to all episodes at the show&#039;s [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com Libsyn page] or by subscribing through [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/apocrypals/id1366302177 Apple Podcasts]. [[Bonus Episodes|Bonus video episodes]] can all be seen on [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvsqJ485UTPgVIP1i-BTgMfSsmk4S7ouE Benito&#039;s YouTube channel].&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Episodes==&lt;br /&gt;
{| class=&amp;quot;wikitable sortable&amp;quot; style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
! Episode !! &amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;Date&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp; !! Title !! Subject !! Source !! Transcript&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/episode-0-ive-been-to-my-share-of-pizza-parties 0] || 2018-03-29 || [[I&#039;ve Been To My Share of Pizza Parties]] || nonspecific || || [[I&#039;ve Been To My Share of Pizza Parties (Transcript) | Yes]] &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/porky-party-the-book-of-acts 1] || 2018-04-08 || [[Porky Party]] || Acts || New Testament || [[Porky Party (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/2-one-weird-trick-the-book-of-daniel-with-apocrypha 2] || 2018-04-14 || [[One Weird Trick]] || Daniel as well as The Prayer of Azariah aka the Song of the Three Holy Children; Susanna; and Bel and the Dragon || Tanakh and Deuterocanon  || [[One Weird Trick (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/3-various-heresies-the-acts-of-peter-and-paul 3] || 2018-04-22 || [[Various Heresies]] || The Acts of Peter and The Acts of Peter and Paul || Apocrypha  || [[Various Heresies (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/4-wittgensteins-monster-the-book-of-isaiah 4] || 2018-05-06 || [[Wittgenstein&#039;s Monster]] || The Book of Isaiah || Tanakh || [[Wittgenstein&#039;s Monster (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/5-on-the-road-to-rome-pauls-letter-to-the-romans 5] || 2018-05-20 || [[On the Road to Rome]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Romans || New Testament || [[On the Road to Rome (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/6-fresh-prince-of-beliar-the-ascension-of-isaiah 6] || 2018-05-27 || [[Fresh Prince of Beliar]] || The Ascension of Isaiah &amp;amp; The Prayer of Manasseh || Pseudepigrapha and Deuterocanon  || [[ Fresh Prince of Beliar (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/7-neon-genesis-good-news-the-gospel-of-mark-and-secret-mark-0 7] || 2018-06-03 || [[Neon Genesis Good News]] || The Gospel of Mark and Secret Mark || New Testament and Apocrypha  || [[Neon Genesis Good News (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/8-whats-up-doctor-goodacre-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-one 8] || 2018-06-10 || [[What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre]] || The Gospel of Matthew, Part One || New Testament  || [[ What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/9-simon-peters-sweet-sixteen-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-two 9] || 2018-06-24 || [[Simon Peter&#039;s Sweet Sixteen]] || The Gospel of Matthew, Part Two || New Testament || [[Simon Peter&#039;s Sweet Sixteen (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/10-the-dude-hates-wizards-the-gospel-of-luke 10] || 2018-07-02 || [[The Dude Hates Wizards]] || The Gospel of Luke || New Testament || [[The Dude Hates Wizards (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/11-90s-vertigo-jesus-the-gospel-of-john-part-one 11] || 2018-07-09 || [[90s Vertigo Jesus]] || The Gospel of John, Part One || New Testament  || [[ 90s Vertigo Jesus (Transcript)| Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/12-whomst-was-at-the-tombst-the-gospel-of-john-part-two 12] || 2018-07-15 || [[Whomst Was At the Tombst?]] || The Gospel of John, Part Two || New Testament || [[ Whomst Was At the Tombst? (Transcript)| Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/11-90s-vertigo-jesus-the-gospel-of-john-part-one 13] || 2018-07-30 || [[Bonus Goat]] || The Deuterocanonical Book of Tobit || Deuterocanon  || [[Bonus Goat (Transcript)|Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/14-the-boy-related-eagle-plan-the-story-of-ahikar 14] || 2018-08-06 || [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan]] || The Story of Ahikar || Pseudepigrapha || [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan (Transcript)|Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/15-an-approximate-week-the-golden-legend-st-christopher-and-st-benedict 15] || 2018-08-13 || [[An Approximate Week]] || The Golden Legend: St. Christopher and St. Benedict || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/16-doamurder-west-virginia-the-book-of-genesis-part-1 16] || 2018-08-19 || [[Doamurder, West Virginia]] || The Book of Genesis, Part 1 || Tanakh || [[Doamurder, West Virginia (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/17-five-gallons-of-bread-the-book-of-genesis-part-two 17] || 2018-08-27 || [[Five Gallons of Bread]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Two || Tanakh  || [[Five Gallons of Bread (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/18-literally-and-figuratively-wrestling-with-god-the-book-of-genesis-part-three-0 18] || 2018-09-09 || [[Literally and Figuratively Wrestling With God]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Three || Tanakh || [[ Literally and Figuratively Wrestling With God (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/19-mbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbam-the-book-of-genesis-part-four 19] || 2018-09-23 || [[MBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBaM]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Four || Tanakh  || [[ MBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBaM (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/20-shalom-birdie-genesis-commentary-with-david-wolkin 20] || 2018-09-30 || [[Shalom Birdie (with David Wolkin)]] || The Book of Genesis || Tanakh  || [[ Shalom Birdie (with David Wolkin) (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/21-biblerella-the-acts-of-paul-and-thecla 21] || 2018-10-07 || [[Biblerella]] || The Acts of Paul and Thecla || Apocrypha  || [[Biblerella (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/22-oceans-two-the-book-of-judith 22] || 2018-10-15 || [[Ocean&#039;s Two]] || The Book of Judith || Deuterocanon  || [[Ocean&#039;s Two (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/23-dunking-on-satan-the-acts-of-pilate-and-the-gospel-of-nicodemus 23] || 2018-10-21 || [[Dunking on Satan]] || The Acts of Pilate and The Gospel of Nicodemus || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/25-butt-stuff-dragon-the-testament-of-solomon 24] || 2018-10-29 || [[Butt Stuff Dragon]] || The Testament of Solomon || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/25-one-rinthies-baby-first-corinthians 25] || 2018-11-14 || [[One Rinthies, Baby]] || First Corinthians || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/26-some-other-christmas-man-the-lives-of-st-nicholas-and-st-lucy 26] || 2018-11-19 || [[Some Other Christmas Man]] || The Lives of St. Nicholas and St. Lucy || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/27-the-book-of-the-dynasty-of-gods-resisters-the-first-book-of-maccabees 27] || 2018-12-02 || [[The Book of the Dynasty of God&#039;s Resisters]] || The First Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/28-second-maccabees-second-furious-the-second-book-of-maccabees 28] || 2018-12-10 || [[Second Maccabees Second Furious]] || The Second Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/29-these-apocryphal-ravings-the-infancy-gospel-of-james 29] || 2018-12-16 || [[These Apocryphal Ravings]] || The Infancy Gospel of James || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/30-apples-and-oranges-the-legend-of-the-three-kings 30] || 2019-01-07 || [[Apples and Oranges]] || The Legend of the Three Kings by John of Hildesheim || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/31-yartzed-upon-a-distant-shore-the-book-of-jonah 31] || 2019-01-24 || [[Yartzed Upon a Distant Shore]] || The Book of Jonah || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/32-return-of-the-twelve-foot-volcel-lion-questions-answers 32] || 2019-02-03 || [[Return of the Twelve-Foot Volcel Lion]] || Questions &amp;amp; Answers || Listener questions  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/33-thicc-darkness-the-book-of-exodus-part-one 33] || 2019-02-10 || [[Thicc Darkness]] || The Book of Exodus, Part One || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/34-thorn-bushes-and-pushups-the-song-of-songs 34] || 2019-02-24 || [[Thorn Bushes and Pushups]] || The Song of Songs || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/35-down-in-the-donkey-hole-the-book-of-exodus-part-two 35] || 2019-03-03 || [[Down in the Donkey Hole]] || The Book of Exodus, Part Two || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/36-grazacham-the-life-of-st-patrick 36] || 2019-03-12 || [[GRAZACHAM!]] || Muirchu’s Life of Saint Patrick || Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/37-bigger-esther-the-book-of-esther-and-greek-esther 37] || 2019-03-20 || [[Bigger Esther]] || The Book of Esther and Greek Esther || Tanakh and Deuterocanon ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/38-sword-drill-online-bible-trivia-special 38] || 2019-03-31 || [[Sword Drill Online]] || Bible Trivia Special || Complete Book of Bible Trivia  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/39-rain-is-boy-water-the-book-of-enoch-part-one 39] || 2019-04-07 || [[Rain is Boy Water]] || The Book of Enoch, Part One || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/40-devil-got-a-hog-the-book-of-enoch-part-two 40] || 2019-04-19 || [[Devil Got a Hog]] || The Book of Enoch, Part Two || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/41-neo-mary-is-about-to-e-x-p-l-o-d-e-the-questions-of-bartholomew 41] || 2019-04-29 || [[Neo-Mary Is About To E X P L O D E]] || Questions of Bartholomew and The Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Bartholomew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/42-the-roasting-of-the-apostle-paul-second-corinthians 42] || 2019-05-06 || [[The Roasting of the Apostle Paul]] || Second Corinthians || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/43-why-prophets-so-nasty-the-book-of-jeremiah 43] || 2019-05-27 || [[Why Prophets So Nasty?]] || The Book of Jeremiah || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/44-terms-and-conditions-the-book-of-jeremiah-part-2 44] || 2019-06-23 || [[Terms and Conditions]] || The Book of Jeremiah, Part 2 || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/45-mummy-dust-and-skeleton-bones-the-book-of-ruth 45] || 2019-07-14 || [[Mummy Dust and Skeleton Bones]] || The Book of Ruth || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/46-ctrl-z-on-a-murder-the-acts-of-john 46] || 2019-08-09 || [[CTRL-Z On A Murder]] || The Acts of John || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/47-approximate-week-ii-the-quickening-the-syriac-infancy-gospel 47] || 2019-08-21 || [[Approximate Week II: The Quickening]] || The Syriac Infancy Gospel || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/48-the-almighty-ambush-bear-the-book-of-lamentations 48] || 2019-08-28 || [[The Almighty Ambush Bear]] || The Book of Lamentations || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/49-wajesus-the-first-second-and-third-epistles-of-john 49] || 2019-09-16 || [[Wajesus]] || The First, Second, and Third Epistles of John || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/50-the-terf-of-babylon-the-revelation-of-john-0 50] || 2019-10-02 || [[The TERF of Babylon]] || The Revelation of John || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/51-jesus-buffy-halloween-chick-tracts 51] || 2019-10-28 || [[Jesus, Buffy]] || Halloween Chick Tracts || Chick Tracts  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/51-apocrypals-chris-and-benito-the-book-of-ecclesiastes 52] || 2019-11-24 || [[Apocrypals Chris And Benito]] || The Book of Ecclesiastes || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/52-maccabees-3-elephant-drift-the-third-book-of-maccabees 53] || 2019-12-08 || [[Maccabees 3: Elephant Drift]] || The Third Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/54-our-favorite-murders-the-infancy-gospel-of-thomas 54] || 2019-12-22 || [[Our Favorite Murders]] || The Infancy Gospel of Thomas || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/55-the-parable-of-the-sexy-blood-baby-the-book-of-ezekiel-part-one 55] || 2020-01-12 || [[The Parable of the Sexy Blood Baby]] || The Book of Ezekiel, Part One || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/56-welcome-to-the-bone-zone-the-book-of-ezekiel-part-two 56] || 2020-01-26 || [[Welcome to the Bone Zone]] || The Book of Ezekiel, Part Two || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/57-we-holy-ghost-bro-the-life-of-xanthippe-polyxena-and-rebecca 57] || 2020-02-08 || [[We Holy Ghost, Bro?]] || The Life of Xanthippe, Polyxena, and Rebecca || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/58-blaise-your-dead-homie-the-lives-of-st-sebastian-st-blaise-and-st-agatha 58] || 2020-02-23 || [[Blaise, Your Dead Homie]] || The Lives of St. Sebastian, St. Blaise, and St. Agatha || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/59-source-of-the-flow-the-book-of-leviticus 59] || 2020-03-08 || [[Source of the Flow]] || The Book of Leviticus || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/59-joses-crust-the-acts-of-andrew-and-matthias 60] || 2020-03-22 || [[Joses Crust]] || The Acts of Andrew and Matthias || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/60-countless-large-gregs-the-second-book-of-enoch 61] || 2020-04-05 || [[Countless Large Gregs]] || The Second Book of Enoch || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/62-oh-the-jews-manatees-the-book-of-numbers 62] || 2020-04-19 || [[Oh, the Jews&#039; Manatees!]] || The Book of Numbers || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/63-wist-not-to-whom-ne-whither-the-lives-of-st-roche-and-st-guinefort 63] || 2020-05-06 || [[Wist Not To Whom Ne Whither]] || The Lives of St. Roche and St. Guinefort || Golden Legend, Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/64-spiritual-warfare-is-good-actually-bible-adventures-and-the-wisdom-tree-catalogue 64] || 2020-05-18 || [[Spiritual Warfare Is Good, Actually]] || Bible Adventures and the Wisdom Tree catalogue || Video Games  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/65-adonai-is-ichiban-the-book-of-deuteronomy 65] || 2020-06-02 || [[Adonai is Ichiban!]] || The Book of Deuteronomy || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/66-jesus-with-two-cool-ses-the-acts-of-thomas-and-his-wonderworking-skin 66] || 2020-06-14 || [[JeSuS With Two Cool Ses]] || The Acts of Thomas and his Wonderworking Skin || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/67-bad-things-to-call-your-mother-the-book-of-bartholomew 67] || 2020-06-28 || [[Bad Things to Call Your Mother]] || The Book of Bartholomew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/68-scent-of-a-jesus-the-first-second-and-third-apocryphal-apocalypses-of-john 68] || 2020-07-12 || [[Scent of a Jesus]] || The First, Second, and Third Apocryphal Apocalypses of John || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/69-thirst-corinthians-the-lives-of-st-mary-of-egypt-and-st-pelagia 69] || 2020-07-26 || [[Thirst Corinthians]] || The Lives of St. Mary of Egypt and St. Pelagia || Separate books  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xHQHK_SLX8 69 Secret] || 2020-08-28 || [[Secret 69]] || The Greater Questions of Mary || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/70-two-firkin-bored-the-letter-of-aristeas-0 70] || 2020-08-09 || [[Two Firkin Bored]] || The Letter of Aristeas || Pseudepigrapha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/71-approximate-week-chapter-3-parabellum-the-war-scroll 71] || 2020-08-23 || [[Approximate Week Chapter 3: Parabellum]] || The War Scroll || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/72-cold-brew-paul-pauls-letter-to-the-galatians 72] || 2020-09-06 || [[Cold Brew Paul]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Galatians || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/73-be-courageous-the-book-of-joshua 73] || 2020-09-20 || [[Be Courageous!]] || The Book of Joshua || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/74-howl-of-the-ostrich-the-books-of-micah-and-nahum 74] || 2020-10-04 || [[Howl of the Ostrich]] || The Books of Micah and Nahum || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/75-lazer-babies-the-apocalypse-of-peter 75] || 2020-10-18 || [[Lazer Babies]] || The Apocalypse of Peter || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/76-filling-the-room-the-life-of-st-martin 76] || 2020-11-01 || [[Filling the Room]] || The Life of St. Martin || Separate books  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/77-the-blessed-voltrons-the-lives-of-st-catherine-and-st-barbara 77] || 2020-11-15 || [[The Blessed Voltrons]] || The Lives of St. Catherine and St. Barbara || Golden Legend ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/78-maccabees-the-fourth-book-of-maccabees 78] || 2020-11-29 || [[MACCABEES]] || the Fourth Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/79-marys-christmas-the-infancy-gospel-of-pseudo-matthew 79] || 2020-12-13 || [[Marys Christmas]] || The Infancy Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/bonus-bill-bless-us-every-ted-christmas-gift-exchange-2020 79 Bonus] || 2020-12-22 || [[Bill Bless Us, Every Ted]] || Christmas Gift Exchange 2020 || The Joy of Friendship  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/80-the-deadliest-skambush-of-them-all-the-book-of-judges 80] || 2021-01-10 || [[The Deadliest Skambush of Them All]] || The Book of Judges || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/81-sometimes-its-just-sucky-pauls-letter-to-the-ephesians 81] || 2021-01-24 || [[Sometimes It&#039;s Just Sucky]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Ephesians || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/82-sedeqetelebab-the-book-of-jubilees 82] || 2021-02-07 || [[Sedeqetelebab!]] || The Book of Jubilees Pt 1 || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/83-speedrun-tactics-the-book-of-jubilees-part-2 83] || 2021-02-21 || [[Speedrun Tactics]] || The Book of Jubilees Pt 2 || Pseudepigrapha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/84-just-one-more-thing-the-life-of-st-columba 84] || 2021-03-07 || [[Just One More Thing]] || The Life of St. Columba || Hagiography  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/85-old-clootie-the-life-of-st-dunstan 85] || 2021-03-21 || [[Old Clootie]] || The Life of St. Dunstan || Golden Legend ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/87-god-junior-the-third-book-of-enoch-part-1 86] || 2021-04-04 || [[God Junior]] || The Third Book of Enoch (Part 1) || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/87-crisis-on-18000-earths-the-third-book-of-enoch-part-2 87] || 2021-04-18 || [[Crisis On 18,000 Earths]] || The Third Book of Enoch (Part 2) || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/88-a-miserable-pile-of-secrets-the-da-vinci-code-commentary 88] || 2021-05-09 || [[A Miserable Pile of Secrets]] || The Da Vinci Code, the film || Fiction  || [[A Miserable Pile of Secrets (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/89-2000-bc-the-first-book-of-samuel 89] || 2021-05-23 || [[2000 B.C.]] || The First Book of Samuel || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/90-worfin-the-lions-the-second-book-of-samuel-part-1 90] || 2021-06-06 || [[Worfin’ the Lions]] || The Second Book of Samuel (Part 1) || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt4B2OXgHN4 90.1] || 2021-06-20 || [[Double Chai: Rock Me, Asmodeus]] || Solomon and the Devil || Talmudic Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/90-the-me-in-this-story-is-you-the-second-book-of-samuel-part-2 91] || 2021-06-27 || [[The Me In This Story Is You]] || The Second Book of Samuel (Part 2) || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/92-slayer-of-men-conqueror-of-space-the-gospel-of-philip-the-gospel-of-mary-and-the-gospel-of-jesuss-wife-0 92] || 2021-07-11 || [[Slayer of Men, Conqueror of Space]] || The Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Mary, and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife || Apocrypha (Gnostic)  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HKZ-U4W7Ew 92 Bonus] || 2021-08-04 || [[Cephalo4: Protect Yr Neck]] || Cephalophores || Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/93-approximate-week-iv-oblivion-joseph-and-aseneth 93] || 2021-08-15 || [[Approximate Week IV: OblIVion]] || Joseph and Aseneth || Apocrypha (Tanakh)  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/94-little-martha-and-the-small-vandellas-the-lives-of-st-mary-magdalene-and-st-wilgefortis 94] || 2021-09-26 || [[Little Martha and the Small Vandellas]] || The Lives of St. Mary Magdalene and St. Wilgefortis || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/95-an-abyss-of-significant-depth-the-apocalypse-of-paul 95] || 2021-10-10 || [[An Abyss of Significant Depth]] || The Apocalypse of Paul || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/96-the-goku-of-judaism-stories-of-the-baal-shem-tov 96] || 2021-10-24 || [[The Goku of Judaism]] || Stories of the Baal Shem Tov || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbw3BxiTfKU Bonus] || 2021-11-16 || [[Guess the Persona-fied Bible Character]] || Persona 5 || Video Games ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/97-pretty-sus-lesbius-the-acts-of-andrew 97] || 2021-12-02 || [[Pretty Sus, Lesbius]] || The Acts of Andrew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/98-you-know-the-manger-christmas-chick-tracts 98] || 2021-12-23 || [[You Know, the Manger?]] || Christmas Chick Tracts || Chick Tracts  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/99-for-sale-baby-legs-not-attached-the-first-book-of-kings 99] || 2022-01-30 || [[For Sale, Baby Legs, Not Attached]] || The First Book of Kings || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/100-escape-from-flesh-island-the-gospel-of-judas 100] || 2022-03-05 || [[Escape From Flesh Island]] || The Gospel of Judas || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/101-the-apocrypals-solve-theodicy-the-book-of-job 101] || 2022-04-21 || [[The Apocrypals Solve Theodicy]] || The Book of Job || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/102-napalm-toots-the-lives-of-st-mary-of-bethany-and-st-margaret-of-antioch 102] || 2022-06-12 || [[Napalm Toots]] || The Lives of The Lives of St. Martha of Bethany and St. Margaret of Antioch || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/103-sucky-james-the-history-of-joseph-the-carpenter 103] || 2022-07-03 || [[Sucky James]] || The History of Joseph the Carpenter || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/104-previously-on-bible-the-epistle-to-the-hebrews 104] || 2022-08-01 || [[Previously, on Bible]] || The Epistle to the Hebrews || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/103-approximate-week-v-ravager 105] || 2022-08-12 || [[Approximate Week V: RaVager]] || El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron || Video Games  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/104-a-serious-goku-move-the-second-book-of-kings 106] || 2022-10-30 || [[A Serious Goku Move]] || The Second Book of Kings || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/107-hellmensch-stories-of-the-baal-shem-tov-vol-2 107] || 2022-11-13 || [[Hellmensch]] || Stories of the Baal Shem Tov || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin  || [[Hellmensch (Transcript) | Yes ]] &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/108-skip-this-one-the-book-of-hosea 108] || 2022-11-27 || [[Skip This One]] || The Book of Hosea || Tanakh  || [[  Skip This One (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/109-chris-and-benitos-bible-bonkers-the-didache 109] || 2023-10-11 || [[Chris and Benito&#039;s Bible Bonkers]] || The Didache || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/110-the-beastie-boys-worst-nightmare-the-lock-in-2014 110] || 2023-10-30 || [[The Beastie Boys&#039; Worst Nightmare (The Lock-In (2014))]] || The Lock-In (2014) || Fiction ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/111-all-skips-no-hits-1-chronicles 111] || 2024-08-09 || [[All Skips No Hits]] || 1 Chronicles || Tanakh || [[All Skips No Hits (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/112-approximate-week-vi-the-undiscovered-country 112] || 2024-08-17 || [[Approximate Week VI: The Undiscovered Country]] || Illuminator || Comics ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/113-jaoel-instant-messenger-the-apocalypse-of-abraham 113] || 2024-09-05 || [[Jaoel Instant Messenger]] || The Apocalypse of Abraham || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/114-sin-onyms-the-devils-argument-the-martyrdom-of-perpetua-and-felicity 114] || 2024-10-03 || [[Sin-onyms, The Devil&#039;s Argument]] || The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/115-hell-is-the-big-show-the-life-of-st-christina-the-astonishing 115] || 2024-10-27 || [[Hell Is The Big Show]] || The Life of St. Christina the Astonishing || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/116-its-his-birthday-be-nice-the-revelation-of-the-magi 116] || 2024-12-22 || [[It&#039;s His BIRTHDAY, Be Nice!]] || The Revelation of the Magi || Pseudepigrapha || &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/117-king-solomons-hog-the-second-book-of-chronicles-feat-aaron-higashi 117] || 2024-02-17 || [[King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi]] || 2 Chronicles || Tanakh || [[King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/bonus-biblical-mini-golf 118 Bonus] || 2025-05-08 || [[Bonus: Biblical Mini-Golf]] || Fairway to Heaven || Road Trip || &lt;br /&gt;
|}&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Sub-series==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
{| class=&amp;quot;wikitable sortable&amp;quot; style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
! Podcast !! Episode !! &amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;Date&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp; !! Title !! Transcript !! Wolverine Costume&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-01-dr-dan-mcclellan 1] || 2023-04-20 || [[Multipals 01: Dr. Dan McClellan]] || [[Multipals 01: Dr. Dan McClellan (transcript) | Yes]] || Brown and Tan&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-02-aaron-higashi 1] || 2023-06-23 || [[Multipals 02: Aaron Higashi]] || [[Multipals 02: Aaron Higashi (transcript) | Yes]] || Kimono&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-03-anne-thriault 3] || 2023-04-20 || [[Multipals 03: Anne Thériault]] || [[Multipals 03: Anne Thériault (transcript) | Yes]] || Hugh Jackman as the Music Man&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-04-tony-burke-and-janet-spittler 4] || 2023-08-20 || [[Multipals 04: Tony Burke &amp;amp;amp; Janet Spittler]] || [[Multipals 04: Tony Burke &amp;amp;amp; Janet Spittler (transcript) | Yes]] || Brown and Tan / Yellow Guy From Cartoon&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-05-dr-alexiana-fry 5] || 2023-12-13 || [[Multipals 05: Dr. Alexiana Fry]] || [[Multipals 05: Dr. Alexiana Fry (transcript) | Yes]] || Logan (2017) Suit&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-06-dr-justin-sledge 6] || 2023-12-13 || [[Multipals 06: Dr. Justin Sledge]] || [[Multipals 06: Dr. Justin Sledge (transcript) | Yes]] || &#039;90s Yellow&lt;br /&gt;
|}&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Biblerella&amp;diff=489</id>
		<title>Biblerella</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Biblerella&amp;diff=489"/>
		<updated>2026-02-08T14:04:27Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: /* Opening Verse */&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/7135880/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
Watch out, Theophiloi -- we&#039;ve got some high voltage coming your way as we dive into the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla. For the first time, we have a real female protagonist who has agency... to the extreme. Join us for an astounding piece of Biblical fanfic, a discussion of why Thecla was left out of the canon (hint: thousands of years of entrenched misogyny), and get ready to be thirsty for virtue when you meet your new favorite semi-Biblical figure. Plus: a very good story about a very large lion.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion: &amp;quot;The Lost Scriptures&amp;quot; by Bart Ehrman, a brief divergence into Santa Claus Canon, the real Patron Saint of the Internet, St. Isadore of Seville, Tertullian, Constantine (not that one) and the Hell Bible&#039;s version of Corinthians, various apocalypses, Paul&#039;s Bulk and Skull, AO1, a stack of virginity pledges reaching to the ceiling of the Flavian Amphitheater, Adrian Toomes, the hat guy, Holy Musk, Quentin Beck, man-eating seals, a surprising substance to see at a beheading, and a litany of podcast recs.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Hymnal: &amp;quot;Danger! High Voltage!&amp;quot; by Electric Six&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Offertory: If you enjoy the show, head to ko-fi.com/apocrypals and send us a love offering! We absolutely appreciate it!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Opening Verse==&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;The living God, the God of vengeance, the jealous God, the God who stands in need of nothing. This God has sent me to provide people with salvation by dragging them away from corruption and impurity and every pleasure and death, that they may no longer sin.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;mdash; The Acts of Thecla, Chapter 17&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Favorite Verses==&lt;br /&gt;
Both:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Then they cast in a large number of wild beasts while she stood, reaching out her hands and praying. When she finished her prayer, she turned and saw a large vat filled with water, and said, &#039;Now is the time for me to be cleaned.&#039; She threw herself in saying, &#039;In the name of Jesus Christ, on this final day I am baptized.&#039; When the women and the entire crowd saw what she was doing, they wailed aloud and said, &#039;Do not throw yourself into the water.&#039; Even the governor began to weep, because seals were about to devour such beauty. But then she threw herself into the water in the name of Jesus Christ, and the seal saw a lightning bolt and floated on the water dead. Then a cloud of fire surrounded her, so that the beasts could not attack her and no one could see her naked.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; Acts of Thecla Chapter 34 &amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-FxmoVM7X4 Danger! High Voltage] by Electric Six&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Choice Quotes==&lt;br /&gt;
(Help fill this in by checking out the [[ Biblerella (Transcript)|transcript]].)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Apocrypha]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Biblerella&amp;diff=488</id>
		<title>Biblerella</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Biblerella&amp;diff=488"/>
		<updated>2026-02-08T14:03:47Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/7135880/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
Watch out, Theophiloi -- we&#039;ve got some high voltage coming your way as we dive into the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla. For the first time, we have a real female protagonist who has agency... to the extreme. Join us for an astounding piece of Biblical fanfic, a discussion of why Thecla was left out of the canon (hint: thousands of years of entrenched misogyny), and get ready to be thirsty for virtue when you meet your new favorite semi-Biblical figure. Plus: a very good story about a very large lion.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion: &amp;quot;The Lost Scriptures&amp;quot; by Bart Ehrman, a brief divergence into Santa Claus Canon, the real Patron Saint of the Internet, St. Isadore of Seville, Tertullian, Constantine (not that one) and the Hell Bible&#039;s version of Corinthians, various apocalypses, Paul&#039;s Bulk and Skull, AO1, a stack of virginity pledges reaching to the ceiling of the Flavian Amphitheater, Adrian Toomes, the hat guy, Holy Musk, Quentin Beck, man-eating seals, a surprising substance to see at a beheading, and a litany of podcast recs.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Hymnal: &amp;quot;Danger! High Voltage!&amp;quot; by Electric Six&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Offertory: If you enjoy the show, head to ko-fi.com/apocrypals and send us a love offering! We absolutely appreciate it!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Opening Verse==&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;The living God, the God of vengeance, the jealous God, the God who stands in need of nothing. This God has sent me to provide people with salvation by dragging them away from corruption and impurity and every pleasure and death, that they may no longer sin.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;mdash; The Acts of Thecla, Chapter 17/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Favorite Verses==&lt;br /&gt;
Both:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Then they cast in a large number of wild beasts while she stood, reaching out her hands and praying. When she finished her prayer, she turned and saw a large vat filled with water, and said, &#039;Now is the time for me to be cleaned.&#039; She threw herself in saying, &#039;In the name of Jesus Christ, on this final day I am baptized.&#039; When the women and the entire crowd saw what she was doing, they wailed aloud and said, &#039;Do not throw yourself into the water.&#039; Even the governor began to weep, because seals were about to devour such beauty. But then she threw herself into the water in the name of Jesus Christ, and the seal saw a lightning bolt and floated on the water dead. Then a cloud of fire surrounded her, so that the beasts could not attack her and no one could see her naked.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; Acts of Thecla Chapter 34 &amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-FxmoVM7X4 Danger! High Voltage] by Electric Six&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Choice Quotes==&lt;br /&gt;
(Help fill this in by checking out the [[ Biblerella (Transcript)|transcript]].)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Apocrypha]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Biblerella_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1057</id>
		<title>Biblerella (Transcript)</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Biblerella_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1057"/>
		<updated>2026-02-07T18:03:46Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: Created page with &amp;quot;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;Chris Sims:&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039; The living God, the God of vengeance, the jealous God, the God who stands in need of nothing. This God has sent me to provide people with salvation by dragging them away from corruption and impurity and every pleasure and death, that they may no longer sin. The Acts of Thecla, Chapter 17  [Music: &amp;quot;Danger! High Voltage&amp;quot; by Electric Six]  &amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;C:&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039; Hello friends and neighbors and welcome to Apocrypals. It&amp;#039;s the podcast where two non-believers read through...&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&#039;&#039;&#039;Chris Sims:&#039;&#039;&#039; The living God, the God of vengeance, the jealous God, the God who stands in need of nothing. This God has sent me to provide people with salvation by dragging them away from corruption and impurity and every pleasure and death, that they may no longer sin. The Acts of Thecla, Chapter 17&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music: &amp;quot;Danger! High Voltage&amp;quot; by Electric Six]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hello friends and neighbors and welcome to Apocrypals. It&#039;s the podcast where two non-believers read through the Bible and we try not to be jerks about it. My name is Chris Sims, and with me as always is the other set of footprints Benito Cereno. Benito, how are you today?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;Benito Cereno:&#039;&#039;&#039; Very good, Chris. How are you doing?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;m alright.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we got a pretty good one today, I think. I feel like.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I did not read this in the order in which we are discussing it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So I will say that I started out being a little disappointed by how boring it was.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Mm-hmm.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then it finished up pretty strong.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; There are definitely some highs and lows in this one. It&#039;s a very fragmentary thing, and so the the book that you and I were reading out of definitely has things out of order. If people who listen to the show that follow the [https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/actspaul.html links] on [https://www.tumblr.com/apocrypals our Tumblr] were reading along on the [https://www.earlychristianwritings.com Early Christian Writing site], they would have gotten it in a more kind of logical order. But yeah, some real good stuff that I think I think is going to really jazz some people up because I don&#039;t know, it feels like we&#039;ve got our first real female protagonist with actual agency, like real for real, throughout an entire book, right? Like, am I forgetting somebody? Like, this seems like the first time. Where we&#039;ve really got a woman who&#039;s the main driving force, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I mean we&#039;ve had female figures in the Bible before. We&#039;ve had Eve and and Sarah and Rachel.  But I mean those were not main characters in a story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like even Eve, which is very surprising. We did we did have Lilith for a minute.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, not in canon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But before she had to go off and live on a rock and give birth to five hundred monsters every day.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s right. That&#039;s true. I should say what we&#039;re reading today is the Acts of Paul, the Apocryphal Acts of Paul, which include a number of different documents that were distributed separately, and so the most famous bit out of this is the story called The Acts of Paul and Thecla. You may have heard of that one. and that&#039;s gonna kind of be the main story and definitely the one with the coolest bits in it. And the one that if I had to guess is most likely to inspire some very choice fan art if we&#039;re lucky. I would like to think.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and if people want to read along with us specifically, I read the versions that are printed in the book [https://global.oup.com/academic/product/lost-scriptures-9780195182507 The Lost Scriptures] by Bart D. Ehrman. It&#039;s from Oxford University Press. And it is, even if you don&#039;t get the book, it&#039;s worth reading, I&#039;ll tell you that. The Acts of Thecla: pretty choice.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. The book is a good resource. Part of the reason I wanted to read this reading this week is because I knew Chris and I both had a copy of this book and we really hadn&#039;t had a chance to use it until now. And so I really wanted to pick something where he and I could both use this book because I know he got a copy for his birthday, if I recall correctly. But part of the issue with this book is it&#039;s very good. It&#039;s an excellent survey of a lot of the different kind of material. But the stuff I most want to read, the different Acts of the Apostles, are very frequently abridged or excerpts in the book.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So like, for example, probably the coolest of the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, obviously, besides Peter and Paul with his talking dog and Simon Magus and all that. But Acts of John is very cool. The Acts of Thomas are very cool. But those are both rather long and they&#039;re heavily, heavily abridged in this edition. And so this one I wanted to do because we could get the whole thing. Because taken individually, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, the martyrdom of Paul, not very long on their own. And so, &amp;quot;Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It Into the New Testament,&amp;quot; by Bart Ehrman, who&#039;s one of the most prominent scholars in this kind of field of study. He has a large number of books that you can find. [https://global.oup.com/academic/product/lost-christianities-9780195182491?cc=us&amp;amp;lang=en&amp;amp; Lost Christianities] is another one that&#039;s very famous. He&#039;s easy to find. If you go to a bookstore and look in the religion section, you&#039;ll definitely find a number of books by him, including possibly this one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You mentioned last week that the Acts of Thecla, or I guess the Acts of Paul as a whole, was almost canonical.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. Specifically the Acts of Paul and Thecla part. In very early canonical lists, there&#039;s a few where it gets mentioned. The book is not in any canon, not even in the extended canon that you get with some of the African churches. But in early churches, it would have been listed on lists of canon, which that&#039;s one thing that this book, The Lost Scriptures, has. That&#039;s a cool resource that it has in the list. In the book it has a number of early canonical lists. This one was definitely accepted as having apostolic authority by a number of early church fathers, but it&#039;s ultimately rejected. And you can probably guess why, Chris. Do you have any idea why this one might get knocked out?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, it certainly has a woman who is defying all male authority figures in her life.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. The book is stricken down as a possible candidate for canonicity  due to the fact that it says, hey, look at this woman who not only can perform baptisms, she also baptizes herself, and also she is anointed by Paul to be a minister, and that was not going to fly with the early church, it would not fly with many denominations in the today times church. And so for that reason, yeah, Thecla, because it endorses the ministry of women was struck down. It was notably most famously associated with the church father Tertullian, who&#039;s known as the father of Western theology. He was a Carthaginian. He was a very, very influential early church father. He did a writing where he basically uncovers the actual author of the Acts of Paul. He finds out, we don&#039;t know his name, but according to Tertullian, he was a priest in Asia Minor. And when he was confronted about it, he confessed and he said that he wrote this book because he just loves Paul so much. He wrote this very big work of Paul fan fiction.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;m sorry, I&#039;m sorry. Are you saying that like Thecla is his OC.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, well, yes, except the thing is, Thecla might be real. Thecla might have been a real person.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean that does explain why she has lavender eyes and why she is described as pretty but a little clumsy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s true. But Thecla may have been a real person. She may have been a real early Christian martyr. And this story would have been crafted around her. And it is worth pointing out that as with so many of the apocryphal books that we&#039;ve done before, even though this didn&#039;t make it to canon, this story was incredibly popular, especially the Paul and Thecla part. There are so many extant copies of it, especially in Greek. But there&#039;s Coptic manuscripts and there&#039;s some Latin translations as well. But there&#039;s so many versions in Greek of the Acts of Paul and Thecla. Thecla is still venerated as a saint by most churches, right? By Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, the Episcopal Church. Her feast day is on September 23rd or October 3rd in the Coptic Church. So we just just missed that one. But yeah, like even still today, she&#039;s venerated. She&#039;s considered by some to be the first woman martyr, even though we see she survives the many different martyrdom attempts. Nevertheless...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah! One of the things about this book, it never gets to the ending I was expecting.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, you definitely expect her to die, right? And it doesn&#039;t happen.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because we&#039;ve talked about this. Like there are so many. If you go in and read any hagiographies of saints, they all end the same way. The way you become a saint is by being martyred.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, in a lot of them. Yeah. Not every saint is martyred, notably our boy, St. Nicholas. Was never martyred. But but yeah, she is...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Never died.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; He died, but then he came back after the translation of his relics. Anyway, let&#039;s not get into Santa Claus canon right now. Um But&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We got a whole month for it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah, it&#039;s coming. Don&#039;t worry, friends. We&#039;re definitely gonna get heavy, heavy into St. Nicholas canon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But anyway, so there is a martyrdom tradition around Thecla. And here&#039;s a cool fact: in Spanish-speaking countries. Thecla is kind of jokingly venerated as the patron saint of computers and the internet because the name Tecla sounds just like the word for computer key in Spanish. And so...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s a stretch.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s the same word. So it&#039;s like if we had a Saint Keyboard, we wouldn&#039;t not make them the saint of keyboards, you know what I mean? But it is, like I said, done j jokingly, semi-seriously Everyone knows the real patron of the internet is Saint Isidore, which is true. There are a number of...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Stop, stop, stop. You are gonna have to elaborate.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean that&#039;s what it is. Like Isidore of Seville is the patron of the internet, computer users, computer technicians, programmers, and students.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Why? Can you give me like a brief – do I need to get out the Golden Legend?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I don&#039;t think that would explain the internet part. I actually think it has to do with the fact that he did so much stuff with language. Like he wrote a number of books of etymology and because of that it has to do with like communication. I&#039;m not sure. I&#039;d have to double check, but Isidore of Seville is definitely the patron of the internet. That&#039;s not a joke. That&#039;s real. I can&#039;t remember the exact explanation for it, but I think it has something to do with his writings and his scholarship on on language and communication.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, do continue.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Anyway, so yes, my point is the story of Thecla was very popular. It was very widespread. There are numerous shrines, numerous places that claim to be her tomb. And so she continues to be venerated today, even though this story was never in canon anywhere. And so I did mention that this guy loved Paul so much he wrote a very beefy bit of fan fiction. Here&#039;s the thing. The original Acts of Paul, of which all of these things are fragments – let me say what these the different bits are. Because these different bits were often passed around separately as separate documents. So the main one is the most famous one is the Acts of Paul and Thecla. But other ones that we&#039;re going to be looking at today are the Epistle of the Corinthians to Paul and then the Third Epistle to the Corinthians. So that&#039;s Third Corinthians, which last week I made a cryptic reference to coming back to the thing about Constantine saying Corinthians had more chapters in hell. And I meant to cycle back to that and say it was because we were reading Third Corinthians this week. Which is not very hellish in the slightest. But I totally forgot to do that. So if you were confused by that, which some people were, because a couple of people did ask me about it: that&#039;s why. I made a reference to Third Corinthians because we were coming back to that. So you got that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, in case you haven&#039;t seen the movie Constantine which is actually pretty fun and makes for some good Halloween time watching, there is a line about how  Corinthians has 21 chapters in the Bible in Hell.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is weird. Why would it be Corinthians?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Out of all of them, like that&#039;s like... Corinthians is the book that you read at your wedding, right? Like every wedding you&#039;ve been to. So they read First Corinthians. That&#039;s love is patient, love is kind. Like, why is that one the one where they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;oh, you know what? I bet there&#039;s an additional chapter about other aspects of love that they read in Hell.&amp;quot; I don&#039;t know.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And it&#039;s all about like the apocalypse. There&#039;s we have already discovered in our brief period of reading Bible, several places that could have additional verses about the apocalypse.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Absolutely. And there are there&#039;s no shortage of apocryphal apocalypses. Like we said, in canon, there&#039;s Revelation in the New Testament. Which is the origin of the name Apocalypse because the Greek word is apocalypsis for revelation. And then the apocalypse at the end of Daniel in the Old Testament. And like that&#039;s it for canon. But non-canonically, there are so many Apocalypse, there&#039;s Apocalypse of Peter, Apocalypse of Paul, Apocalypse of Moses, a bunch. There&#039;s a lot. And even other books that don&#039;t have the word apocalypse in the name of them that still have the genre of apocalypse within them that they could have picked, but they were just like, what if it&#039;s Corinthians? Anyway, so 3rd Corinthians. But then there are these fragmentary stories including the healing of a guy named Hermocrates, there&#039;s the resurrection of the son of a guy named Panchares, and then the Strife of the Ephesian Beasts. And we&#039;ll be talking about those as much as we can. They&#039;re very fragmentary. so altogether, according to an ancient document that basically would have counted up the lines of different biblical and biblical adjacent books, the Acts of Paul had 8,600 lines total. Do you want to guess, Chris, how many lines the canonical Acts of the Apostles had? So if The total Acts of Paul, 8,600.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Acts was not that long.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It was, I mean it&#039;s a chunk of the New Testament.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But it&#039;s not that long.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;m gonna say 4,200.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; 2,800. So&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So this dude this dude wrote a fanfic about Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s nearly three three times as long.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Three times as long as Acts.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; As the canonical cts of the Apostles, yes. But the bad news is, of that, not that much is left. We have, well, in the M.R. James translation of this stuff, he says 1,800 lines. But I know we&#039;ve discovered more, because the M.R. James edition does not have the very good story about the lion that we&#039;re gonna get to. So I know we&#039;ve discovered more because that was discovered in the nineteen thirties, and the M.R. James edition is from, I don&#039;t know, earlier than that. But so I don&#039;t know, maybe 2,000. Maybe they&#039;ve discovered about 2,000 out of 8,600 lines of the Acts of Paul. But it does seem that the narrative portions of the Acts of Paul are probably all by one author because it&#039;s very internally consistent. The only part that seems to be an addition that was kind of spliced in are the letters. The letters from the Corinthians and then Third Corinthians. And so, other than that though, it does seem to be this one this one dude in Turkey who just loves Paul very much. You wanna look at Paul and Thecla? Let&#039;s start let&#039;s start with that, &#039;cause that&#039;s the that&#039;s the beefiest narrative, it&#039;s the most famous part.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I am very surprised that we&#039;re starting with Paul and Tecla.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Boy does it build to a climax.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure. But  you know, I&#039;m just thinking, logically in times of in terms of chronology because we don&#039;t wanna... Oh I forgot to mention the other excerpt of course is the martyrdom of Paul, which is what we&#039;re gonna end with. It seems like the logical thing to end with in my estimation. So I figure we would start with Paul and Thecla, the main longest bit, and then we&#039;ll talk about the the letters and the fragments, and we&#039;ll finish up with the martyrdom of Paul with the surprise twist ending of what does Paul&#039;s heart beat out? It&#039;s not what you think.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So we open in Iconium.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, correct. Yes, which is in Turkey. Most of the places that we&#039;re gonna see about are in Turkey, which makes sense if a guy from Turkey wrote the book, I guess.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And Paul is traveling with his fellow travelers, Demas and Hermogenes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The bronzemith.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. And they were filled with hypocrisy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. Who are the the bad guys. They&#039;re his [https://powerrangers.fandom.com/wiki/Bulk_and_Skull Bulk and Skull].&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I guess, kinda. Like they&#039;re traveling with him, but they&#039;re definitely trying to undermine him, for sure. Because yeah, we see them they&#039;re Christians, but they&#039;re not real Christians. You know what I mean? Like, I don&#039;t know how I don&#039;t know how to describe it. Yeah, they&#039;re trying to undermine him because they, I don&#039;t know, they think he thinks he&#039;s better than them or something. And so we see...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which which he clearly does. We&#039;ve read Romans.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; He clearly does think he&#039;s better.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And so yeah, we we see that they don&#039;t have a true understanding of the faith of Christ and so as a result they do they do some bad stuff.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But you know what?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; What?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Doesn&#039;t matter to Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because Paul is looking only at the goodness of Christ, and so did them no harm.&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Absolutely.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Instead he loved them very much, giving them sweet discourses about all the Lord&#039;s sayings.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I love that discourse. Hashtag discourse.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here&#039;s that sweet, sweet discourse, which is the worst punishment you can give to someone.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Absolutely is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; As you know if you have ever been on Twitter.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so they arrive in Iconium they come to the house of a man named Onesiphorus, who, that&#039;s a guy from canon Bible. His name is mentioned in Second Timothy, so that&#039;s Paul&#039;s second letter to Timothy. He&#039;s mentioned as a guy who visited Paul in prison when he was in Rome. So he traveled to Rome to visit Paul there. So his name Onesiphorus means bringing profit. So just a little etymology corner there for you. Yeah, so Onesiphorus is a good guy, let&#039;s Paul in. Then we get this we get this physical description of Paul, which we haven&#039;t gotten elsewhere.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s not great.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s not great&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s it&#039;s weird like for a dude who loved Paul so much that he wrote –  that he started A01. That was just Archive Of.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; He does not seem to have a high opinion of Paul&#039;s looks. &amp;quot;Then he saw Paul coming, a man short in stature, with a bald head, bowed legs, in good condition, eyebrows that met, a fairly large nose, and full of grace.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then my favorite little edition, based on what we already know, &amp;quot;at times he seemed human, at other times he looked like an angel.&amp;quot; So, you know, six wings.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Six wings.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Covered in eyes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; On fire.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Head of a bull, head of a lion.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Just covering up his genitals. Yeah. Yeah, not it&#039;s not great. But the fact that he&#039;s like full of grace at the end makes me wonder, it&#039;s like, was that this guy&#039;s type? Was that was like unibrow, pointy nose, bald? That was this bow-legged? Like that&#039;s what this guy was into, maybe? I don&#039;t know. Because he&#039;s like, here&#039;s what Paul looked like. Pretty good. Angelic, I would say. So you know what? Different strokes. Different strokes. Paul and Onesiphorus greet each other and it&#039;s cool, but Demas and Hermogenes are jealous. They stir up a great hypocrisy so they&#039;re already starting to kind of foment dissent against Paul. And then we see Paul praying, giving a sermon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I just want to say basically Paul sounds like the vulture from Spider-Man.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah? Oh, the description. Yeah, sure. Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. That&#039;s what the vulture looks like. He&#039;s very graceful. And he&#039;s in good condition. He fights Spider-Man.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; He&#039;s got wings too, like an angel.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s dead on. It&#039;s dead on. If you&#039;re if you&#039;re mentally casting. This section, Adrian Toombs, the Vlaying the role of Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, not Michael Keaton. It&#039;s gotta be the Ditko version.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, Michael Michael Keaton. The description of Paul, if he was played by Michael Keaton, would be like: Super intense eyebrows, piercing eyes, rugged good looks. Very, very funny.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Very good turtleneck. Wire-rimmed glasses.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not super great to be Batman.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Anyway, hey, what&#039;s up? Paul gives this sermon where he runs down some beatitudes of his own.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Congratulations.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Congratulations. Congratulations, Pure in heart, for you will see God. But his message kind of reflects the overall theme of the book, especially the Thecla portion, which is true love waits until you are dead even because don&#039;t get married even that. That&#039;s too that&#039;s too much.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do you think that Paul was able to collect enough signatures on virginity pledges to reach the top of the Georgia Dome?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yes, it reached all the way to the top of the Flavian amphitheater. That&#039;s the Coliseum. For all you keeping notes out there. which did not have a roof, by the way. But uh&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Wow, that&#039;s a lot of virginity pledges.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so the roof is heaven. And so yeah, it just keeps going.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Let me build the tower of virginity pledges in the between the heavens and the earth.&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Someone call in Ahikar. And get those flying eagle boys in here so we can build this giant tower of chastity pledges. Yeah. Blessed are those who have kept the flesh chaste, for they will become a temple of God. And so chastity and self-control and continence, those are kind of the motifs, the moral virtues of the day across the course of this book.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I had a question about one of Paul&#039;s things.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039;  Blessed are those who have wives as if they did not have them. For they will be the heirs of God.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; He just means like not having marital relations with your wife.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, correct. Yeah. So if you you are married, don&#039;t do the deed, even. And that&#039;s the kind of thing that well, that&#039;s the reason we don&#039;t have shakers anymore, because they took that particular commandment too seriously. And so even this, I should say, this does not quite match up with canonical Paul and his teachings. He&#039;s a little more ambiguous about getting married and chastity and that kind of stuff. Where he&#039;s basically like, you know, if you feel like you can&#039;t control yourself and you have to get married, you should. But if you think you can be chaste, do be chaste. And so a lot of the Paul stuff here. probably comes from oral tradition rather than matching up to anything from Canonical Paul in either the Acts or the Epistles. And of course, I think we mentioned before some of the stuff doesn&#039;t quite match up between the Acts and the Epistles anyway, in terms of like Paul&#039;s preaching.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But so yeah, this is this is not quite canonical Paul, but his main thing is all about chastity. And the number one person hearing this lesson is Thecla, our heroine from the title. She does not see Paul, but she is the daughter of a wealthy, noble family who lives basically next door, and she is sitting in the window and she can hear Paul&#039;s voice, but she does not see this bald-headed bow-legged man.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; She does not see him in his green suit flying around.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, she doesn&#039;t.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Robbing banks.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Thecla we see is the daughter of Theocleia, and the name Thecla is just a contraction of that same name, Theocleia, right? Which just means glory to God, basically. That&#039;s the same - the &amp;quot;clea&amp;quot; there at the end is the same as the &amp;quot;cles&amp;quot; and Heracles. Like Hercules. So glory or honor to God. She&#039;s engaged to a man named Thamyris, which in classical Greek is definitely a woman&#039;s name, so that&#039;s weird. But she&#039;s engaged to him, but she hears these sermons about chastity from Paul like wafting in like a pie smell from the house.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Day and night Thecla heard what Paul said about chastity.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;And she did not budge from the window.&amp;quot; So a) she is sitting there on the windowsill, wistfully looking outside, hearing about chastity day and night. Also, Paul is going strong. No breaks. Filibustering against against sex.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. So yeah, she hears his voice, doesn&#039;t know what he looks like, only hears her word, but she won&#039;t get up from the window. She won&#039;t take any food or water. Her mom is panicking. Her fiancé, Thamyris, is panicking. They&#039;re like, what&#039;s what&#039;s going on? And they realize that she&#039;s hearing the words of Paul who is a foreigner, which is bad, and he&#039;s also additionally, preaching chastity, which is bad, right? We see that in a lot of stories of saints where chastity is what&#039;s being preached. That&#039;s what the new newly converted Christian saint is experiencing, but the people around them are reacting negatively to that. Like pretty much any any story of a female saint is because she wants to remain chaste, her family wants her to get married, and so as a result, they&#039;re like, well, why don&#039;t we set you on fire instead? And that&#039;s the way most of those stories go. And so not a big shift from the trope here. And so yeah, they&#039;re very disturbed that she won&#039;t get up from the window. Her mom and her fiancé. Her dad is never mentioned, I don&#039;t believe.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Yeah, so Thamyris is like, &amp;quot;Thecla, my future wife, why are you sitting like this? What kind of mad passion has overwhelmed you? Turn around and see your Thamyris and be ashamed.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I have cast Thamyris as a sort of Tommy Wiseau type.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah. &amp;quot;Thecla, you&#039;re tearing me apart!&amp;quot; Very good. But yeah, she continues to sit there, she continues to listen. Thamyris eventually goes out to see these people and he&#039;s like, who is this guy? Who&#039;s teaching? And who does he run into but Demas and Hermogenes, who are, as we know, Very jealous of Paul, and want to ruin him. And they say, &amp;quot;We do not know who he is, but he is depriving young men of their wives and virgins of their husbands, by saying that you will not be raised from the dead unless you remain chaste, abstain from polluting the flesh and guard your chastity.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So that goes bad. They convinced him to take Paul in front of the governor. And then here&#039;s the thing that was really interesting to me. Demas and Hermogenes say, &amp;quot;Make him stand trial before the governor of Castelius for leading the crowd astray with the new teaching of the Christians. Then he will destroy him, and you will have Thecla as your wife. And we will teach you that this resurrection, which he claims is about to happen, has already occurred in the children we have had,&amp;quot; which is a very interesting interpretation of the idea of the resurrection of the flesh, right? That you&#039;re immortal, not in a literal sense, not because God has raised your body from the grave, but because you live on through your offspring. Right? Your DNA lives on and into posterity. So that&#039;s a pretty interesting bit. Then we get we get the whole crowd with torches and pitchforks and everything.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, and they say, &amp;quot;Take the magician away, for he has corrupted all our wives.&amp;quot; Which is probably what every magician most hopes to hear.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I mean that&#039;s the main goal of being a stage magician, right? Is to corrupt wives, I think.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Why else would you learn close-up magic?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. That&#039;s why the hat guy. What&#039;s his...?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The hat guy?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know. The &amp;quot;here&#039;s how to&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Bullwinkle?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, &amp;quot;here&#039;s how to do some negs. Here&#039;s my cool hat.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Mystery.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Mystery. There it is. That&#039;s why he&#039;s advocating close-up magic all the time. Because he wants to corrupt some wives. Anyway.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Alright, so Paul defends himself, but he nevertheless gets arrested. He&#039;s he&#039;s thrown in chains, doesn&#039;t go great for him. And so he&#039;s in prison. &amp;quot;The governor heard these things, he ordered Paul to be bound and taken off to prison until he had greater leisure to listen to him more carefully.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is a pretty boss move, by the way.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which again, this is Castelius. And it&#039;s a pretty relatable move to have a crowd of people with torches and pitchforks dragging Paul in front of you. And then just being like, &amp;quot;I cannot deal with this right now.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Take him away. I will get to this in the morning.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep. Yep, exactly.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Meanwhile, Paul&#039;s like, I want to be tried by Caesar.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Paul, that can&#039;t be your go-to every time! So, Thecla bribes the guard at her door. She removes her bracelets, gives them to the gatekeeper. And then she goes and bribes the guard at the prison with a silver mirror. This is the point at which this book about chastity gets very horny.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is a it is thirsty for virtue.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It absolutely is. Like..&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I highlighted this this bit.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; For a book where the main theme is that chastity of the flesh is the only thing that will allow you to live into eternity, it is so thirsty and it is so erotic. Everything is so erotically described basically from now on.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Sitting at his feet, she heard about the majestic character of God. Paul showed no sign of fear, but he was filled with the boldness of God, and Thecla&#039;s faith increased as she was kissing Paul&#039;s bonds.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah And so she stays in the prison cell with him overnight. They spend the night together, talking about God, embracing in the spirit, kissing each other&#039;s bonds. She doesn&#039;t have bonds, whatever. But you understand what I&#039;m getting at. And so then when Thamyris finds out that his fiancée has slipped out and spent the night with another man in jail, the foreigner, who was saying that she shouldn&#039;t marry him in the first place. He&#039;s pretty upset about that. He commands Paul to be brought before the judgment seat, &amp;quot;but Thecla was rolling around on the place where Paul had been teaching while sitting in the jail.&amp;quot; That is weird. Thecla. That is weird. Trying to pick up some of that Holy musk off the floor.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here&#039;s a thing I like about Thecla.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; She&#039;s not a hundred percent in like Paul was. Right. She&#039;s a million percent in.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; She is a million. A million percent in. And so Paul&#039;s brought forward, the crowd is again yelling about how he&#039;s a magician, get rid of him. They bring Thecla out and they&#039;re like, why don&#039;t you marry Thamyris in according with in accordance with the law? And she just stares at Paul. She doesn&#039;t respond. She just stares at Paul. And when she won&#039;t answer, her mom, her mom says, burn the witch.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes! &amp;quot;Burn the lawless one! Burn the one who will not be a bride! Burn her in the midst of the theater! Then all the wives who have been taught by this one will fear.&amp;quot; That&#039;s her mom.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s her mom saying that. Her mom is so mad. Yeah, so they go. This is the first, but not the last, attempted martyrdom of Thecla.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I am glad that we already spoiled this. Thecla gets a happy ending.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, and yeah, despite the better efforts of the people of Iconium, yes, she still manages to come out clean on the other side.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So they are going to burn her at the stake. The governor peaces out because he doesn&#039;t want to watch them burn this young lady at the stake. Then she looks around trying to see if Paul is in the crowd. He&#039;s not, but when she looks intently into the crowd, she saw the Lord sitting there in the appearance of Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;She said, &#039;Since I am unable to endure my fate, Paul has come to watch over me.&#039; And she continued to gaze upon him, but he departed into heaven.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; So the weird thing about this book is that Thecla is in, but basically never talks about Jesus. She&#039;s there for Paul. And like she should have just seen Jesus in the crowd, right? Like that would have been more of a thing. But instead she was like, please give me that bald unibrow guy. I need him in my eyeballs as I get burned to death at the stake.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So if if Paul&#039;s the Vulture, is this more of a Mysterio or a Chameleon situation, you think?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I think it&#039;s mist I think it&#039;s gotta be a Mysterio. I think it&#039;s gotta be a Mysterio because because of the way he disappears in a puff of smoke.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. We&#039;re just reading a lot of this story to everyone, but &amp;quot;the children and virgins brought wood and hay for Thecla&#039;s burning is the start of the next chapter&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Then I highlighted this too. &amp;quot;When she was brought into the arena naked, the governor wept, marveling at the power he saw in her.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. You know, the power. Her power was so good he cried.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s a thirsty book.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s so thirsty, thirsty for virtue. and so yeah, they they set the pyre on fire, they light the pyre, and God is like, nah, I feel compassion for this girl. &amp;quot;And a great roar underground, overhead, a cloud full of water and hailstones overshadowed the place.&amp;quot; The rain puts out the fire. and so Thecla is saved for the first time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So then Paul is Paul is gone. Paul is back with Onesiphorus and is basically like, what a shame Thecla had to get burned at the stake. Can you pass me that bread, please?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Well Onesiphorus has sold all of his worldly goods in accordance with the teachings of Christ, and so he didn&#039;t have money for food. And so...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; They&#039;re living in an open tomb, which is mad gross.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, super gross. So Paul sells his cloak. He sells his cloak to buy bread and then when the child goes out to buy bread, the child runs into Thecla and he&#039;s like, what are you doing here? You&#039;re supposed to be completely burnt to death. And she was like, no man, I&#039;ve been saved. Where&#039;s Paul at? Please take me to Paul. And so she goes back, meets Paul. Paul is like, oh my God. This rules. God is pretty dope. And yeah, &amp;quot;so there was great love inside the tomb&amp;quot; with Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Paul tells her, and this is an amazing line. &amp;quot;The time is shameful and you are beautiful.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; There are so many Christian side hugs happening inside that open tomb right now.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Boy, they&#039;re praying. They are just really praying.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; They are just on their knees all night.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But then, then.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, here&#039;s the line that I like because this line absolutely does not work as a pun in the original language, whether Greek or Coptic or Latin. But in English? In English it does.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And I like it because because Thecla says, &amp;quot;just give me the seal in Christ and no temptation will touch me.&amp;quot; You&#039;re gonna get that seal, baby.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Don&#039;t worry about it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I promise. Don&#039;t worry about it. Paul says you&#039;ll be you&#039;ll receive the water. She gets both water and a seal. It&#039;s coming.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The next morning they meet a Syrian named Alexander, and Alexander asks who Thecla is, and Paul goes, &amp;quot;I do not know the woman you are speaking of.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I don&#039;t know her. Mariah Carey.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Dang Paul. Paul. In the words of the Three 6 mafia, DJ Paul is a dog, one you do not trust.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I think it&#039;s supposed to be another one of those things like like Abraham pretending Sarah is his sister, kind of kind of situation, maybe. So the idea is this guy, Alexander, is the main dude of Antioch. And and so he won he wants to get with Thecla. And Paul&#039;s like, I don&#039;t know who that is, because I don&#039;t know. I don&#039;t know. Yeah, it&#039;s kind of not a great move, Paul. But Alexander began embracing her in the street. She resisted him. And so she rips off his cloak, yanks his crown down around his head like a cartoon, and then everyone in the street starts laughing at him.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s great.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s really good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here&#039;s here&#039;s the thing about Thecla. She is not to be trifled with.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Very true. Extremely true.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Then later she is brought to the governor. Another governor, a second governor.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this is the governor of Antioch. So they&#039;ve moved cities, right? They&#039;ve left Iconium. They&#039;re in Antioch now. And so yeah, she&#039;s brought before the governor of Antioch, and she&#039;s condemned to die by wild beasts. That is, thrown into the arena with wild animals.&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You&#039;ve you&#039;ve heard of the Christians and the Lions.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, this is this is that. Yes, this is absolutely that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Thecla asked the governor to be allowed to remain chaste until she had to fight the wild beasts.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right, and so in order to help her&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s what bullfighters do, dog.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s true. That&#039;s so true. It absolutely is. I wonder if they think about Thecla. No, they shouldn&#039;t think about Thecla, probably. But she&#039;s put in the care of a wealthy queen named Tryphaena, who, I&#039;m going to point out, is absolutely 100% Caesar real. Tryphaena is a real, verifiably real person who was the great niece of the Emperor Claudius. And she was the widow of Cotys, king of Thrace, and the mother of Polemon II, King of Pontus. All of those places are in and around Turkey. So this is this is a real-for-real person who was related to Caesar. So in the strictest sense, she is Caesar real and she&#039;s a major character who has had a dream in which her late daughter, whose name was Falconilla, dope name, appeared to her and she says, Mother, you&#039;re going to have a new daughter. And here&#039;s the wildest part to me because this is not doctrine. You&#039;re gonna have a new new daughter, and if you save her life, she will pray so hard that I will go to heaven.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that makes perfect sense given Thecla&#039;s level of intensity.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I mean, while yes, the idea of praying souls out of purgatory, like that&#039;s a thing, like presumably Falconilla and Tryphaena were both you know, pagan people prior to this point and so like it doesn&#039;t seem like another... I don&#039;t know. Maybe. Maybe there&#039;s a church in which that&#039;s a thing, but it does it doesn&#039;t seem to me like that is fully orthodox, the idea that... But maybe, maybe Thecla is just so holy that she breaks she breaks doctrine.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The other bit that I that I missed here, there&#039;s a procession of the wild animals leading the animals to the arena where they will then eat these unlucky victims, presumably, or kill at least. And Thecla is chained to a fierce lioness. And the idea is that&#039;s supposed to be intimidating, obviously, and maybe she won&#039;t even make it to the arena, but the lioness lets Thecla sit on her back and the lioness licks her feet as a sign of submission, obviously. Licking feet, that&#039;s a pretty universal sign of submission.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hey, let&#039;s keep it clean. Let&#039;s not make the 400 jokes that are in our heads.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we&#039;ll just leave it. This this book is horny enough, it&#039;s fine. Yeah, so Tryphaena is her new kind of patron and guardian, but she makes her way to the the staging for the hunting games and guess who is the particular nobleman who was paying for these games? That&#039;s right, it&#039;s Alexander, the guy who had his pants pulled down in public and got laughed at by a woman who is now about to be eaten by a lion, maybe.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I highlighted this, because it&#039;s an amazing description. &amp;quot;Thecla was then taken from the hand of Tryphaena, and stripped, given an undergarment to wear, and cast into the stadium. Lions and bears were cast in to attack her. A fierce lioness ran up and lay down at her feet.&amp;quot; So She&#039;s in her underwear fighting wild animals.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; She is Bible-rella.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. Yes, and presumably this is the same lioness from the procession. It doesn&#039;t say that, but I mean logically. And so what happens is now this lioness fights for Thecla. So a bear comes up, the lioness kills the bear. A lion comes up and they kill each other. That part&#039;s a bummer. &amp;quot;And the lioness tangled with the lion and was destroyed along with it.&amp;quot; The women in the crowd, keep that in mind. There&#039;s a crowd full of women who are on Thecla&#039;s side. The women in this part, I love it. I love that the women are they&#039;re mega into it and they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;go Thecla, survive. None of us want to get married to men. The men of Antioch are terrible.&amp;quot; And keep in mind also that prior to this point, Thecla wants desperately to be baptized, but Paul was like, &amp;quot;the time&#039;s not right, but when the time is right, as he says, you will receive the water.&amp;quot; And so Thecla, thinking that she&#039;s at the moment of her death, is looking around desperately in the arena and she notices there&#039;s a big pool of water, a large vat filled with water.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Can I read this entire chapter?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Just do it, man. Go for it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is the Acts of Thecla chapter 34. &amp;quot;Then they cast in a large number of wild beasts while she stood, reaching out her hands and praying. When she finished her prayer, she turned and saw a large vat filled with water, and said, &#039;Now is the time for me to be cleaned.&#039; She threw herself in saying, &#039;In the name of Jesus Christ, on this final day I am baptized.&#039;&amp;quot; She just baptized herself&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, also that&#039;s orthodox. Continue.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;When the women and the entire crowd saw what she was doing, they wailed aloud and said, &#039;Do not throw yourself into the water.&#039; Even the governor began to weep, because seals were about to devour such beauty. But then she threw herself into the water in the name of Jesus Christ, and the seal saw a lightning bolt and floated on the water dead. Then a cloud of fire surrounded her, so that the beasts could not attack her and no one could see her naked.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, you guys know that that viral picture of the lightning bolt hitting the water and it says it&#039;s got God saying &amp;quot;Heck, these six fish in particular.&amp;quot; This is that moment. You got a woman in a vat full of seals that are about to eat her, and then a lightning bolt comes down and strategically branches out to hit and kill every individual seal in the tank. It&#039;s amazing.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I have several questions.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do seals eat people?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not as far as I&#039;m aware, but to the best of my knowledge, the most aggressive they get is they&#039;ll slap you in the face with an octopus. That is my understanding.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; In your studies of ancient Rome, were seals commonly featured in the gladiatorial games?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not that I am aware of. No, I have to say this is probably the first ancient text I&#039;ve encountered with seals as an aggressive carnivorous beast Or at all. Or at all. In fact. I I don&#039;t you don&#039;t encounter seals a lot, which is I think why they stand out so much in this particular story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Third question, and I think this is the last one I have about the seals, had they just not discovered sharks yet when this was written?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That could be, or yeah. They couldn&#039;t transport the sharks or everyone who tried to catch the shark got eaten. I don&#039;t know. But yeah, seals, these ravenous man-eating seals. Woman... that&#039;s the problem. They&#039;re man-eating seals. That&#039;s why they didn&#039;t eat the woman.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not anymore. They&#039;re cookrf seals now.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, they are.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because Thecla is rising out of the water cloaked in fire.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, which is awesome. I love it because it&#039;s got the dual purpose of covering her nakedness and also protecting her like a fire shield from the remaining animals. And then I love this, the women in the crowd, because they let more they let more animals out to try and get Thecla. So the women are all shouting, and then they throw leaves into the arena. they threw in Nard. That&#039;s right, Theecla&#039;s got nard.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; What is that?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s like a fragrant plant that you might make an oil out of. Like in some translations of the story of Mary and Martha where Mary anoints Jesus&#039; feet, she or whoever, because I guess in different versions it&#039;s a different woman anointing Jesus&#039; feet, but it in some versions it&#039;s very expensive nard. And so yeah, it&#039;s like a fragrant plant that you might make a perfume out of. And cardamom and other smelly plants, is the idea, right? So they throw them in and the whole place fills up with the smell of perfume, which works as a knockout gas for the animals.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hey, Benito?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Thecla rules.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Thecla totally rules and that and I think I think this vision of a woman&#039;s shielded in fire, enshrined by friendly lions, surrounded by knockout gas, I think if that doesn&#039;t inspire some really dope fan art, I feel like we have failed as a podcast.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean I feel like the fan art that has inspired was made in 1966 and starred Adam West and Julie Newmar.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s true. It&#039;s true. So here&#039;s a wild thing. Alexander&#039;s like, okay, let&#039;s do something that even knockout gas won&#039;t stop. And so they get...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039;  Alexander sees all this and does not go Hey, we should really cut our losses.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah, it&#039;s time yeah, it&#039;s time to just go home on this one, I think. There&#039;s other fish in the sea. But instead he says, &amp;quot;hey, what if we got these wild bulls and then we just strapped burning irons to their genitals? So that they will remain crazy, right? They they&#039;ll tear about and kill her.&amp;quot; And yeah, so they bind her between the bulls. She&#039;s tied to the two bulls, but her MegaMan-esque flame shield burns through the ropes. and she escapes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And then meanwhile, Queen Tryphaena, she passes out in the walkway and they think that she&#039;s died. And everyone freaks out because like I said, IRL, she&#039;s Caesar&#039;s niece. Claudius&#039;s niece, and so they&#039;re like, Whoops let&#039;s call her off. We gotta take care of this passed out queen who might be dead. And so Alexander begs for mercy, &amp;quot;set the prisoner free, lest the entire city be destroyed.&amp;quot; And so Thecla&#039;s called out, and he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Who are you? What is this? What&#039;s going on?&amp;quot; And she, of course, says, &amp;quot;I&#039;m a slave of the living God. etc.&amp;quot; And so the governor calls for real clothes for her to wear, not just like fire.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is great. &amp;quot;And he said, put on your clothes. But she replied, The one who clothed me when I was naked among the wild beasts will clothe me with salvation on the day of judgment.&amp;quot; But then she does put on her clothes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, right, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; She just wanted to get that in.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; She&#039;s released, and all the women shout out, &amp;quot;the one god, the one who saved Thecla.&amp;quot; So again we see you know these great moments leading to mass conversions within the city. In this case among women again. And this and so this whole story is a big, like powerful moment for women, which you can see really grating on the nerves of someone like Tertullian, for example. And yeah, so Tryphaena is very happy. She revives from her from her unconsciousness. she embraces Thecla. &amp;quot;Now I believe that the dead are raised. Now I believe that my child lives. Come inside and I will bequeath to you all that is mine.&amp;quot; She gives her a lot of stuff. She makes her her heir. Thecla of course sells all that stuff and gives it to the poor, because of course she does. And Thecla, of course, as soon as she&#039;s freed, what&#039;s the first thing she does? She goes to look for Paul. So she appears to Paul. And he&#039;s astonished, of course, and he was like, how did how did this happen? And she&#039;s like, &amp;quot;I got baptized, Paul. I did it. Just like I said. I got that seal. Wink.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And we iris out. The end.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We freeze frame and the executive producer credit comes up.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And so yeah, anyway, they get back they get together. Then eventually she returns to Iconium. She finds out that Thamyris has died. her mother was still alive. She calls her mother and says, &amp;quot;Theocleia, my mother, are you able to believe that the Lord in heaven lives?&amp;quot; And we get the implication here that her mother converts. In some versions of the text, it goes on to say that her mother did not convert. And furthermore, in some versions of the text, there&#039;s an additional– there&#039;s a coda to the story where we see that Thecla lives for another 72 years. And until eventually some young men decide that they will find her and ill-treat her at the age of ninety. And so she retreats into a cave, and the cave wall opens up. And she goes inside it and it closes behind her, and she&#039;s able to travel via underground tunnels from Turkey to Rome, where she comes out and finds the tomb of Paul, who has been martyred at this point, and she lies down on his tomb. And in in that case, and in those versions, that&#039;s the end of the story. So Thecla and Paul together forever.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But she is not martyred. She goes on to enlighten many there with the word of God. And then she lays down to her glorious rest, possibly on top of Paul&#039;s tomb.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Possibly on top of Paul&#039;s tomb. Right. There is a catacomb of St. Thecla in Rome. And so that that would explain that particular element. So yeah, she has definitely, even to this day, venerated, even though this story has never been official canon anywhere. Because again, I cannot stress enough, this story was incredibly popular, regardless of its canonicity.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I wonder why.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because it rules is probably why.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Was it the part where the naked lady came out of the water casting down lightning surrounded by fire?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It might be.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And fought bears and seals?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This was the Furious 7 of early Christian times.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I was gonna say it was it&#039;s kinda it&#039;s it&#039;s a little it&#039;s a little Mandy-esque. You could imagine Nicolas Cage as Paul in this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; He does fit the description.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so that is Paul and Thecla.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So now let&#039;s just look at some of the other parts, some of these shorter bits, starting with the letter of the Corinthians to Paul, followed by his reply, which is together taken as Third Corinthians. So these are very short letters, much shorter than the canonical, authentic First and Second Corinthians, which are non-controversial that IRL Paul wrote those. But this false, pseudonymous Third Corinthians seems to be created with the idea of clearing up confusion that would have been created by the first two letters. Most notably,  First Corinthians says, &amp;quot;flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,&amp;quot; which you can see if you&#039;ve been paying attention to this show, that should be setting off some Gnostic alarm bells in your head when you hear that. Anytime you hear flesh and blood being disdained, you should be thinking Gnosticism.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And in fact, the letter from the Corinthians to Paul, sent by guys named Stephanus and the presbyters with him Daphnus, Eubulus, Theophilus and Zenon, probably not I don&#039;t know, maybe the Theophilus, why not? And they say, basically, that there are two guys, Simon, maybe Simon Magus, we don&#039;t know, and a guy named Cleobius, and they&#039;ve been spreading false teachings, and they say &amp;quot;There is no need to consider the Hebrew prophets, that God is not the Almighty, that there is no resurrection of the flesh, that humans are not God&#039;s creation, that the Lord did not come into the world in the flesh, that he was not born from Mary, and that the world did not come from God, but from the angels.&amp;quot; All of that stuff is in some branch of Gnosticism or another, right? The idea of the demiurge who is like a secondary god who&#039;s responsible for the the creation of the physical realm, the fact that Jesus did not physically come down but instead was a a phantasm of some kind that&#039;s docetic teaching. We&#039;ve seen that one before. And so some of the all of this should be ringing bells to you from other stuff that we&#039;ve looked at before.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And basically, the letter of Third Corinthians is a brief rebuttal to all of those arguments. I mean there&#039;s no real reason to go through it point by point. He&#039;s just basically saying that yes, Jesus came in the flesh got because there&#039;s one God and God created that flesh, and so flesh is not evil. And in fact, Jesus coming down with his sacrifice of flesh is there to redeem all flesh. I&#039;m sorry I keep saying flesh, but that&#039;s really what the book is. And and it kind of ends with him saying... So he&#039;s in prison. Paul is in prison. This I think is supposed to be written when he&#039;s in prison in Philippi or something. And he says, I have chains on my hand that I may gain Christ, and marks on my body that I may come to the resurrection of the dead. Any one who remains in the rule received through the Blessed Prophets and the Holy Gospel will receive a reward. Any one who transgresses these things is bound for the fire, as are those atheists who have come before them, offspring of vipers, whom you should reject by the power of the Lord. May peace be with you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; What if they&#039;re trying not to be jerks about it?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, he doesn&#039;t seem to allow for that, and that&#039;s very rude, in my opinion, Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; He just didn&#039;t know. but yeah, so that&#039;s 3rd Corinthians. There&#039;s not much to it. it&#039;s not very infernal, despite what you might have learned on Constantine.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Then we&#039;ve got a couple of other fragments. There&#039;s a super fragmentary thing where Paul meets a guy named Panchares, I think, I didn&#039;t write that name down. And his he has a son named Barnabas, and Paul raises him from the dead. That&#039;s that&#039;s the gist of it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Then there is the somewhat longer, well, longer in the sense that we have more of it, bit of the healing of a guy named Hermocrates. who has dropsy, which is edema. He has swelling in his body,  a lot of a lot of fluid that builds up between the skin, and so he would have had he would have painful swelling in his limbs or in other cavities of his body, maybe his stomach. And we see Paul heal him by running his finger down his belly, and his belly splits open and all the fluid pours out. And then he goes, man, I&#039;m starving. Can I have some bread? Then we see that Hermocrates has two sons, one of whom is good and one of whom is bad. The good one dies, and Paul brings him back to life. the bad one tries to attack Paul with a sword, and Paul strikes him blind, after which he repents of his sin. That&#039;s about the gist of the healing of Hermocrates, that portion of the story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Then we have the bit referred to as the strife of the Ephesian beasts.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, I believe this is the one that you said you really wanted to hear my reaction to live, because I have not read these.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, correct. And most of our readers would not, or listeners, I should say, most of our listeners probably also have not because like I said if they followed our link they would have seen the M.R. James edition of this which did not have the full version of this. Instead all he had was references to this story from other ancient authors. And so he includes excerpts from other auth authors referring to this, but they don&#039;t quite get the really great details of the Strife of the Ephesian beasts.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And so The inspiration for this bit seems to come also from 1 Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians 15:32, Paul says, &amp;quot;What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.&amp;quot; And so it seems to be this very literal taking of, &amp;quot;oh, Paul fought some beasts at Ephesus? Better expand on that particular line.&amp;quot; And so that&#039;s where we get this story because we found they found a they found a fragment of this in Coptic, which again is, Coptic is a late Egyptian language that is written in an alphabet similar– it&#039;s a modified Greek alphabet. And so this is supposed to happen shortly after St. Paul&#039;s conversion on the road to Damascus. And the idea is he&#039;s with some traveling companions, they&#039;re in prayer, and an enormous lion comes up. The lion is described as being twelve cubits tall.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That is 18 feet tall, that is an eighteen foot tall lion, as big as a horse, which, that&#039;s also very large for a horse. They don&#039;t make eighteen-foot-tall horses. But what happens is, after they finish praying, the lion bows down at his feet. Paul says to the lion, &amp;quot;lion, what do you want?&amp;quot; And the lion answers, yes, he answers, &amp;quot;I want to be baptized.&amp;quot; Paul takes the lion to the river. Yeah. Paul takes the lion.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean, usually cats don&#039;t want that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, cats really don&#039;t usually want to be dunked underwater. It&#039;s true. As someone who&#039;s tried to bathe multiple cats in the past, it does not go great. So they get to the bank of the river as Paul&#039;s companions continue to pray. Paul then, he says, &amp;quot;We accomplished the plan which you have appointed.&amp;quot; He takes the lion by the mane, dunks him in the river, the lion comes out of the water, shakes himself off, and he says to Paul, &amp;quot;Grace be with you,&amp;quot; and Paul says, &amp;quot;and also with you.&amp;quot; And then this part rules, this part extremely rules. The lion runs into the woods, and a lioness approaches him, and the lion says, &amp;quot;No, I&#039;m celibate now,&amp;quot; and he runs off into the woods. That&#039;s not the end. This is not the end. Hold on. So...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, first of all, lions don&#039;t live in the woods.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, well, the countryside, whatever. I don&#039;t know, whatever. So, from this manuscript, the governor of Ephesus, Hieronymus, has arrested Paul due to complaints against him and he has sentenced him to die by the beasts. He sent ad bestiam. It&#039;s a Latin phrase that means &amp;quot;to the beast.&amp;quot; And Paul&#039;s there to fight the beasts, like he says in 1 Corinthians. But a giant lion that has recently been captured comes out to eat him.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is it about eighteen feet tall?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;d say about that, yeah. &amp;quot;And so after six days Hieronymus made a display of animals. All who saw it were astonished at the size of the beasts. While Paul was bound, he began to pray, he heard the noise of the wagons that carried the beasts, and when the lion came to the side door of the stadium where Paul was imprisoned, it roared loudly so that everybody cried out, &#039;The Lion!&#039; for it roared fiercely and angrily, so that even Paul broke off his prayer in terror. At dawn there was a cry from the citizens &#039;Let us go to the spectacle. Come, let us see the man who possesses God fighting with beasts.&#039; Paul was dragged in, saying nothing, but bowed down and groaning because he was led in triumph by the city. The authorities then ordered a very fierce lion which had been but recently captured to be set loose against him. But the lion looked at Paul, and Paul at the lion. Then Paul recognized that this was the lion which had come and been baptized. And borne along by faith, Paul said, &#039;Lion, was it you whom I baptized?&#039; And the lion in answer said to Paul, &#039;Yes.&#039; Paul spoke to it again and said, &#039;And how were you captured?&#039; The lion said with its own voice, &#039;Just as you were, Paul.&#039; After Hieronymus had sent many beasts so that Paul might be slain, the archers said the lion too might be killed, a violent and exceedingly heavy hailstorm fell from heaven, although the sky was clear. Many died, and all the rest took to flight, but it did not touch Paul or the lion, although the other beasts perished under the weight of the hail.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Just like happened to Thecla, so you&#039;re repeating yourself, Asia Minor Presbyter? But anyway, St. Paul&#039;s able to leave Ephesus on a ship with the other Christians who were fleeing, while the lion vanished into the mountains beyond the city. So yeah, pretty great. You guys might recognize this motif from the stories Androcles and the Lion, or even the Lion and the Mouse, right? It&#039;s the exact, it&#039;s that exact story. except with except with t the talking lion and baptism involved in a in a weird way.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Dog, that is wild.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Yeah, that rules, right? So yeah, that&#039;s Paul against the beasts of Ephesus. And yeah, so that leaves us now with our final portion, the martyrdom of Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, which we we&#039;ve seen most of this before. It&#039;s it&#039;s Paul getting in trouble for preaching in Rome and getting yelled at by Nero.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. it&#039;s weird because we&#039;ve seen different motivations, right? When in Acts of Peter and Paul, they were killed because they killed Simon Magus, or no, in the Acts of Peter they were killed because they killed Simon Magus. In Peter and Paul they were killed because, well, related to this, they led to the women of Rome deciding to pledge chastity, including Nero&#039;s concubines, and he didn&#039;t care for that. But in this case, what happens is the cupbearer, Nero&#039;s cupbearer named Patroclus, goes to listen to Paul&#039;s preaching, and he&#039;s sitting up in the window. And Satan, being wicked, became jealous of the love of the brethren and pushes Patroclus out of the window, and he falls to his death. You guys might remember from the canonical acts, that&#039;s basically the story of Eutychus,  except he falls asleep. He falls asleep listening to the sermon, relatable, and he falls to his death out of the window.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So this is very similar to that where he falls to his death and and then Paul resurrects him. And so Nero only hears the first part of the story. He hears that his cupbearer has died, and so he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Well, we&#039;re gonna need another cupbearer. Bring bring one in,&amp;quot; but they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;nah, Patroclus is here.&amp;quot; And Nero kind of flips out because he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;What is happening? Because he totally fell out of a building and died.&amp;quot; And they said it was this man, Paul, and Patroclus comes and tells him, you know, &amp;quot;Christ Jesus, the King of the Ages, has raised me,&amp;quot; and then we see Nero, similar to Herod in the Gospels, is threatened by the fact that there is a new eternal universal king who is going to have power over the terrestrial kings and emperors like himself.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And then there&#039;s a couple of other guys who get named. Barsabbas Justus the Flatfooted and Urion the Cappadocian and Festus of Galatia. They&#039;re the chief men of Nero, and they say, &amp;quot;Yeah, we like Jesus too.&amp;quot; And Nero&#039;s like, &amp;quot;No, you guys are all gonna be tortured. Round up all the Christians, please.&amp;quot; And that includes Paul. Paul is arrested and brought to him. And Paul tells them, &amp;quot;Yeah, we&#039;re building an army. An army from all over the world. We&#039;re enlisting men not just from here, but from all over.&amp;quot; Nero doesn&#039;t like it. He says, &amp;quot;Burn them all,&amp;quot; until eventually the Romans have to come and they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;Hey, Nero, these people are Romans that you&#039;re killing. You&#039;re killing your own citizens. You&#039;re gonna run out of Romans. It is enough, Caesar. These people are ours, you destroy the strength of the Romans.&amp;quot; Amd so he says, &amp;quot;Okay, no more no more killing Christians. Let&#039;s do an investigation.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And yeah, then we get these guys, we get Longus the Prefect and Cestus the Centurion. Longus, you can probably guess what that one means, Chris. Want to take a stab at it?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Does it mean long?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It does mean long. Yeah. And then Cestus is a pretty cool name for a centurion. you might know that one from I don&#039;t know, video games or Dungeons and Dragons. Do you know what a Cestus is?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s so rude of you to not be like, oh you know you know what this word is. You have to be like, oh you know this word from from your nerd stuff.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, you know this from sports? I don&#039;t know, Chris. Do you know what it is?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; A cesutus is a weighted glove.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, it&#039;s it&#039;s a weighted boxing glove. Yeah, and so pretty cool name for...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which I do in fact know from video games and Dungeons and Dragons.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah. Sorry about my accurate assessment. Anyway, so Nero says that Paul&#039;s going to be executed.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I am I am ready to talk about this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Are you? Go for it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;And turning toward the east, Paul lifted up his hands to heaven and prayed at length, and after having conversed in Hebrew with the fathers during prayer, he bent his neck without speaking any more.&amp;quot; Totally normal. Ready to get beheaded. We know this happens to Paul, right? &amp;quot;When the executioner cut off his head.&amp;quot; Everybody? Benito, could you bring out the Guess-o-tron 5000, please?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Mm-hmm. Yeah, let&#039;s bring it out. Everyone, enter your guesses into the Guess-o-tron 5000. What do you think is going to happen when Paul&#039;s head gets cut off?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Milk splashed on the tunic of the soldier.&amp;quot; That&#039;s right, you cut Paul&#039;s head off and a bunch of milk shoots out of his neck.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah. I imagine, what if it comes out like the water from the the fire hose on UHF.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I keep thinking of the Dragnet movie, when they they roll the tank into the milk factory. It&#039;s that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It says here that everyone was astonished, which I think I also would be.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I would also be astonished.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So here&#039;s the thing, it&#039;s not blood and milk. It&#039;s just milk.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s just milk. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s like you and me when we&#039;re on this podcast.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s right. The two jugs of milk just spraying out. So Paul...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Was that a prophetic dream?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I feel like it was. It was. Yeah, so I mean the idea, I guess, is that milk versus blood, that milk is a symbol of life, I guess, right? Like that&#039;s my best guess. That seems to be Bart Ehrman&#039;s guess as well, that the milk is a life symbol as opposed to blood. I mean even when Jesus got stabbed, he at least got blood and water. But milk? Paul is pure milk.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So I wrote this story, and some of you guys might have read it if you follow my my website, but I wrote it as a comic first, but then I wrote it as like a prose short story. You can find it online. But it&#039;s a story where Santa Claus fights Dracula because obviously. and in the second part of it, Dracula&#039;s out for revenge and he manages to catch Santa Claus and he bites his neck and then a bunch of milk sprays out because I thought that was a funny joke about Santa Claus. There&#039;s a twist to it that I&#039;m not gonna spoil on this podcast. You guys should go find it on my website. But it&#039;s weird. It&#039;s weird to see that come up in in a book that was almost Bible. You know what I mean? Like it&#039;s one thing in my funny Santa Claus Fights Dracula story, but it&#039;s another thing in a book that was a hair&#039;s breadth away, if it weren&#039;t for misogyny, might have been in the Bible.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Now, here&#039;s my question.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Does Paul resurrect or is this a ghost?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is a ghost, because he&#039;s trying to prove the resurrection. And so he tells Longus and Cestus, he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;You&#039;re gonna kill me, but God is gonna bring me back. And you&#039;re gonna see me.&amp;quot; And also, he tells them, &amp;quot;After my death, go to this place, and you&#039;ll find Luke and Titus at his grave. Go to my grave, and you&#039;ll see Luke and Titus,&amp;quot; presumably the Luke and Titus from Bible, &amp;quot;and they&#039;ll give you the seal in the Lord, but there is another sign&amp;quot; right? And so they were amazed, they didn&#039;t know what to say. While many philosophers and the centurion were assembled with the emperor, Paul came about the ninth hour, and in the presence of all he said, &amp;quot;What&#039;s up? It&#039;s your boy Paul, the soldier of God, I&#039;m not dead, but live in my God,&amp;quot; except he is dead. Then he vanishes again. He departs from them back to heaven. So Nero was like, &amp;quot;Well. Let&#039;s let those prisoners go, I guess.&amp;quot; So Patroclus and Barsabbas and Urion the Cappadocian and the other Festus, they all get released.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And then as promised, Longus and Cestus go to Paul&#039;s grave. And they find Luca and Titus there. And Luke and Titus, of course, see Roman soldiers and they freak out. They&#039;re afraid they&#039;re about to be arrested. But then Longus and Cestus say, &amp;quot;No, no, no. We follow you not in order to kill you, blessed men of God, as you imagine, but in order to live, that you may do to us as Paul promised us. We have just seen him in prayer beside you.&amp;quot; So that&#039;s two ghosts of Paul sightings after his after his death. And so Longus and Cestus convert to Christianity. &amp;quot;Everyone glorifies God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to whom glory forever and ever. Amen.&amp;quot; That&#039;s the end. That&#039;s the Acts of Paul.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Whew! What a what a journey we&#039;ve been on with this one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; What a long, strange trip.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Did you have a verse that stuck out to you?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; All of them. They&#039;re all good. We already read the good ones. The best one is Zekla surrounded by a cloud of fire. How are you gonna top that?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, that is the best one. One that I did highlight from the Acts of Paul chapter four. This is one that you can just bust out whenever. &amp;quot;You men who are now ignorant and in error, change your mind and be saved from the fire which comes over the whole earth.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Pretty good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s a good one. That you can just drop on anybody.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s a good one. Yeah. Pretty good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Here&#039;s what we&#039;ve learned today: Thecla rules.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Thecla rules, yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And Nero drools.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, Thecla rules, Nero drools, yes, absolutely. Yeah, pretty good one, pretty good. I don&#039;t know. I feel like I&#039;ve said what there is to say.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, there&#039;s not a lot to add to the story of Thecla. What do you want to do next week?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We had a couple of things on the table, but I think due to certain events in the world, when I say the world, I mean the United States. We&#039;re gonna do the capital A Apocryphal, Deuterocanonical, that is canon in many churches, story of Judith, another one with a good woman with agency as the main character, in this case a woman who very famously cuts off the head of a man. And I think we are all, I think we can say big mood on that one probably, right? I think that would be appropriate. So yeah, we&#039;re gonna hit up Judith. It&#039;ll be if you&#039;ve got a Bible that includes the Deuterocanon or the Apocrypha, it&#039;s going to be right there right after Tobit. You can also find it on Bible Gateway as long as you look for the NRSV version. That&#039;s what we&#039;ll be using. You can find it there. And that&#039;s what we&#039;re gonna be reading next week. I think we&#039;re all ready for it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so that is what we will be doing next time. Benito, where can everybody find us?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; You can find us online, the podcast, you can find supplemental materials, links, episodes of the show, all sorts of things on our Tumblr page at [https://apocrypals.tumblr.com apocrypals.tumblr.com] or [https://tumblr.com/apocrypals tumblr.com/apocrypals]. And probably this week I&#039;ll be posting up some images of Thecla because there are some nice sculptures and frescoes and paintings and things of her surrounded by the beasts, including some really strange ones that look like she&#039;s being licked by giant frogs. I don&#039;t know what&#039;s going on with that. But we&#039;ll have definitely have some art of Thecla. And yeah, we share all sorts of things like from last week with our guest David Wolkin. He sent us a whole list of links and resources and books and that kind of stuff that if you were interested in the discussion that we had last week and you should have been, you can definitely follow up on a lot of those things if you want to see more information about bibliodrama or any of the things that David was talking about, there&#039;s like 20 links and those are up on our page. So you can find us there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Also if you like the show, you want to support the show in a monetary fashion, you may do so by going to [https://ko-fi.com/apocrypals ko dash fi dot com slash apocrypals]. That&#039;s [https://ko-fi.com/apocrypals ko dash fi dot com slash apocrypals] where you can tip us basically or you can make small donations to the show in increments of three dollars or large donations if you want. You can do anything that&#039;s a multiple of three dollars. People have recently been doing 18, which is really nice because, you know, Jewish numerology,  it&#039;s a life, it&#039;s the number of life. And so if you want to hit us with $18, that would be dope. If you want to hit us with $3, that&#039;s fine. Anything you can donate goes towards helping us pay to keep the show going. And we really appreciate it. Otherwise, if you don&#039;t have that kind of scratch, that is fine.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And if you want to help the show, you can definitely leave us a rating and or review on iTunes or Stitcher or whatever your preferred method of listening to this podcast is. We are there. We&#039;re also on Spotify. You can listen to the show on Spotify, but we also have our The Apocrypals Hymnal is up on Spotify as a playlist where you can hear all the songs that we&#039;ve featured at the top of the show, any song that&#039;s been a needle drop in the middle of the show, any song that we&#039;ve referenced is going to be up on that playlist. I had somebody tweet us this week that they discover that a nice side effect of this show is that they discovered lots of new cool music, which I think is awesome. That&#039;s mostly on Chris who picks pretty much all the music for the show. What about you, Chris? Where can people find you?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; People can find all my stuff just by going to [https://the-isb.com the dash isb dot com]. There&#039;s links there to everything. Hey, you can also find the two of us along with a bunch of other very talented people in this year&#039;s Army of Darkness Halloween Special 2018. My writing partner Chad Bowers and I, we wrote the main story in that with art by Owen Marin. And Benito, you wrote the backup.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s right, with art by Sam Lotfi. It&#039;s very cool. I think it came out really great. The whole package is is awesome. Chris and Chad&#039;s story all about Blackbeard just in time for the 300th anniversary of Blackbeard&#039;s last stand. Super cool story. If you want to see you Ash get rough with a with a ghost tour guide, pretty good one. You guys also just had you just had Sleepwalker come out this week. And it&#039;s great.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Infinity Wars Sleepwalker No. 1 out now at your local comic book store and online. So do check those out.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is October, and if you guys are in the Halloween spirit, and I hope you are because Chris and I are the kind of guys who get very into the Halloween spirit until it becomes Christmas and then we are completely Christmas Spirit, but but for now we&#039;re Halloween boys. And if if you are the kind of person who is interested in horror movies, I do have a resource for you on my personal tumblr at [https://benito-cereno.tumblr.com Benito dash Cereno dot tumblr .com]. You can go there and find my annual list. It&#039;s called the Haunting of Netflix House. I&#039;m up to part six this year. Every year I make a list of the best or at least the good horror movies that you can watch on Netflix available now, currently on streaming if you&#039;re curious about what&#039;s good because they have a bunch of stuff on there. Not all of it&#039;s great, but if you want to go there, you can find that on my personal Tumblr,  I think the list came out pretty well this year. There&#039;s a lot of good things, a lot of movies you&#039;ve heard of this year, probably like The Witch and The Strangers and As Above So Below. Those are all streaming this year. But then a bunch of other ones that you haven&#039;t heard of that I think are great, such as Cargo and A Dark Song. and other things like that. So check that out on my Tumblr.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Also, I want to give a shout out to some of our our sister podcasts in spirit, they&#039;re not made by us, but other podcasts that you guys might like since it is now the spooky season, one we&#039;ve mentioned many times Scream Scene, which is co-hosted by Ben Rowe, friend of the show Ben Rowe, we mention him all the time, and his wife Sarah. They do Scream Scene in which they rank every horror movie ever made in chronic chronological order, starting with, you know, the silent short films of the 1890s. They&#039;re currently into the early 40s. And so if you want to hear really interesting podcasts about the history and production of the most iconic horror movies of all time, you should listen to their Dracula episodes. Their Phantom of the Opera episode is really good. The Bride of Frankenstein episode is really good. So check that one out.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But I would be remiss if I didn&#039;t also meant mention another horror movie ranking podcast made by friends of ours. That one&#039;s called Rank and Vile. They do everything in whatever order they want. They&#039;ll review a Count Chocula commercial if they feel like it. Chris and I have both been on that show, right? Chris, you talked about Army of Darkness, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I did indeed.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And Taste of the Blood of Dracula, I think.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And they had me on and I talked about some of my favorite horror movies, The Wicker Man, the original Wicker Man with Christopher Lee, not the one with Nicolas Cage, but also  Mask of the Red Death with Vincent Price, one of my favorites. So check that one out.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And finally,  in my opinion, the absolute best serialized horror fiction podcast on internet is the Magnus Archives written, produced, hosted, usually narrated by a guy named Jonathan Sims, no relation as far as I know, to Chris Sims. He is British. it&#039;s really good short episodes that all have an underlying thread that ties everything together, but the individual stories are so nice and the in the style of, well mentioned them in this episode, M.R. James, who of course was an antiquarian, as he would have called himself, but also considered the greatest ghost story writer of all time. They&#039;re very much in the spirit of M.R. James in classic Victorian ghost story style. Weird tales and if you want something that feels both classic and new at the same time I absolutely recommend the Magnus archives if you&#039;re looking for something spooky for this Halloween season. So that&#039;s it. Just a couple of podcast recs and shout-outs to friends of the show.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s it, everybody. We will be back next time with the Story of Judith, which you can find on [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judith%201&amp;amp;version=NRSVUE BibleGateway.com]. Until then, for Benito Cereno, I&#039;ve been Chris Sims. Benito, peace be with you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And also with you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music: &amp;quot;Danger! High Voltage&amp;quot; by Electric Six]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
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		<title>Episode List</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Episode_List&amp;diff=137"/>
		<updated>2026-02-07T18:03:30Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: /* Episodes */&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;In each episode, [[Benito Cereno|Benito]] and [[Chris Sims|Chris]] read, watch or play something from the Bible (or Bible-adjacent) and talk about its history, authors, and contents. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
You can listen to all episodes at the show&#039;s [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com Libsyn page] or by subscribing through [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/apocrypals/id1366302177 Apple Podcasts]. [[Bonus Episodes|Bonus video episodes]] can all be seen on [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvsqJ485UTPgVIP1i-BTgMfSsmk4S7ouE Benito&#039;s YouTube channel].&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Episodes==&lt;br /&gt;
{| class=&amp;quot;wikitable sortable&amp;quot; style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
! Episode !! &amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;Date&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp; !! Title !! Subject !! Source !! Transcript&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/episode-0-ive-been-to-my-share-of-pizza-parties 0] || 2018-03-29 || [[I&#039;ve Been To My Share of Pizza Parties]] || nonspecific || || [[I&#039;ve Been To My Share of Pizza Parties (Transcript) | Yes]] &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/porky-party-the-book-of-acts 1] || 2018-04-08 || [[Porky Party]] || Acts || New Testament || [[Porky Party (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/2-one-weird-trick-the-book-of-daniel-with-apocrypha 2] || 2018-04-14 || [[One Weird Trick]] || Daniel as well as The Prayer of Azariah aka the Song of the Three Holy Children; Susanna; and Bel and the Dragon || Tanakh and Deuterocanon  || [[One Weird Trick (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/3-various-heresies-the-acts-of-peter-and-paul 3] || 2018-04-22 || [[Various Heresies]] || The Acts of Peter and The Acts of Peter and Paul || Apocrypha  || [[Various Heresies (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/4-wittgensteins-monster-the-book-of-isaiah 4] || 2018-05-06 || [[Wittgenstein&#039;s Monster]] || The Book of Isaiah || Tanakh || [[Wittgenstein&#039;s Monster (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/5-on-the-road-to-rome-pauls-letter-to-the-romans 5] || 2018-05-20 || [[On the Road to Rome]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Romans || New Testament || [[On the Road to Rome (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/6-fresh-prince-of-beliar-the-ascension-of-isaiah 6] || 2018-05-27 || [[Fresh Prince of Beliar]] || The Ascension of Isaiah &amp;amp; The Prayer of Manasseh || Pseudepigrapha and Deuterocanon  || [[ Fresh Prince of Beliar (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/7-neon-genesis-good-news-the-gospel-of-mark-and-secret-mark-0 7] || 2018-06-03 || [[Neon Genesis Good News]] || The Gospel of Mark and Secret Mark || New Testament and Apocrypha  || [[Neon Genesis Good News (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/8-whats-up-doctor-goodacre-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-one 8] || 2018-06-10 || [[What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre]] || The Gospel of Matthew, Part One || New Testament  || [[ What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/9-simon-peters-sweet-sixteen-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-two 9] || 2018-06-24 || [[Simon Peter&#039;s Sweet Sixteen]] || The Gospel of Matthew, Part Two || New Testament || [[Simon Peter&#039;s Sweet Sixteen (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/10-the-dude-hates-wizards-the-gospel-of-luke 10] || 2018-07-02 || [[The Dude Hates Wizards]] || The Gospel of Luke || New Testament || [[The Dude Hates Wizards (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/11-90s-vertigo-jesus-the-gospel-of-john-part-one 11] || 2018-07-09 || [[90s Vertigo Jesus]] || The Gospel of John, Part One || New Testament  || [[ 90s Vertigo Jesus (Transcript)| Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/12-whomst-was-at-the-tombst-the-gospel-of-john-part-two 12] || 2018-07-15 || [[Whomst Was At the Tombst?]] || The Gospel of John, Part Two || New Testament || [[ Whomst Was At the Tombst? (Transcript)| Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/11-90s-vertigo-jesus-the-gospel-of-john-part-one 13] || 2018-07-30 || [[Bonus Goat]] || The Deuterocanonical Book of Tobit || Deuterocanon  || [[Bonus Goat (Transcript)|Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/14-the-boy-related-eagle-plan-the-story-of-ahikar 14] || 2018-08-06 || [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan]] || The Story of Ahikar || Pseudepigrapha || [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan (Transcript)|Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/15-an-approximate-week-the-golden-legend-st-christopher-and-st-benedict 15] || 2018-08-13 || [[An Approximate Week]] || The Golden Legend: St. Christopher and St. Benedict || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/16-doamurder-west-virginia-the-book-of-genesis-part-1 16] || 2018-08-19 || [[Doamurder, West Virginia]] || The Book of Genesis, Part 1 || Tanakh || [[Doamurder, West Virginia (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/17-five-gallons-of-bread-the-book-of-genesis-part-two 17] || 2018-08-27 || [[Five Gallons of Bread]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Two || Tanakh  || [[Five Gallons of Bread (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/18-literally-and-figuratively-wrestling-with-god-the-book-of-genesis-part-three-0 18] || 2018-09-09 || [[Literally and Figuratively Wrestling With God]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Three || Tanakh || [[ Literally and Figuratively Wrestling With God (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/19-mbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbam-the-book-of-genesis-part-four 19] || 2018-09-23 || [[MBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBaM]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Four || Tanakh  || [[ MBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBaM (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/20-shalom-birdie-genesis-commentary-with-david-wolkin 20] || 2018-09-30 || [[Shalom Birdie (with David Wolkin)]] || The Book of Genesis || Tanakh  || [[ Shalom Birdie (with David Wolkin) (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/21-biblerella-the-acts-of-paul-and-thecla 21] || 2018-10-07 || [[Biblerella]] || The Acts of Paul and Thecla || Apocrypha  || [[Biblerella (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/22-oceans-two-the-book-of-judith 22] || 2018-10-15 || [[Ocean&#039;s Two]] || The Book of Judith || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/23-dunking-on-satan-the-acts-of-pilate-and-the-gospel-of-nicodemus 23] || 2018-10-21 || [[Dunking on Satan]] || The Acts of Pilate and The Gospel of Nicodemus || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/25-butt-stuff-dragon-the-testament-of-solomon 24] || 2018-10-29 || [[Butt Stuff Dragon]] || The Testament of Solomon || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/25-one-rinthies-baby-first-corinthians 25] || 2018-11-14 || [[One Rinthies, Baby]] || First Corinthians || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/26-some-other-christmas-man-the-lives-of-st-nicholas-and-st-lucy 26] || 2018-11-19 || [[Some Other Christmas Man]] || The Lives of St. Nicholas and St. Lucy || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/27-the-book-of-the-dynasty-of-gods-resisters-the-first-book-of-maccabees 27] || 2018-12-02 || [[The Book of the Dynasty of God&#039;s Resisters]] || The First Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/28-second-maccabees-second-furious-the-second-book-of-maccabees 28] || 2018-12-10 || [[Second Maccabees Second Furious]] || The Second Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/29-these-apocryphal-ravings-the-infancy-gospel-of-james 29] || 2018-12-16 || [[These Apocryphal Ravings]] || The Infancy Gospel of James || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/30-apples-and-oranges-the-legend-of-the-three-kings 30] || 2019-01-07 || [[Apples and Oranges]] || The Legend of the Three Kings by John of Hildesheim || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/31-yartzed-upon-a-distant-shore-the-book-of-jonah 31] || 2019-01-24 || [[Yartzed Upon a Distant Shore]] || The Book of Jonah || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/32-return-of-the-twelve-foot-volcel-lion-questions-answers 32] || 2019-02-03 || [[Return of the Twelve-Foot Volcel Lion]] || Questions &amp;amp; Answers || Listener questions  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/33-thicc-darkness-the-book-of-exodus-part-one 33] || 2019-02-10 || [[Thicc Darkness]] || The Book of Exodus, Part One || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/34-thorn-bushes-and-pushups-the-song-of-songs 34] || 2019-02-24 || [[Thorn Bushes and Pushups]] || The Song of Songs || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/35-down-in-the-donkey-hole-the-book-of-exodus-part-two 35] || 2019-03-03 || [[Down in the Donkey Hole]] || The Book of Exodus, Part Two || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/36-grazacham-the-life-of-st-patrick 36] || 2019-03-12 || [[GRAZACHAM!]] || Muirchu’s Life of Saint Patrick || Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/37-bigger-esther-the-book-of-esther-and-greek-esther 37] || 2019-03-20 || [[Bigger Esther]] || The Book of Esther and Greek Esther || Tanakh and Deuterocanon ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/38-sword-drill-online-bible-trivia-special 38] || 2019-03-31 || [[Sword Drill Online]] || Bible Trivia Special || Complete Book of Bible Trivia  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/39-rain-is-boy-water-the-book-of-enoch-part-one 39] || 2019-04-07 || [[Rain is Boy Water]] || The Book of Enoch, Part One || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/40-devil-got-a-hog-the-book-of-enoch-part-two 40] || 2019-04-19 || [[Devil Got a Hog]] || The Book of Enoch, Part Two || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/41-neo-mary-is-about-to-e-x-p-l-o-d-e-the-questions-of-bartholomew 41] || 2019-04-29 || [[Neo-Mary Is About To E X P L O D E]] || Questions of Bartholomew and The Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Bartholomew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/42-the-roasting-of-the-apostle-paul-second-corinthians 42] || 2019-05-06 || [[The Roasting of the Apostle Paul]] || Second Corinthians || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/43-why-prophets-so-nasty-the-book-of-jeremiah 43] || 2019-05-27 || [[Why Prophets So Nasty?]] || The Book of Jeremiah || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/44-terms-and-conditions-the-book-of-jeremiah-part-2 44] || 2019-06-23 || [[Terms and Conditions]] || The Book of Jeremiah, Part 2 || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/45-mummy-dust-and-skeleton-bones-the-book-of-ruth 45] || 2019-07-14 || [[Mummy Dust and Skeleton Bones]] || The Book of Ruth || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/46-ctrl-z-on-a-murder-the-acts-of-john 46] || 2019-08-09 || [[CTRL-Z On A Murder]] || The Acts of John || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/47-approximate-week-ii-the-quickening-the-syriac-infancy-gospel 47] || 2019-08-21 || [[Approximate Week II: The Quickening]] || The Syriac Infancy Gospel || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/48-the-almighty-ambush-bear-the-book-of-lamentations 48] || 2019-08-28 || [[The Almighty Ambush Bear]] || The Book of Lamentations || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/49-wajesus-the-first-second-and-third-epistles-of-john 49] || 2019-09-16 || [[Wajesus]] || The First, Second, and Third Epistles of John || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/50-the-terf-of-babylon-the-revelation-of-john-0 50] || 2019-10-02 || [[The TERF of Babylon]] || The Revelation of John || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/51-jesus-buffy-halloween-chick-tracts 51] || 2019-10-28 || [[Jesus, Buffy]] || Halloween Chick Tracts || Chick Tracts  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/51-apocrypals-chris-and-benito-the-book-of-ecclesiastes 52] || 2019-11-24 || [[Apocrypals Chris And Benito]] || The Book of Ecclesiastes || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/52-maccabees-3-elephant-drift-the-third-book-of-maccabees 53] || 2019-12-08 || [[Maccabees 3: Elephant Drift]] || The Third Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/54-our-favorite-murders-the-infancy-gospel-of-thomas 54] || 2019-12-22 || [[Our Favorite Murders]] || The Infancy Gospel of Thomas || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/55-the-parable-of-the-sexy-blood-baby-the-book-of-ezekiel-part-one 55] || 2020-01-12 || [[The Parable of the Sexy Blood Baby]] || The Book of Ezekiel, Part One || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/56-welcome-to-the-bone-zone-the-book-of-ezekiel-part-two 56] || 2020-01-26 || [[Welcome to the Bone Zone]] || The Book of Ezekiel, Part Two || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/57-we-holy-ghost-bro-the-life-of-xanthippe-polyxena-and-rebecca 57] || 2020-02-08 || [[We Holy Ghost, Bro?]] || The Life of Xanthippe, Polyxena, and Rebecca || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/58-blaise-your-dead-homie-the-lives-of-st-sebastian-st-blaise-and-st-agatha 58] || 2020-02-23 || [[Blaise, Your Dead Homie]] || The Lives of St. Sebastian, St. Blaise, and St. Agatha || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/59-source-of-the-flow-the-book-of-leviticus 59] || 2020-03-08 || [[Source of the Flow]] || The Book of Leviticus || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/59-joses-crust-the-acts-of-andrew-and-matthias 60] || 2020-03-22 || [[Joses Crust]] || The Acts of Andrew and Matthias || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/60-countless-large-gregs-the-second-book-of-enoch 61] || 2020-04-05 || [[Countless Large Gregs]] || The Second Book of Enoch || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/62-oh-the-jews-manatees-the-book-of-numbers 62] || 2020-04-19 || [[Oh, the Jews&#039; Manatees!]] || The Book of Numbers || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/63-wist-not-to-whom-ne-whither-the-lives-of-st-roche-and-st-guinefort 63] || 2020-05-06 || [[Wist Not To Whom Ne Whither]] || The Lives of St. Roche and St. Guinefort || Golden Legend, Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/64-spiritual-warfare-is-good-actually-bible-adventures-and-the-wisdom-tree-catalogue 64] || 2020-05-18 || [[Spiritual Warfare Is Good, Actually]] || Bible Adventures and the Wisdom Tree catalogue || Video Games  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/65-adonai-is-ichiban-the-book-of-deuteronomy 65] || 2020-06-02 || [[Adonai is Ichiban!]] || The Book of Deuteronomy || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/66-jesus-with-two-cool-ses-the-acts-of-thomas-and-his-wonderworking-skin 66] || 2020-06-14 || [[JeSuS With Two Cool Ses]] || The Acts of Thomas and his Wonderworking Skin || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/67-bad-things-to-call-your-mother-the-book-of-bartholomew 67] || 2020-06-28 || [[Bad Things to Call Your Mother]] || The Book of Bartholomew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/68-scent-of-a-jesus-the-first-second-and-third-apocryphal-apocalypses-of-john 68] || 2020-07-12 || [[Scent of a Jesus]] || The First, Second, and Third Apocryphal Apocalypses of John || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/69-thirst-corinthians-the-lives-of-st-mary-of-egypt-and-st-pelagia 69] || 2020-07-26 || [[Thirst Corinthians]] || The Lives of St. Mary of Egypt and St. Pelagia || Separate books  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xHQHK_SLX8 69 Secret] || 2020-08-28 || [[Secret 69]] || The Greater Questions of Mary || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/70-two-firkin-bored-the-letter-of-aristeas-0 70] || 2020-08-09 || [[Two Firkin Bored]] || The Letter of Aristeas || Pseudepigrapha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/71-approximate-week-chapter-3-parabellum-the-war-scroll 71] || 2020-08-23 || [[Approximate Week Chapter 3: Parabellum]] || The War Scroll || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/72-cold-brew-paul-pauls-letter-to-the-galatians 72] || 2020-09-06 || [[Cold Brew Paul]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Galatians || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/73-be-courageous-the-book-of-joshua 73] || 2020-09-20 || [[Be Courageous!]] || The Book of Joshua || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/74-howl-of-the-ostrich-the-books-of-micah-and-nahum 74] || 2020-10-04 || [[Howl of the Ostrich]] || The Books of Micah and Nahum || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/75-lazer-babies-the-apocalypse-of-peter 75] || 2020-10-18 || [[Lazer Babies]] || The Apocalypse of Peter || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/76-filling-the-room-the-life-of-st-martin 76] || 2020-11-01 || [[Filling the Room]] || The Life of St. Martin || Separate books  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/77-the-blessed-voltrons-the-lives-of-st-catherine-and-st-barbara 77] || 2020-11-15 || [[The Blessed Voltrons]] || The Lives of St. Catherine and St. Barbara || Golden Legend ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/78-maccabees-the-fourth-book-of-maccabees 78] || 2020-11-29 || [[MACCABEES]] || the Fourth Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/79-marys-christmas-the-infancy-gospel-of-pseudo-matthew 79] || 2020-12-13 || [[Marys Christmas]] || The Infancy Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/bonus-bill-bless-us-every-ted-christmas-gift-exchange-2020 79 Bonus] || 2020-12-22 || [[Bill Bless Us, Every Ted]] || Christmas Gift Exchange 2020 || The Joy of Friendship  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/80-the-deadliest-skambush-of-them-all-the-book-of-judges 80] || 2021-01-10 || [[The Deadliest Skambush of Them All]] || The Book of Judges || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/81-sometimes-its-just-sucky-pauls-letter-to-the-ephesians 81] || 2021-01-24 || [[Sometimes It&#039;s Just Sucky]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Ephesians || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/82-sedeqetelebab-the-book-of-jubilees 82] || 2021-02-07 || [[Sedeqetelebab!]] || The Book of Jubilees Pt 1 || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/83-speedrun-tactics-the-book-of-jubilees-part-2 83] || 2021-02-21 || [[Speedrun Tactics]] || The Book of Jubilees Pt 2 || Pseudepigrapha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/84-just-one-more-thing-the-life-of-st-columba 84] || 2021-03-07 || [[Just One More Thing]] || The Life of St. Columba || Hagiography  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/85-old-clootie-the-life-of-st-dunstan 85] || 2021-03-21 || [[Old Clootie]] || The Life of St. Dunstan || Golden Legend ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/87-god-junior-the-third-book-of-enoch-part-1 86] || 2021-04-04 || [[God Junior]] || The Third Book of Enoch (Part 1) || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/87-crisis-on-18000-earths-the-third-book-of-enoch-part-2 87] || 2021-04-18 || [[Crisis On 18,000 Earths]] || The Third Book of Enoch (Part 2) || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/88-a-miserable-pile-of-secrets-the-da-vinci-code-commentary 88] || 2021-05-09 || [[A Miserable Pile of Secrets]] || The Da Vinci Code, the film || Fiction  || [[A Miserable Pile of Secrets (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/89-2000-bc-the-first-book-of-samuel 89] || 2021-05-23 || [[2000 B.C.]] || The First Book of Samuel || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/90-worfin-the-lions-the-second-book-of-samuel-part-1 90] || 2021-06-06 || [[Worfin’ the Lions]] || The Second Book of Samuel (Part 1) || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt4B2OXgHN4 90.1] || 2021-06-20 || [[Double Chai: Rock Me, Asmodeus]] || Solomon and the Devil || Talmudic Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/90-the-me-in-this-story-is-you-the-second-book-of-samuel-part-2 91] || 2021-06-27 || [[The Me In This Story Is You]] || The Second Book of Samuel (Part 2) || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/92-slayer-of-men-conqueror-of-space-the-gospel-of-philip-the-gospel-of-mary-and-the-gospel-of-jesuss-wife-0 92] || 2021-07-11 || [[Slayer of Men, Conqueror of Space]] || The Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Mary, and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife || Apocrypha (Gnostic)  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HKZ-U4W7Ew 92 Bonus] || 2021-08-04 || [[Cephalo4: Protect Yr Neck]] || Cephalophores || Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/93-approximate-week-iv-oblivion-joseph-and-aseneth 93] || 2021-08-15 || [[Approximate Week IV: OblIVion]] || Joseph and Aseneth || Apocrypha (Tanakh)  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/94-little-martha-and-the-small-vandellas-the-lives-of-st-mary-magdalene-and-st-wilgefortis 94] || 2021-09-26 || [[Little Martha and the Small Vandellas]] || The Lives of St. Mary Magdalene and St. Wilgefortis || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/95-an-abyss-of-significant-depth-the-apocalypse-of-paul 95] || 2021-10-10 || [[An Abyss of Significant Depth]] || The Apocalypse of Paul || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/96-the-goku-of-judaism-stories-of-the-baal-shem-tov 96] || 2021-10-24 || [[The Goku of Judaism]] || Stories of the Baal Shem Tov || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbw3BxiTfKU Bonus] || 2021-11-16 || [[Guess the Persona-fied Bible Character]] || Persona 5 || Video Games ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/97-pretty-sus-lesbius-the-acts-of-andrew 97] || 2021-12-02 || [[Pretty Sus, Lesbius]] || The Acts of Andrew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/98-you-know-the-manger-christmas-chick-tracts 98] || 2021-12-23 || [[You Know, the Manger?]] || Christmas Chick Tracts || Chick Tracts  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/99-for-sale-baby-legs-not-attached-the-first-book-of-kings 99] || 2022-01-30 || [[For Sale, Baby Legs, Not Attached]] || The First Book of Kings || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/100-escape-from-flesh-island-the-gospel-of-judas 100] || 2022-03-05 || [[Escape From Flesh Island]] || The Gospel of Judas || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/101-the-apocrypals-solve-theodicy-the-book-of-job 101] || 2022-04-21 || [[The Apocrypals Solve Theodicy]] || The Book of Job || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/102-napalm-toots-the-lives-of-st-mary-of-bethany-and-st-margaret-of-antioch 102] || 2022-06-12 || [[Napalm Toots]] || The Lives of The Lives of St. Martha of Bethany and St. Margaret of Antioch || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/103-sucky-james-the-history-of-joseph-the-carpenter 103] || 2022-07-03 || [[Sucky James]] || The History of Joseph the Carpenter || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/104-previously-on-bible-the-epistle-to-the-hebrews 104] || 2022-08-01 || [[Previously, on Bible]] || The Epistle to the Hebrews || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/103-approximate-week-v-ravager 105] || 2022-08-12 || [[Approximate Week V: RaVager]] || El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron || Video Games  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/104-a-serious-goku-move-the-second-book-of-kings 106] || 2022-10-30 || [[A Serious Goku Move]] || The Second Book of Kings || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/107-hellmensch-stories-of-the-baal-shem-tov-vol-2 107] || 2022-11-13 || [[Hellmensch]] || Stories of the Baal Shem Tov || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin  || [[Hellmensch (Transcript) | Yes ]] &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/108-skip-this-one-the-book-of-hosea 108] || 2022-11-27 || [[Skip This One]] || The Book of Hosea || Tanakh  || [[  Skip This One (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/109-chris-and-benitos-bible-bonkers-the-didache 109] || 2023-10-11 || [[Chris and Benito&#039;s Bible Bonkers]] || The Didache || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/110-the-beastie-boys-worst-nightmare-the-lock-in-2014 110] || 2023-10-30 || [[The Beastie Boys&#039; Worst Nightmare (The Lock-In (2014))]] || The Lock-In (2014) || Fiction ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/111-all-skips-no-hits-1-chronicles 111] || 2024-08-09 || [[All Skips No Hits]] || 1 Chronicles || Tanakh || [[All Skips No Hits (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/112-approximate-week-vi-the-undiscovered-country 112] || 2024-08-17 || [[Approximate Week VI: The Undiscovered Country]] || Illuminator || Comics ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/113-jaoel-instant-messenger-the-apocalypse-of-abraham 113] || 2024-09-05 || [[Jaoel Instant Messenger]] || The Apocalypse of Abraham || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/114-sin-onyms-the-devils-argument-the-martyrdom-of-perpetua-and-felicity 114] || 2024-10-03 || [[Sin-onyms, The Devil&#039;s Argument]] || The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/115-hell-is-the-big-show-the-life-of-st-christina-the-astonishing 115] || 2024-10-27 || [[Hell Is The Big Show]] || The Life of St. Christina the Astonishing || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/116-its-his-birthday-be-nice-the-revelation-of-the-magi 116] || 2024-12-22 || [[It&#039;s His BIRTHDAY, Be Nice!]] || The Revelation of the Magi || Pseudepigrapha || &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/117-king-solomons-hog-the-second-book-of-chronicles-feat-aaron-higashi 117] || 2024-02-17 || [[King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi]] || 2 Chronicles || Tanakh || [[King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/bonus-biblical-mini-golf 118 Bonus] || 2025-05-08 || [[Bonus: Biblical Mini-Golf]] || Fairway to Heaven || Road Trip || &lt;br /&gt;
|}&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Sub-series==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
{| class=&amp;quot;wikitable sortable&amp;quot; style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
! Podcast !! Episode !! &amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;Date&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp; !! Title !! Transcript !! Wolverine Costume&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-01-dr-dan-mcclellan 1] || 2023-04-20 || [[Multipals 01: Dr. Dan McClellan]] || [[Multipals 01: Dr. Dan McClellan (transcript) | Yes]] || Brown and Tan&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-02-aaron-higashi 1] || 2023-06-23 || [[Multipals 02: Aaron Higashi]] || [[Multipals 02: Aaron Higashi (transcript) | Yes]] || Kimono&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-03-anne-thriault 3] || 2023-04-20 || [[Multipals 03: Anne Thériault]] || [[Multipals 03: Anne Thériault (transcript) | Yes]] || Hugh Jackman as the Music Man&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-04-tony-burke-and-janet-spittler 4] || 2023-08-20 || [[Multipals 04: Tony Burke &amp;amp;amp; Janet Spittler]] || [[Multipals 04: Tony Burke &amp;amp;amp; Janet Spittler (transcript) | Yes]] || Brown and Tan / Yellow Guy From Cartoon&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-05-dr-alexiana-fry 5] || 2023-12-13 || [[Multipals 05: Dr. Alexiana Fry]] || [[Multipals 05: Dr. Alexiana Fry (transcript) | Yes]] || Logan (2017) Suit&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-06-dr-justin-sledge 6] || 2023-12-13 || [[Multipals 06: Dr. Justin Sledge]] || [[Multipals 06: Dr. Justin Sledge (transcript) | Yes]] || &#039;90s Yellow&lt;br /&gt;
|}&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Bonus:_Biblical_Mini-Golf&amp;diff=1056</id>
		<title>Bonus: Biblical Mini-Golf</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Bonus:_Biblical_Mini-Golf&amp;diff=1056"/>
		<updated>2025-05-13T11:50:59Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: Created page with &amp;quot;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/36487255/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt; ==Show Notes== For the first time in ten years, Theophiloi -- and the first time ever during the lifespan of this very podcast -- Chris and Benito are in the same place, actually hanging out with each other! What better way to celebrate this momentous occasion than by playing three full courses of Bible themed mini-golf?...&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/36487255/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
For the first time in ten years, Theophiloi -- and the first time ever during the lifespan of this very podcast -- Chris and Benito are in the same place, actually hanging out with each other! What better way to celebrate this momentous occasion than by playing three full courses of Bible themed mini-golf? &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Join us as we recount our experience at Lexington, Kentucky&#039;s own Fairway to Heaven and pitch our own ideas for hagiographic Putt-Putt. Plus we spend like ten minutes trying to figure out if they have mini-golf in Malta. I didn&#039;t edit a second of this. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Bonus]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Episode_List&amp;diff=136</id>
		<title>Episode List</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Episode_List&amp;diff=136"/>
		<updated>2025-05-13T11:48:36Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: /* Episodes */&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;In each episode, [[Benito Cereno|Benito]] and [[Chris Sims|Chris]] read, watch or play something from the Bible (or Bible-adjacent) and talk about its history, authors, and contents. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
You can listen to all episodes at the show&#039;s [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com Libsyn page] or by subscribing through [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/apocrypals/id1366302177 Apple Podcasts]. [[Bonus Episodes|Bonus video episodes]] can all be seen on [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvsqJ485UTPgVIP1i-BTgMfSsmk4S7ouE Benito&#039;s YouTube channel].&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Episodes==&lt;br /&gt;
{| class=&amp;quot;wikitable sortable&amp;quot; style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
! Episode !! &amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;Date&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp; !! Title !! Subject !! Source !! Transcript&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/episode-0-ive-been-to-my-share-of-pizza-parties 0] || 2018-03-29 || [[I&#039;ve Been To My Share of Pizza Parties]] || nonspecific || || [[I&#039;ve Been To My Share of Pizza Parties (Transcript) | Yes]] &lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/porky-party-the-book-of-acts 1] || 2018-04-08 || [[Porky Party]] || Acts || New Testament || [[Porky Party (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/2-one-weird-trick-the-book-of-daniel-with-apocrypha 2] || 2018-04-14 || [[One Weird Trick]] || Daniel as well as The Prayer of Azariah aka the Song of the Three Holy Children; Susanna; and Bel and the Dragon || Tanakh and Deuterocanon  || [[One Weird Trick (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/3-various-heresies-the-acts-of-peter-and-paul 3] || 2018-04-22 || [[Various Heresies]] || The Acts of Peter and The Acts of Peter and Paul || Apocrypha  || [[Various Heresies (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/4-wittgensteins-monster-the-book-of-isaiah 4] || 2018-05-06 || [[Wittgenstein&#039;s Monster]] || The Book of Isaiah || Tanakh || [[Wittgenstein&#039;s Monster (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/5-on-the-road-to-rome-pauls-letter-to-the-romans 5] || 2018-05-20 || [[On the Road to Rome]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Romans || New Testament || [[On the Road to Rome (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/6-fresh-prince-of-beliar-the-ascension-of-isaiah 6] || 2018-05-27 || [[Fresh Prince of Beliar]] || The Ascension of Isaiah &amp;amp; The Prayer of Manasseh || Pseudepigrapha and Deuterocanon  || [[ Fresh Prince of Beliar (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/7-neon-genesis-good-news-the-gospel-of-mark-and-secret-mark-0 7] || 2018-06-03 || [[Neon Genesis Good News]] || The Gospel of Mark and Secret Mark || New Testament and Apocrypha  || [[Neon Genesis Good News (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/8-whats-up-doctor-goodacre-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-one 8] || 2018-06-10 || [[What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre]] || The Gospel of Matthew, Part One || New Testament  || [[ What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/9-simon-peters-sweet-sixteen-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-two 9] || 2018-06-24 || [[Simon Peter&#039;s Sweet Sixteen]] || The Gospel of Matthew, Part Two || New Testament || [[Simon Peter&#039;s Sweet Sixteen (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/10-the-dude-hates-wizards-the-gospel-of-luke 10] || 2018-07-02 || [[The Dude Hates Wizards]] || The Gospel of Luke || New Testament || [[The Dude Hates Wizards (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/11-90s-vertigo-jesus-the-gospel-of-john-part-one 11] || 2018-07-09 || [[90s Vertigo Jesus]] || The Gospel of John, Part One || New Testament  || [[ 90s Vertigo Jesus (Transcript)| Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/12-whomst-was-at-the-tombst-the-gospel-of-john-part-two 12] || 2018-07-15 || [[Whomst Was At the Tombst?]] || The Gospel of John, Part Two || New Testament || [[ Whomst Was At the Tombst? (Transcript)| Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/11-90s-vertigo-jesus-the-gospel-of-john-part-one 13] || 2018-07-30 || [[Bonus Goat]] || The Deuterocanonical Book of Tobit || Deuterocanon  || [[Bonus Goat (Transcript)|Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/14-the-boy-related-eagle-plan-the-story-of-ahikar 14] || 2018-08-06 || [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan]] || The Story of Ahikar || Pseudepigrapha || [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan (Transcript)|Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/15-an-approximate-week-the-golden-legend-st-christopher-and-st-benedict 15] || 2018-08-13 || [[An Approximate Week]] || The Golden Legend: St. Christopher and St. Benedict || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/16-doamurder-west-virginia-the-book-of-genesis-part-1 16] || 2018-08-19 || [[Doamurder, West Virginia]] || The Book of Genesis, Part 1 || Tanakh || [[Doamurder, West Virginia (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/17-five-gallons-of-bread-the-book-of-genesis-part-two 17] || 2018-08-27 || [[Five Gallons of Bread]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Two || Tanakh  || [[Five Gallons of Bread (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/18-literally-and-figuratively-wrestling-with-god-the-book-of-genesis-part-three-0 18] || 2018-09-09 || [[Literally and Figuratively Wrestling With God]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Three || Tanakh || [[ Literally and Figuratively Wrestling With God (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/19-mbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbam-the-book-of-genesis-part-four 19] || 2018-09-23 || [[MBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBaM]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Four || Tanakh  || [[ MBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBaM (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/20-shalom-birdie-genesis-commentary-with-david-wolkin 20] || 2018-09-30 || [[Shalom Birdie (with David Wolkin)]] || The Book of Genesis || Tanakh  || [[ Shalom Birdie (with David Wolkin) (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/21-biblerella-the-acts-of-paul-and-thecla 21] || 2018-10-07 || [[Biblerella]] || The Acts of Paul and Thecla || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/22-oceans-two-the-book-of-judith 22] || 2018-10-15 || [[Ocean&#039;s Two]] || The Book of Judith || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/23-dunking-on-satan-the-acts-of-pilate-and-the-gospel-of-nicodemus 23] || 2018-10-21 || [[Dunking on Satan]] || The Acts of Pilate and The Gospel of Nicodemus || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/25-butt-stuff-dragon-the-testament-of-solomon 24] || 2018-10-29 || [[Butt Stuff Dragon]] || The Testament of Solomon || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/25-one-rinthies-baby-first-corinthians 25] || 2018-11-14 || [[One Rinthies, Baby]] || First Corinthians || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/26-some-other-christmas-man-the-lives-of-st-nicholas-and-st-lucy 26] || 2018-11-19 || [[Some Other Christmas Man]] || The Lives of St. Nicholas and St. Lucy || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/27-the-book-of-the-dynasty-of-gods-resisters-the-first-book-of-maccabees 27] || 2018-12-02 || [[The Book of the Dynasty of God&#039;s Resisters]] || The First Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/28-second-maccabees-second-furious-the-second-book-of-maccabees 28] || 2018-12-10 || [[Second Maccabees Second Furious]] || The Second Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/29-these-apocryphal-ravings-the-infancy-gospel-of-james 29] || 2018-12-16 || [[These Apocryphal Ravings]] || The Infancy Gospel of James || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/30-apples-and-oranges-the-legend-of-the-three-kings 30] || 2019-01-07 || [[Apples and Oranges]] || The Legend of the Three Kings by John of Hildesheim || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/31-yartzed-upon-a-distant-shore-the-book-of-jonah 31] || 2019-01-24 || [[Yartzed Upon a Distant Shore]] || The Book of Jonah || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/32-return-of-the-twelve-foot-volcel-lion-questions-answers 32] || 2019-02-03 || [[Return of the Twelve-Foot Volcel Lion]] || Questions &amp;amp; Answers || Listener questions  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/33-thicc-darkness-the-book-of-exodus-part-one 33] || 2019-02-10 || [[Thicc Darkness]] || The Book of Exodus, Part One || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/34-thorn-bushes-and-pushups-the-song-of-songs 34] || 2019-02-24 || [[Thorn Bushes and Pushups]] || The Song of Songs || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/35-down-in-the-donkey-hole-the-book-of-exodus-part-two 35] || 2019-03-03 || [[Down in the Donkey Hole]] || The Book of Exodus, Part Two || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/36-grazacham-the-life-of-st-patrick 36] || 2019-03-12 || [[GRAZACHAM!]] || Muirchu’s Life of Saint Patrick || Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/37-bigger-esther-the-book-of-esther-and-greek-esther 37] || 2019-03-20 || [[Bigger Esther]] || The Book of Esther and Greek Esther || Tanakh and Deuterocanon ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/38-sword-drill-online-bible-trivia-special 38] || 2019-03-31 || [[Sword Drill Online]] || Bible Trivia Special || Complete Book of Bible Trivia  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/39-rain-is-boy-water-the-book-of-enoch-part-one 39] || 2019-04-07 || [[Rain is Boy Water]] || The Book of Enoch, Part One || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/40-devil-got-a-hog-the-book-of-enoch-part-two 40] || 2019-04-19 || [[Devil Got a Hog]] || The Book of Enoch, Part Two || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/41-neo-mary-is-about-to-e-x-p-l-o-d-e-the-questions-of-bartholomew 41] || 2019-04-29 || [[Neo-Mary Is About To E X P L O D E]] || Questions of Bartholomew and The Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Bartholomew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/42-the-roasting-of-the-apostle-paul-second-corinthians 42] || 2019-05-06 || [[The Roasting of the Apostle Paul]] || Second Corinthians || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/43-why-prophets-so-nasty-the-book-of-jeremiah 43] || 2019-05-27 || [[Why Prophets So Nasty?]] || The Book of Jeremiah || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/44-terms-and-conditions-the-book-of-jeremiah-part-2 44] || 2019-06-23 || [[Terms and Conditions]] || The Book of Jeremiah, Part 2 || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/45-mummy-dust-and-skeleton-bones-the-book-of-ruth 45] || 2019-07-14 || [[Mummy Dust and Skeleton Bones]] || The Book of Ruth || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/46-ctrl-z-on-a-murder-the-acts-of-john 46] || 2019-08-09 || [[CTRL-Z On A Murder]] || The Acts of John || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/47-approximate-week-ii-the-quickening-the-syriac-infancy-gospel 47] || 2019-08-21 || [[Approximate Week II: The Quickening]] || The Syriac Infancy Gospel || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/48-the-almighty-ambush-bear-the-book-of-lamentations 48] || 2019-08-28 || [[The Almighty Ambush Bear]] || The Book of Lamentations || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/49-wajesus-the-first-second-and-third-epistles-of-john 49] || 2019-09-16 || [[Wajesus]] || The First, Second, and Third Epistles of John || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/50-the-terf-of-babylon-the-revelation-of-john-0 50] || 2019-10-02 || [[The TERF of Babylon]] || The Revelation of John || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/51-jesus-buffy-halloween-chick-tracts 51] || 2019-10-28 || [[Jesus, Buffy]] || Halloween Chick Tracts || Chick Tracts  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/51-apocrypals-chris-and-benito-the-book-of-ecclesiastes 52] || 2019-11-24 || [[Apocrypals Chris And Benito]] || The Book of Ecclesiastes || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/52-maccabees-3-elephant-drift-the-third-book-of-maccabees 53] || 2019-12-08 || [[Maccabees 3: Elephant Drift]] || The Third Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/54-our-favorite-murders-the-infancy-gospel-of-thomas 54] || 2019-12-22 || [[Our Favorite Murders]] || The Infancy Gospel of Thomas || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/55-the-parable-of-the-sexy-blood-baby-the-book-of-ezekiel-part-one 55] || 2020-01-12 || [[The Parable of the Sexy Blood Baby]] || The Book of Ezekiel, Part One || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/56-welcome-to-the-bone-zone-the-book-of-ezekiel-part-two 56] || 2020-01-26 || [[Welcome to the Bone Zone]] || The Book of Ezekiel, Part Two || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/57-we-holy-ghost-bro-the-life-of-xanthippe-polyxena-and-rebecca 57] || 2020-02-08 || [[We Holy Ghost, Bro?]] || The Life of Xanthippe, Polyxena, and Rebecca || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/58-blaise-your-dead-homie-the-lives-of-st-sebastian-st-blaise-and-st-agatha 58] || 2020-02-23 || [[Blaise, Your Dead Homie]] || The Lives of St. Sebastian, St. Blaise, and St. Agatha || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/59-source-of-the-flow-the-book-of-leviticus 59] || 2020-03-08 || [[Source of the Flow]] || The Book of Leviticus || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/59-joses-crust-the-acts-of-andrew-and-matthias 60] || 2020-03-22 || [[Joses Crust]] || The Acts of Andrew and Matthias || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/60-countless-large-gregs-the-second-book-of-enoch 61] || 2020-04-05 || [[Countless Large Gregs]] || The Second Book of Enoch || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/62-oh-the-jews-manatees-the-book-of-numbers 62] || 2020-04-19 || [[Oh, the Jews&#039; Manatees!]] || The Book of Numbers || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/63-wist-not-to-whom-ne-whither-the-lives-of-st-roche-and-st-guinefort 63] || 2020-05-06 || [[Wist Not To Whom Ne Whither]] || The Lives of St. Roche and St. Guinefort || Golden Legend, Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/64-spiritual-warfare-is-good-actually-bible-adventures-and-the-wisdom-tree-catalogue 64] || 2020-05-18 || [[Spiritual Warfare Is Good, Actually]] || Bible Adventures and the Wisdom Tree catalogue || Video Games  ||&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/65-adonai-is-ichiban-the-book-of-deuteronomy 65] || 2020-06-02 || [[Adonai is Ichiban!]] || The Book of Deuteronomy || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/66-jesus-with-two-cool-ses-the-acts-of-thomas-and-his-wonderworking-skin 66] || 2020-06-14 || [[JeSuS With Two Cool Ses]] || The Acts of Thomas and his Wonderworking Skin || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/67-bad-things-to-call-your-mother-the-book-of-bartholomew 67] || 2020-06-28 || [[Bad Things to Call Your Mother]] || The Book of Bartholomew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/68-scent-of-a-jesus-the-first-second-and-third-apocryphal-apocalypses-of-john 68] || 2020-07-12 || [[Scent of a Jesus]] || The First, Second, and Third Apocryphal Apocalypses of John || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
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| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/69-thirst-corinthians-the-lives-of-st-mary-of-egypt-and-st-pelagia 69] || 2020-07-26 || [[Thirst Corinthians]] || The Lives of St. Mary of Egypt and St. Pelagia || Separate books  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xHQHK_SLX8 69 Secret] || 2020-08-28 || [[Secret 69]] || The Greater Questions of Mary || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/70-two-firkin-bored-the-letter-of-aristeas-0 70] || 2020-08-09 || [[Two Firkin Bored]] || The Letter of Aristeas || Pseudepigrapha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/71-approximate-week-chapter-3-parabellum-the-war-scroll 71] || 2020-08-23 || [[Approximate Week Chapter 3: Parabellum]] || The War Scroll || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/72-cold-brew-paul-pauls-letter-to-the-galatians 72] || 2020-09-06 || [[Cold Brew Paul]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Galatians || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/73-be-courageous-the-book-of-joshua 73] || 2020-09-20 || [[Be Courageous!]] || The Book of Joshua || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/74-howl-of-the-ostrich-the-books-of-micah-and-nahum 74] || 2020-10-04 || [[Howl of the Ostrich]] || The Books of Micah and Nahum || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/75-lazer-babies-the-apocalypse-of-peter 75] || 2020-10-18 || [[Lazer Babies]] || The Apocalypse of Peter || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/76-filling-the-room-the-life-of-st-martin 76] || 2020-11-01 || [[Filling the Room]] || The Life of St. Martin || Separate books  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/77-the-blessed-voltrons-the-lives-of-st-catherine-and-st-barbara 77] || 2020-11-15 || [[The Blessed Voltrons]] || The Lives of St. Catherine and St. Barbara || Golden Legend ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/78-maccabees-the-fourth-book-of-maccabees 78] || 2020-11-29 || [[MACCABEES]] || the Fourth Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/79-marys-christmas-the-infancy-gospel-of-pseudo-matthew 79] || 2020-12-13 || [[Marys Christmas]] || The Infancy Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/bonus-bill-bless-us-every-ted-christmas-gift-exchange-2020 79 Bonus] || 2020-12-22 || [[Bill Bless Us, Every Ted]] || Christmas Gift Exchange 2020 || The Joy of Friendship  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/80-the-deadliest-skambush-of-them-all-the-book-of-judges 80] || 2021-01-10 || [[The Deadliest Skambush of Them All]] || The Book of Judges || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/81-sometimes-its-just-sucky-pauls-letter-to-the-ephesians 81] || 2021-01-24 || [[Sometimes It&#039;s Just Sucky]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Ephesians || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/82-sedeqetelebab-the-book-of-jubilees 82] || 2021-02-07 || [[Sedeqetelebab!]] || The Book of Jubilees Pt 1 || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/83-speedrun-tactics-the-book-of-jubilees-part-2 83] || 2021-02-21 || [[Speedrun Tactics]] || The Book of Jubilees Pt 2 || Pseudepigrapha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/84-just-one-more-thing-the-life-of-st-columba 84] || 2021-03-07 || [[Just One More Thing]] || The Life of St. Columba || Hagiography  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/85-old-clootie-the-life-of-st-dunstan 85] || 2021-03-21 || [[Old Clootie]] || The Life of St. Dunstan || Golden Legend ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/87-god-junior-the-third-book-of-enoch-part-1 86] || 2021-04-04 || [[God Junior]] || The Third Book of Enoch (Part 1) || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/87-crisis-on-18000-earths-the-third-book-of-enoch-part-2 87] || 2021-04-18 || [[Crisis On 18,000 Earths]] || The Third Book of Enoch (Part 2) || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/88-a-miserable-pile-of-secrets-the-da-vinci-code-commentary 88] || 2021-05-09 || [[A Miserable Pile of Secrets]] || The Da Vinci Code, the film || Fiction  || [[A Miserable Pile of Secrets (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/89-2000-bc-the-first-book-of-samuel 89] || 2021-05-23 || [[2000 B.C.]] || The First Book of Samuel || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/90-worfin-the-lions-the-second-book-of-samuel-part-1 90] || 2021-06-06 || [[Worfin’ the Lions]] || The Second Book of Samuel (Part 1) || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt4B2OXgHN4 90.1] || 2021-06-20 || [[Double Chai: Rock Me, Asmodeus]] || Solomon and the Devil || Talmudic Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/90-the-me-in-this-story-is-you-the-second-book-of-samuel-part-2 91] || 2021-06-27 || [[The Me In This Story Is You]] || The Second Book of Samuel (Part 2) || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/92-slayer-of-men-conqueror-of-space-the-gospel-of-philip-the-gospel-of-mary-and-the-gospel-of-jesuss-wife-0 92] || 2021-07-11 || [[Slayer of Men, Conqueror of Space]] || The Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Mary, and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife || Apocrypha (Gnostic)  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HKZ-U4W7Ew 92 Bonus] || 2021-08-04 || [[Cephalo4: Protect Yr Neck]] || Cephalophores || Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/93-approximate-week-iv-oblivion-joseph-and-aseneth 93] || 2021-08-15 || [[Approximate Week IV: OblIVion]] || Joseph and Aseneth || Apocrypha (Tanakh)  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/94-little-martha-and-the-small-vandellas-the-lives-of-st-mary-magdalene-and-st-wilgefortis 94] || 2021-09-26 || [[Little Martha and the Small Vandellas]] || The Lives of St. Mary Magdalene and St. Wilgefortis || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/95-an-abyss-of-significant-depth-the-apocalypse-of-paul 95] || 2021-10-10 || [[An Abyss of Significant Depth]] || The Apocalypse of Paul || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/96-the-goku-of-judaism-stories-of-the-baal-shem-tov 96] || 2021-10-24 || [[The Goku of Judaism]] || Stories of the Baal Shem Tov || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbw3BxiTfKU Bonus] || 2021-11-16 || [[Guess the Persona-fied Bible Character]] || Persona 5 || Video Games ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/97-pretty-sus-lesbius-the-acts-of-andrew 97] || 2021-12-02 || [[Pretty Sus, Lesbius]] || The Acts of Andrew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/98-you-know-the-manger-christmas-chick-tracts 98] || 2021-12-23 || [[You Know, the Manger?]] || Christmas Chick Tracts || Chick Tracts  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/99-for-sale-baby-legs-not-attached-the-first-book-of-kings 99] || 2022-01-30 || [[For Sale, Baby Legs, Not Attached]] || The First Book of Kings || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/100-escape-from-flesh-island-the-gospel-of-judas 100] || 2022-03-05 || [[Escape From Flesh Island]] || The Gospel of Judas || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/101-the-apocrypals-solve-theodicy-the-book-of-job 101] || 2022-04-21 || [[The Apocrypals Solve Theodicy]] || The Book of Job || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/102-napalm-toots-the-lives-of-st-mary-of-bethany-and-st-margaret-of-antioch 102] || 2022-06-12 || [[Napalm Toots]] || The Lives of The Lives of St. Martha of Bethany and St. Margaret of Antioch || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/103-sucky-james-the-history-of-joseph-the-carpenter 103] || 2022-07-03 || [[Sucky James]] || The History of Joseph the Carpenter || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/104-previously-on-bible-the-epistle-to-the-hebrews 104] || 2022-08-01 || [[Previously, on Bible]] || The Epistle to the Hebrews || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/103-approximate-week-v-ravager 105] || 2022-08-12 || [[Approximate Week V: RaVager]] || El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron || Video Games  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/104-a-serious-goku-move-the-second-book-of-kings 106] || 2022-10-30 || [[A Serious Goku Move]] || The Second Book of Kings || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/107-hellmensch-stories-of-the-baal-shem-tov-vol-2 107] || 2022-11-13 || [[Hellmensch]] || Stories of the Baal Shem Tov || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin  || [[Hellmensch (Transcript) | Yes ]] &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/108-skip-this-one-the-book-of-hosea 108] || 2022-11-27 || [[Skip This One]] || The Book of Hosea || Tanakh  || [[  Skip This One (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/109-chris-and-benitos-bible-bonkers-the-didache 109] || 2023-10-11 || [[Chris and Benito&#039;s Bible Bonkers]] || The Didache || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/110-the-beastie-boys-worst-nightmare-the-lock-in-2014 110] || 2023-10-30 || [[The Beastie Boys&#039; Worst Nightmare (The Lock-In (2014))]] || The Lock-In (2014) || Fiction ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/111-all-skips-no-hits-1-chronicles 111] || 2024-08-09 || [[All Skips No Hits]] || 1 Chronicles || Tanakh || [[All Skips No Hits (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/112-approximate-week-vi-the-undiscovered-country 112] || 2024-08-17 || [[Approximate Week VI: The Undiscovered Country]] || Illuminator || Comics ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/113-jaoel-instant-messenger-the-apocalypse-of-abraham 113] || 2024-09-05 || [[Jaoel Instant Messenger]] || The Apocalypse of Abraham || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/114-sin-onyms-the-devils-argument-the-martyrdom-of-perpetua-and-felicity 114] || 2024-10-03 || [[Sin-onyms, The Devil&#039;s Argument]] || The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/115-hell-is-the-big-show-the-life-of-st-christina-the-astonishing 115] || 2024-10-27 || [[Hell Is The Big Show]] || The Life of St. Christina the Astonishing || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/116-its-his-birthday-be-nice-the-revelation-of-the-magi 116] || 2024-12-22 || [[It&#039;s His BIRTHDAY, Be Nice!]] || The Revelation of the Magi || Pseudepigrapha || &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/117-king-solomons-hog-the-second-book-of-chronicles-feat-aaron-higashi 117] || 2024-02-17 || [[King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi]] || 2 Chronicles || Tanakh || [[King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/bonus-biblical-mini-golf 118 Bonus] || 2025-05-08 || [[Bonus: Biblical Mini-Golf]] || Fairway to Heaven || Road Trip || &lt;br /&gt;
|}&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Sub-series==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
{| class=&amp;quot;wikitable sortable&amp;quot; style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
! Podcast !! Episode !! &amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;Date&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp; !! Title !! Transcript !! Wolverine Costume&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-01-dr-dan-mcclellan 1] || 2023-04-20 || [[Multipals 01: Dr. Dan McClellan]] || [[Multipals 01: Dr. Dan McClellan (transcript) | Yes]] || Brown and Tan&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-02-aaron-higashi 1] || 2023-06-23 || [[Multipals 02: Aaron Higashi]] || [[Multipals 02: Aaron Higashi (transcript) | Yes]] || Kimono&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-03-anne-thriault 3] || 2023-04-20 || [[Multipals 03: Anne Thériault]] || [[Multipals 03: Anne Thériault (transcript) | Yes]] || Hugh Jackman as the Music Man&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-04-tony-burke-and-janet-spittler 4] || 2023-08-20 || [[Multipals 04: Tony Burke &amp;amp;amp; Janet Spittler]] || [[Multipals 04: Tony Burke &amp;amp;amp; Janet Spittler (transcript) | Yes]] || Brown and Tan / Yellow Guy From Cartoon&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-05-dr-alexiana-fry 5] || 2023-12-13 || [[Multipals 05: Dr. Alexiana Fry]] || [[Multipals 05: Dr. Alexiana Fry (transcript) | Yes]] || Logan (2017) Suit&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-06-dr-justin-sledge 6] || 2023-12-13 || [[Multipals 06: Dr. Justin Sledge]] || [[Multipals 06: Dr. Justin Sledge (transcript) | Yes]] || &#039;90s Yellow&lt;br /&gt;
|}&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=The_Boy-Related_Eagle_Plan&amp;diff=457</id>
		<title>The Boy-Related Eagle Plan</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=The_Boy-Related_Eagle_Plan&amp;diff=457"/>
		<updated>2025-04-07T18:28:25Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/6891320/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
Get out of the cistern and cut your nails, Theophiloi, because it&#039;s time for a brand new episode! Join us as we take on the extremely apocryphal book of Ahikar, Tobit&#039;s maybe nephew. This leads us to the biggest fight we&#039;ve ever had on the show, which is about whether the Pharaoh&#039;s riddle contest is actually a riddle contest or not (it&#039;s not, but the eagle boys are pretty dope).&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion: A debate over the premise of the show that sends Chris&#039;s voice spiraling up about six octaves, Tu B&#039;av, the Jewish calendar, a bit of self-promotion unrelated to Bible, Aesop who isn&#039;t real either, Deuterocanon and pseudepigrapha, the first of what we assume will be many mentions of Grand Admiral Thrawn, a number that constitutes &amp;quot;a lot of wives,&amp;quot; all the numbers in the Bible, a pretty vindictive answer to a prayer, Ahikar&#039;s dubious teaching methods, drubbing, some low-hanging fruit, God vs. April, a truly bonkers level of animal cruelty, and Chris getting lightheaded from laughing at his own joke. It&#039;s a good one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you enjoy the show, you can support us at: ko-fi.com/apocrypals&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Listener Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
The version that was hosted on [https://earlyjewishwritings.com/ Early Jewish Writings] has gone missing, but is [https://apocrypals.wiki/resources/assets/Ahikar.html archived here] with some minor corrections.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ON8zNL3e7c Where Eagles Dare] by Misfits&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Favorite Verses==&lt;br /&gt;
Benito:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;O my child! the thigh of a frog in thy hand is better than a goose in the pot of thy neighbour; and a sheep near thee is better than an ox far away; and a sparrow in thy hand is better than a thousand sparrows flying; and poverty which gathers is better than the scattering of much provision; and a living fox is better than a dead lion; and a pound of wool is better than a pound of wealth, I mean of gold and silver; for the gold and the silver are hidden and covered up in the earth, and are not seen; but the wool stays in the markets and it is seen, and it is a beauty to him who wears it.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Story of Ahikar 2:49&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Chris: &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;O my boy! I wished thee well, and thou didst reward me with evil and hatefulness, and now I would fain tear out thine eyes, and make thee food for dogs, and cut out thy tongue, and take off thy head with the edge of the sword, and recompense thee for thine abominable deeds.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Story of Ahikar 7:43&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Choice Quotes==&lt;br /&gt;
(Help fill this in by checking out the [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan (Transcript) | transcript]].)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Pseudepigrapha]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=The_Boy-Related_Eagle_Plan_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1055</id>
		<title>The Boy-Related Eagle Plan (Transcript)</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=The_Boy-Related_Eagle_Plan_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1055"/>
		<updated>2025-04-07T18:27:54Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: Created page with &amp;quot;(Back to  episode page.)  &amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;Chris Sims:&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039; &amp;quot;Then he took two little lads, and spent every day sacrificing lambs and feeding the eagles and the boys, and making the boys ride on the backs of the eagles. And he bound them with a firm knot, and tied the cable to the feet of the eagles, and let them soar upwards little by little, every day, to a distance of ten cubits, till they grew accustomed and were educated to it, and they rose all the l...&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;div&gt;(Back to [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan | episode page]].)&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;Chris Sims:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Then he took two little lads, and spent every day sacrificing lambs and feeding the eagles and the boys, and making the boys ride on the backs of the eagles. And he bound them with a firm knot, and tied the cable to the feet of the eagles, and let them soar upwards little by little, every day, to a distance of ten cubits, till they grew accustomed and were educated to it, and they rose all the length of the rope, till they reached the sky, the boys being on their backs. Then he drew them to himself.&amp;quot; The Book of Ahikar, Chapter 5, Verse 11.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; [Music:  &amp;quot;Where Eagles Dare&amp;quot; by Misfits] [Music]&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hello, friends and neighbors, and welcome to Apocrypals. It&#039;s the podcast where two nonbelievers read through the Bible, and we try not to be jerks about it. My name is Chris Sims, and with me as always is the other set of footprints, Benito Cereno. Benito, how are the Sons of Thunder this fine morning?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;Benito Cereno:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, this Thunderson is feeling pretty good. How are you, Chris?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;m doing all right. Just got a haircut, which is nice.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Nice, very nice. I need one myself.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Unlike certain biblical figures, I always feel stronger after a haircut.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; True. That&#039;s a good feeling. You should feel refreshed, revived, and renewed.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s like I&#039;ve been in an angel jacuzzi.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And I was the first one there.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Very nice. Very good. Today, we are reading one a little bit off the beaten track, one that I feel like probably many of our listeners have not read before, unless they read it specifically for reading along with this podcast. We&#039;re doing— I would say definitely not.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. It&#039;s one that is referenced in our book from last week, [[Bonus Goat | Tobit]]. Last week, we did Tobit. This week, we are reading about Tobit&#039;s nephew that is according to Tobit, Ahikar. So we&#039;re reading the story of Ahikar, which would have been a very famous internationally known story or folktale that is counted among Jewish pseudepigrapha. We&#039;ll talk about that and what that means a little bit later. But we&#039;ve got this very cool, very crazy story with a riddle contest at the heart of it, fake executions, all the kind of things that I think people tune into this show for. So I&#039;m pretty excited about that.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; A couple things before we get started. One, you mentioned that Ahikar is internationally known.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. He&#039;s known to rock the microphone.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;re known to rock the microphones. And I get stupid—I mean, outrageous. Thing number two, point two, if you will. I feel like everybody who jumped on this show because we were talking about the gospels, the stories that everybody knows, getting into the life of Jesus Christ, now for the past two weeks, maybe they want to take back those donations that they were nice enough to send in. Because we&#039;re into some very obscure stuff right now.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I will counter and say, in my heart of hearts, I feel like people are here more for the weird obscure stuff they don&#039;t already know about. But maybe I&#039;m wrong. Maybe we&#039;re both right. Maybe we&#039;re equally right. And our audience is equally split between people who are demanding to know more about [[Thicc Darkness | Exodus]]. And then there&#039;s people who are like, I really super need to know about the Odes of Solomon.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, where in America, where in modern culture are you going to hear about the canonical Bible, if not from us?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly. There&#039;s nowhere. It&#039;s this—I&#039;m pretty sure we&#039;re the only Bible podcast that there is. It&#039;s very strange. When I go to iTunes, and I look at the charts, if you click on religion and spirituality, we&#039;re number one, because we&#039;re the only one. It&#039;s us, and then no one. It&#039;s very strange.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here&#039;s point three. For the first time on this show, we have encountered some scripture that I just don&#039;t understand. I have no idea what is going on for most of this story.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Great news. This is theoretically the premise of the show, that you don&#039;t understand the thing, and then I explain the thing. So we&#039;re going to see if we can make that— Do you think that&#039;s the premise of the show, that I don&#039;t understand it? Because I thought the premise of the show was that we had a conversation about it. I didn&#039;t realize.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, I mean, yes, we&#039;re obviously having a conversation, but remember the story, the whole thing started because you didn&#039;t know who the apostles were, right? That&#039;s what I&#039;m getting at. The absolute bare bones is presumably I know the Bible thing, and then we talk about it, and maybe it&#039;s a thing you know, maybe you don&#039;t. So I don&#039;t know. It&#039;s fine.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;m just saying, I pulled the ransom of Julius Caesar out of the top of the dome last week.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, you did. It was awesome and good. Yes. I&#039;m not doubting your historical bona fides. You have them.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s the disrespect that I have to endure on this show.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, Chris, I&#039;m so sorry. And so close to your birthday.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And so close to—that&#039;s right. This, I believe, is coming out exactly one week from my birthday.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s true. We&#039;ll talk about that a little bit more at the end of the show, because we&#039;ve got a surprise. Not for you, Chris. Sorry, you already know what it is, because it&#039;s our show. But for the listeners—&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, your birthday is coming up soon, too.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, mine is roughly a week after yours. So yeah, so those things combined. That&#039;s the end of the show talk. That&#039;s the top of the show talk. We missed another Jewish holiday. I should probably be doing a better job of like, talking about them before they happen.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, maybe you can do them in advance.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that would be really good. Then people can prepare to like—&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Since you&#039;re the smart one. Since you&#039;re the one who knows things.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh boy, that sure is not what I said.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean, just a suggestion from me, the idiot.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, the clown. Yeah, anyway.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I did just almost literally spit a mouthful of water on my microphone. Let&#039;s go ahead and call that accurate.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; So last time we talked about Tisha B&#039;Av, which is the saddest day of the year. That gets balanced out a little bit later by Tu B&#039;Av. Tu B&#039;Av, which means the 15th of Av, which this year was from sundown July 26th through July 27th. And it balances out the heavy of the low point of Tisha B&#039;Av, the saddest day of the year, by having a pretty cool light day that is basically a Jewish Valentine&#039;s Day. So the day would have originally marked the beginning of the grape harvest, which would have lasted through Yom Kippur, which would have been at the end. And apparently on both of those days, it used to be that unmarried girls would put on white garments and then they would go and dance in the vineyards. Anyway, somehow that&#039;s transformed into modern times is basically Valentine&#039;s Day. So Mazel Tov to anybody who had Mazel Tov on Tu B&#039;Av, good on you.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You mentioned something that I think I probably could have inferred given my very limited knowledge of Jewish holidays. Does the Jewish calendar start a day at sundown?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. Yeah. They start counting their day. So like every week, the Sabbath or Shabbat starts Friday at sundown and then lasts through sundown the following day. So yeah, everything, they start the day at night, the previous day. So yeah, all of their holidays work that way. Shabbat is practiced that way.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean, honestly, that makes a lot more sense than just picking a fairly arbitrary time in the middle of the night.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That is true. I do have another thing, Chris, I feel like we should talk about that&#039;s unrelated to Bible, if that&#039;s okay, but it is related to you and to me.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It should probably be related to the Bible as you have my number if you just want to talk about stuff that relates to you and me. We do text pretty frequently.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s a little bit of self-promotion, so I think you probably would be into it.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay. Yes. In that case, yes.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So for our listeners who don&#039;t know, completely outside of our work related to Bible, Chris and I have another project together that&#039;s coming out in October. It&#039;s a comic book because that&#039;s the thing that we guys both do. We do comic books.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You realize you sound like a malfunctioning robot right now. That&#039;s the thing we guys both do.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; My secret revealed. Yeah, we have a comic book coming out in October. It&#039;s a very special one. It&#039;s a Halloween special for Army of Darkness. It&#039;s a movie. Maybe you guys have heard of it.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s right. This is the third Army of Darkness comics project that I&#039;ve worked on, but the first for you, I believe.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep, it is. It&#039;s true.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And it is Army of Darkness Halloween special 2018. My writing partner and I, Chad Bowers, we&#039;re doing the lead story in that book with artist Eoin Maron, who is fantastic. It is set in Charleston, South Carolina, because 2018 is the 300th anniversary of Blackbeard&#039;s blockade of Charleston, and I thought that would make for a fun story. So that&#039;s the lead. And then Benito, you&#039;ve got the backup.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s true. Yeah, I have a shorter secondary story that is Halloween themed. It&#039;s got art by Anthony Marques. And mine is set in a cemetery on Halloween where some troublemaking college kids make some bad decisions. So I think it&#039;s pretty fun. I think it&#039;ll be a nice little cap to Chris&#039;s very awesome sounding pirate ghost story.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And it does not feature the Bible. My story doesn&#039;t, at least, but it does feature a supernatural book of some fame.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. If you guys give equal weight to the Necronomicon that you do to Bible, first of all, don&#039;t probably. But if you do...&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I would say I would put the nay-no on that one.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. But yeah, if you guys like Army of Darkness, which is a very fun, cool movie, if you like Ash, if you like that boy and his chainsaw hand, probably check it out. It&#039;s available. If you&#039;re listening to this podcast when it&#039;s new, it&#039;s in the previews catalog right now. If you guys don&#039;t know what that is, just go to a comic book store and tell them you want it. Don&#039;t worry about explaining the direct market. But yeah, it&#039;s available now. You can order it basically for the next four weeks or so. You can preorder it online. It should be available digitally when it comes out. So if you don&#039;t want to go walk into a comic book store, it&#039;ll be available that way too. We&#039;ll let you guys know when it&#039;s out.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But that&#039;s the thing we&#039;ve got coming out. I know, sorry, it&#039;s unrelated to Bible. We can get back to Bible talk now. I just thought you guys might like to know.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And I will say preordering the book does help us out quite a bit because preorders hugely influence how many copies are ordered for the wall of a comic book store. And I know that because I worked in one for six years. Let&#039;s talk about Ahikar, buddy.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, let&#039;s do it. Yeah, let&#039;s absolutely do it. Okay. So yeah, the story of Ahikar is a, it&#039;s an old story, not necessarily relative to all the stuff in the old Testament, but relatively old as these things go. The earliest version that we found, we found fragments of an Aramaic version from the fifth century BCE, which were found at Elephantine, which very fun sounding place. Elephantine would have been an Aramaic speaking Jewish colony in Egypt. It&#039;s a little island in the Nile. So there would have been a Jewish community there and they would have had their Aramaic literature.&lt;br /&gt;
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So a version of the story of Ahikar would have been there. And that seems to be the earliest version, which seems to suggest that the earliest version of the story would have been Hebrew or Aramaic. However, there have been found cuneiform texts from Uruk, the city in Sumeria that features the name Aḫu’aqār, which seems to suggest that there maybe was a historical figure, a [[Glossary#Show_Lingo | Caesar-real]] person named Aḫu’aqār from the seventh century BCE. But the story itself, yeah, probably originates in Aramaic from the late seventh, early sixth century.&lt;br /&gt;
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The sayings portion of this, the wisdom literature portions of this, which are basically the second chapter and the last chapter of the book, were probably originally in a separate document that were then kind of spliced in partly because there&#039;s no reference to Ahikar or any of the characters in the rest of the book in those portions. So, similar to how that long speech from Tobit to Tobias was probably spliced-in proverbs that were kind of well-known around the Mideast at this time. It&#039;s a similar kind of thing.&lt;br /&gt;
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There are references to the legend of Ahikar. I talked about this as a famous international story. There&#039;s versions of this story in Romanian, Slavonic, Armenian, Arabic, and Syriac literature. Obviously, we saw it referred to in the book of Tobit that we read last week, which would have been a Jewish book translated into Greek as part of the Septuagint. In the Greek text of Tobit, the name Ahikar is rendered as Achiacharos. So that would have been his name there.&lt;br /&gt;
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But other references to the story of Ahikar, there&#039;s a very similar story that seems to be heavily modeled on this that appears in A Life of Aesop, the famous fabulist, the guy who wrote fables. Again, not an actual real person like Homer, but there are many fictional biographies of him. And one of them was written by a Byzantine Greek monk from the 13th century named Maximus Planudes. And his version of the life of Aesop seems to be heavily based on the story of Ahikar with Aesop getting falsely accused of a thing, and then he fakes his death, and then he solves a bunch of riddles. And some of the overlap with Ahikar and Aesop has to do with the fact that a lot of these sayings at the end of Ahikar are very close to what you would consider like a short fable in that they&#039;re allegorical, metaphorical statements that involve a lot of animals. We&#039;ll get to those. We&#039;ll get to that later.&lt;br /&gt;
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The text of Ahikar exists in the original Aramaic fragments, but there&#039;s also full versions in Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, Armenian, and Slavonic. The version that we read and that if you guys read from the link that we put up on Tumblr, or probably if you just Googled it, probably what you found would have been the Arabic version, which is what we read. It should have been a little bit obvious if you did read it that it was an Arabic version because there were references to things like viziers and sultans and people had names like Abu Samik. And there&#039;s a part where someone swears by Allah at one point. So those things should have all been clues that this was from an Arabic adaptation. Oh, and speaking of Arabic, there&#039;s even a version of the story of Ahikar in the supplemental materials to the Arabian Knights. So like I said, even though today maybe not so well known, this would have been at one point a hugely famous international story across the known world.&lt;br /&gt;
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If we want to look at how it is categorized in terms of canon, it&#039;s not canon. It is typically grouped with Jewish pseudepigrapha, which is a term we haven&#039;t had in a while. I think the last bit of pseudepigrapha we looked at would have been the [[Fresh Prince of Beliar | Ascension of Isaiah]]. And that&#039;s a term that literally means falsely inscribed, meaning that someone claims that it was written by someone that it wasn&#039;t written by. So like you&#039;re writing it and you say, &amp;quot;These are the memoirs of Jeremiah the prophet,&amp;quot; and it&#039;s not by Jeremiah. It&#039;s falsely inscribed. And so that makes it pseudepigrapha. However, the term is frequently used much more broadly to mean Jewish religious writings, Jewish non-canonical religious writings from about the year 300 BCE to about 300 CE. And so that incorporates things like the martyrdom of Isaiah, but also Enoch and the letter of Aristeas and the Life of Adam and Eve and a lot of other things that we will get to eventually that are very cool and weird and interesting that I think you guys will be really into. So even though technically Ahikar being from the 5th century BCE falls outside of that window, it is nevertheless usually grouped with that.&lt;br /&gt;
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But while we&#039;re on the topic of canonicity, I got called out a little bit by a friend of the show, [[Friends of the Show#Ben_Rowe Ben Rowe]], as he does. And it&#039;s fine. I appreciate it because his comments are always on point. But he pointed out that I&#039;ve been a little bit unclear in making the distinction with things like apocrypha and deuterocanon and that kind of stuff.&lt;br /&gt;
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So like last week, Chris, we had a discussion about why Tobit was deuterocanon. And I said, because of the late date in which it&#039;s composed, which is true. That is true. But the bit that I was unclear about is deuterocanon, and I refer to it as secondary canon. I think that is the main source of confusion. Secondary canon in this case doesn&#039;t mean secondary in importance. It means secondary as in like later. It&#039;s later canon. The reason why the things that are considered deuterocanon by the Catholic and Orthodox churches is because they&#039;re not part of the canonical Hebrew text, and they&#039;re not part of the canonical Hebrew text because of their later composition, possibly among other reasons.&lt;br /&gt;
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But for the Catholic and Orthodox churches, things that are in the deuterocanon, what Protestants call the capital A Apocrypha, books like Tobit, [[Ocean&#039;s Two | Judith]], [The Book of the Dynasty of God&#039;s Resisters | First]] and [[Second Maccabees Second Furious | Second Maccabees]], [[One Weird Trick | Bel and the Dragon, Susanna,] all those books, even though they&#039;re Deuterocanon, they&#039;re fully canon. Tobit is as canonical to a Catholic as [[Doamurder, West Virginia | Genesis]] is or [[What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre | Matthew]]. So it&#039;s not of secondary canon. It&#039;s only called that because deuterocanon is the term that Catholics use to distinguish the books that Protestants refer to as Apocrypha. So books that are Apocryphal for Protestants because they&#039;re in the Septuagint but not the canonical Hebrew books, Catholics refer to those as deuterocanon just to distinguish them, but they are still canon. And to them, deutero, which literally means second, just means a later addition to the canon and not ones of secondary importance.&lt;br /&gt;
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So I know it&#039;s confusing that we talk about pseudepigrapha, deuterocanon, apocrypha, lowercase-a apocrypha. Generally, the distinction is in very broad terms. Pseudepigrapha is going to refer to Jewish documents from this time. Apocrypha, lowercase-a apocrypha is going to refer to New Testament apocrypha usually. And then when we talk about capital-A Apocrypha, we&#039;re talking about books that Protestants consider apocryphal, but that Catholics and Orthodox consider later canon. Does that make sense?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So when I went to a Catholic church on Easter Sunday with my wife, and they walked out holding the big Bible like it was a title belt at a wrestling match, like holding it above their heads while the people were holding up signs, that I guess would probably, in this case, probably actually say John 3:16, not the other thing. You&#039;re telling me if I looked in that book, Tobit&#039;s in there, and Tobias and his dog, and his buddy Raphael who comes down to teach him how to cure blindness.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, absolutely. 100%. That&#039;s in there. The exploding dragon, the dragon that Daniel explodes, that is in there. Yeah. Anything that we&#039;ve talked about being deuterocanon is going to be in a Catholic Bible. It&#039;s often in a separate section, sometimes in the middle between the Old and the New Testaments because it&#039;s considered to be from an intertestamental period. So it might be there. There&#039;s probably other books where they&#039;re kind of scattered throughout in the order, but usually they&#039;ll be kind of in the middle. Sometimes they&#039;ll be at the end. Sometimes Protestant Bibles will have them in the end in a section marked Apocrypha. But yeah, absolutely. In a Catholic Bible, if you go to a Catholic church and pick up a Bible off a pew, yeah, Tobit&#039;s going to be in there. Judith is going to be in there. The first two Maccabees will be in there.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; To do what we do on this show and put it in terms that are related to &amp;quot;Laser Swords,&amp;quot; the movie?&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The distinction between canon and deuterocanon is not the distinction between like the movie &amp;quot;Star Wars&amp;quot; and the Marvel &amp;quot;Star Wars&amp;quot; comic that has a six foot tall green rabbit in it named Jaxxon.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s the distinction between the movie &amp;quot;Star Wars&amp;quot; and the movie &amp;quot;Rogue One, A Star Wars Story.&amp;quot; That&#039;s right. For Catholics and Orthodox churches, it is. Yes. For Protestant churches, it&#039;s the other thing.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; For Protestant churches, the book of Tobit is like a Timothy Zahn novel.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; With Grand Admiral Thrawn.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Or even just straight up like fan fiction off of AO3 or something.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean, there was a two week post-wedding bone down party. So that tracks.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. But the cool thing, the cool thing about Ahikar is that it&#039;s in a pretty exclusive, but not as exclusive as you might think club of non-canonical or apocryphal or pseudepigraphical books that are referred to in canon. We saw that with &amp;quot;The Ascension of Isaiah,&amp;quot; which got referred to when it talked about the martyrdom of Isaiah. And so here, obviously Ahikar is not just referenced, but integrated into the plot of Tobit where they make him into Tobit&#039;s nephew and then Ahikar takes care of Tobit for four years of his blindness. And then he shows up at the wedding party at the end, the third wedding party, if you count the first one as two, because it was double.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
So yeah, like he&#039;s fully integrated there, but not just that, Second Peter, like there&#039;s no question for Christians of the canonicity of Second Peter that was written by Peter, number one apostle boy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The Rock.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; The Rock, Simon &amp;quot;the rock&amp;quot; Peter and his second epistle, Second Peter 2:22, lots of twos here. As many as two times. Yes. He says, &amp;quot;It has happened to them according to the true proverb: A dog returns to its own vomit, and, &#039;a sow, after washing itself, wallows in the mud.&#039;&amp;quot; Where&#039;d that proverb come from? Well, our boy, Ahikar, he says, &amp;quot;O my son! thou hast been to me like the pig who went into the hot bath with people of quality, and when it came out of the hot bath, it saw a filthy hole and it went down and, wallowed in it.&amp;quot; And so, yeah, some people see that proverb as being the source of Peter saying, &amp;quot;you know, the old proverb about the pig in the hole.&amp;quot; So there&#039;s that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Also, some people see a parallel between the no-spoilers ending of this book and the no spoilers, except it is spoiled, &#039;cause if you listen to the show, you already know the beginning of another book that we&#039;ve already covered, but I won&#039;t say what it is until we get there. Cause it&#039;s the end of this book.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I mean, it&#039;s also the beginning of that book. So it&#039;s hard to, it&#039;s hard to spoil.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; The end, the end of this book, some people see as having an influence on the beginning of another book that we&#039;ve already covered, but we&#039;ll say what it is later. Cause no spoilers. If you guys didn&#039;t read Ahikar.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; A very choice ending, by the way. That part I got.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I think you guys are going to be very pleased with the ending of Ahikar.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So here&#039;s my question for you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; In the terms that we&#039;ve been using, if you look at it from the traditional perspective, Tobin and Tobias are Caesar reel, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay. But even looking at it from the traditional perspective, it&#039;s sounding to me like Ahikar is Robin Hood reel at best.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, it does seem a little bit hard to justify it, but I mean, if you, if you do take Tobit as a history and you take him and you assume that it is an accurate first person version of his life, then yeah, you have, then you have to assume then that the story of Ahikar is also true because it&#039;s the version that Tobit relates. Right? So, I mean, even though it&#039;s never, the story of Ahikar has not been considered canon anywhere.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I don&#039;t know. Maybe I haven&#039;t been clear on this either, but I think, I think I would like people to understand from this show to take away from the show is that canon doesn&#039;t really matter. Like canon matters. Canon matters to like the dudes in charge, right. To the people who, to the members of the church.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;m telling that Pontifex, you said canon doesn&#039;t matter by the way.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Canon matters to him. Right. But canon doesn&#039;t always matter to the person in the church. You know what I mean? Like, I personally am more interested in the authentic belief of people. And if, and people who listen to this, if you follow my work at all, which I assume is none of you, but if you have, you know that that&#039;s something I&#039;m always interested in. I always, I&#039;m going to give preference to the authentic folk belief over the official like canon literary version of a thing. And so that&#039;s why like to me in John, the bit about the pool at Bethesda, the bit of the angel coming down and healing people that often gets cut out because it feels like a folk story, that&#039;s much more interesting to me than some of the more canonical literary preaching. And the thing I&#039;ve tried to really establish with some of the art that we post on our Tumblr is that the canonicity of a thing absolutely did not affect whether people believed that thing to be true or not.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And so regardless of the fact that the story of Ahikar is a kind of a folktale that gets passed around and has very many folktale kind of elements to it. Absolutely people are going to believe, yeah, he&#039;s a real person. Yes. He really trained Eagles. Yes. He really solved these riddles. The canonicity of it ultimately doesn&#039;t, doesn&#039;t matter to popular belief. If that makes sense.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I don&#039;t disagree with you on that point. And as we&#039;ve said before, we are not here to like poke holes in anything. We are here to engage with the text as it is presented to us and, and not be jerks about it. But I&#039;m really curious and really interested in the idea of constructing the stories as we have them and saying things like, &amp;quot;Oh, you know, Shakespeare, he knew Robin hood,&amp;quot; you know, something like that. Yeah. So I&#039;m curious about the idea of saying that Tobit was, was Ahikar&#039;s uncle. If Ahikar is a folk hero, it would be like having Teddy Roosevelt, who I know you&#039;re a fan of.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like having Teddy Roosevelt, hang out with Paul Bunyan, you know, that&#039;s an interesting construction to me.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it absolutely is. It&#039;s like, you&#039;re writing a biography of someone and you&#039;re like, &amp;quot;How can I zazz this up a little bit? Oh yeah. His, his uncle was Friar Tuck by the way.&amp;quot; Yeah. It, it is definitely a little bit of that. It does feel like that. Right? So, I mean, it&#039;s a, it&#039;s a cool and interesting way to give your story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I guess what I should have gone with was a Robin hood knowing King Richard. I forgot there was an extremely historically real person in the Robin Hood story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. You start with King Richard and then you&#039;re like, &amp;quot;By the way, this arrow guy and his friend the giant and the drunk priest,&amp;quot; and yeah. And so on. Much, the Miller&#039;s son, et cetera.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Billy Red&#039;s up in there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Billy Red. But yeah, it is a lot like that. Yeah. It&#039;s, it&#039;s cool and interesting, but yeah, I like the story a lot. Story of Ahikar, you seem to have, I think some issues with it, which I can understand it&#039;s weird things happen in this book.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. My issues are mostly around the fact that none of this makes sense to me.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Cool. Let&#039;s go through it then.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay. By that, I mean that I texted you last night. One of the many sayings in this,I texted you. I think this is, this is a chapter 2, verse 25. If we can just jump ahead for a quick second.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, sure.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;O my son! get thee a fat ox with a foreskin, and an ass great with its hoofs, and get not an ox with large horns, nor make friends with a tricky man, nor get a quarrelsome slave, nor a thievish handmaid, for everything which thou committest to them they will ruin.&amp;quot; And the thing that I said after that was &amp;quot;Advice that&#039;s still relevant today.&amp;quot; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; About having to get that ox with a foreskin.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I&#039;m, I&#039;m sure that absolutely meant something to people at one point. Why you want a donkey that&#039;s got big hooves, I don&#039;t know.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I also feel like when we started this project, you probably knew how much we would be saying the word &amp;quot;foreskin&amp;quot; and I did not.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s true. We&#039;re not done. We are absolutely not done.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, I know. We haven&#039;t even gotten to the book where I knew we were going to be talking about it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah, it&#039;s true. You know about, you know about King David and, and all the foreskins, you know about that one?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah, I know about that one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay. All right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ll get to it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;ll get there. Yeah. Some of the wisdom literature is a little bit harder to understand. Some of it really holds up and you can read it and like, &amp;quot;the removing of stones with a wise man is better than the drinking of wine with a sorry man.&amp;quot; That&#039;s clear. Like we understand what that means.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I copied down a couple of good ones, but there are a lot of ones that are weird.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. There are some that I don&#039;t understand. And I haven&#039;t found like, I didn&#039;t go searching for a commentary on every specific proverb throughout, but yeah, we&#039;ll get to that in a second. Let&#039;s, let&#039;s start with the frame of the story. Yeah, we&#039;ve got Ahikar or Ha&#039;ikar as he would be called in the, in the Arabic version, grand vizier of Assyria. So again, this is setting us, I mean, in this version, he just straight up is from Assyria, right? But in the context of Tobit, the idea is that this would be during the Israelite exile of the Northern kingdom into Assyria. There does not seem to be any evidence in this text that Ahikar is Jewish, except for the fact that he does praise the most high God. Right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do you have like the etymology of the word vizier? Because I feel like if I feel like I am a very casual reader of the word vizier in that I know that it means evil court wizard. And that&#039;s kind of about it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It frequently does mean that, but no, it would just be like the actual meaning would be just a high ranking official or like a minister to a King in an Islamic government. So obviously, it&#039;s an anachronistic term, just like Sultan is that gets used later. And I mean, even using the name Allah, right, would be anachronistic by about 1500 years. So it&#039;s a Turkish word that means helper, aid, or minister, one who bears the burden of office. So, he&#039;s just a high ranking in this case, probably presumably the highest ranking advisor to Sennacherib.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, thank you. I appreciate you letting me know that. Cause I don&#039;t know what words are, I guess.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No one has said that. No one has said that anyway.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Ahikar, he&#039;s got 60 wives, which by any measure is a lot of wives.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. The 60 wives. Yeah. In Talmudic folklore, the Aramaic folklore of the Talmud, 60 is one of those numbers that&#039;s just used to mean &amp;quot;a lot.&amp;quot; And so it turns, it turns up a lot whenever you want to.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So it&#039;s just over 7.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s more than seven. Exactly. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 60, I guess. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 - 7 is the perfect number.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Then 60, then 69.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Nice.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; 316, 420 and 666.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. That&#039;s all the numbers.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Those are all the numbers, all the ones you need.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; All the ones you need. So yeah, so he&#039;s got 60 wives. The point is he&#039;s got a lot of wives and from them he has no children. And so he wants to find out about this, like, &amp;quot;Am I going to have a child ever?&amp;quot; And so he goes to talk to the other wise men, the astrologers, the wizards, and they say, &amp;quot;Hey, go make a sacrifice to these idols and see what you find out.&amp;quot; And he didn&#039;t get an answer from them. And so then he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Oh, I should pray to God probably.&amp;quot; And so he does that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And then God is like, &amp;quot;Yeah, I have terrible news for you. You went to the idols first, dummy. So no, no children for you. And instead you should adopt your nephew Nadan,&amp;quot; who is his sister&#039;s son. And this version, his name is Nadan, N-A-D-A-N. The version we saw in the NRSV from Tobit, he&#039;s called Nadab, N-A-D-A-B. But, the interesting thing about that is that in the original Greek, his name is actually Adam. And so they changed his name there to Nadab, whereas he&#039;s Nadan here. Some versions he&#039;s Nadin, N-A-D-I-N, but in this text and what seems to be probably one of the earliest versions would be Nadan, N-A-D-A-N, because that would be related to the Hebrew name, Nathan, which means a gift. So Nadan, as he&#039;s called here, but Nadab elsewhere. And yeah, Ahikar adopts his nephew when he was still a little suckling and he handed him over to 8 wet nurses, which seems like a lot.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay. So, so 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 60, 69, 316, 420.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah. A very thirsty boy, I guess.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here&#039;s the first part where I get a little tripped up. God tells– God, straight up. No, I mean, presumably there was an angel who came down with a bunch of eyes on fire.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I think, well, he hears a voice. He hears a voice is what it says.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But this is God. This is a message from God, capital G.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Tells him, Hey, go adopt Nadan and raise him up and then he&#039;ll be your son and he&#039;ll bury you when you get old. So you don&#039;t have to worry about Tobit having to find your body in the street and then having to go bury it himself.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; As was his deal. Yeah. God&#039;s wrong though is the thing.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. God seems to be giving some bad advice, except, I mean, it&#039;s gotta be one of those where you&#039;re like, either you go, &amp;quot;Well, God did it for the plot device.&amp;quot; If you&#039;re looking at it from a literary standpoint, if you&#039;re looking at it from a theological standpoint, you might say, &amp;quot;Well, God knows that Ahikar needs to suffer in order to learn some kind of lesson.&amp;quot; And then he&#039;s in his station is improved by the end of the story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean, yes, his station is improved by the end of the story. He does live in a basement for four years.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. It&#039;s, it&#039;s not great for him.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Specifically because he did exactly what God told him to do.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Correct.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is already a punishment for going to the idols first.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. So is it double punishment where he&#039;s like, no, no children is that&#039;s just, that&#039;s just punishment A. Punishment B is you have to live in a cistern for a while until your fingernails grow out like eagles claws. So yeah. And also your nephew&#039;s going to be evil. So yeah, I don&#039;t know.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Spoiler everybody. Nadan is evil. We get an entire chapter of about 67 verses that&#039;s just Ahikar teaching him what&#039;s what, and it does not take Nadan is mad evil. And as we learn in chapter 1, verse 25, &amp;quot;And he took Nadan his sister&#039;s son with him and seated him in a parlour and set about teaching him night and day till he had crammed him with wisdom and knowledge more than with bread and water.&amp;quot; That might actually be the problem.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. That also does raise some questions about how Ahikar feeds children.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Just crams it in there. Just takes a big old fistful of bread. It&#039;s like a, like a Kobayashi hot dog eating contest situation. He dunks the bread in the water and just shoves it in there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; He just grabs the whole kid cuisine in one hand and then mashes it up into a ball. Just shoves it in there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; While just screaming Proverbs at him.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This actually might be when Nadan turns out evil. This does not seem like a good childhood.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Maybe so. Or maybe he just, he just straight up didn&#039;t understand these proverbs. Chapter two is all the teachings of Ahikar. The editor of this version refers to it as a poor Richard&#039;s almanac of ancient days. And yeah, it&#039;s basically like those kind of like homey homespun sayings that probably made way more sense to a medieval Arabic person than to us today. But some of them hold up. Some of them make sense. If we want to look at some of these individually.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I mean, I wrote down a couple of, you already mentioned verse 12, which is, &amp;quot;the removing of stones with a wise man is better than the drinking of wine with a sorry man.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which I thought was fun. Verse 13: &amp;quot;pour out thy wine on the tombs of the just, and drink not with ignorant, contemptible people.&amp;quot; So it&#039;s better to pour one out for your homies.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Than to then to hang out with people you don&#039;t like, which I like.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. That&#039;s a, that is a pretty good one. Yeah. &amp;quot;Cleave to wise men who fear God.&amp;quot; Right? Like, so a lot of the advice is hang with good people, avoid bad influences.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I like verse 17 as well, which is, &amp;quot;O my son! if the rich man eat a snake, they say, &#039;It is by his wisdom,&#039; and if a poor man eat it, the people say, &#039;From his hunger.&#039;&amp;quot; That&#039;s so good. That&#039;s like one of my favorite ones I think, because that&#039;s absolutely true. Right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; 100% 100% true.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Even today, that one holds up completely. Or it&#039;s just like two people do the same thing, but based on their station, we question their motivations or we attribute positive motivations to a person we already view positively. It&#039;s nice. It&#039;s very, that&#039;s a very good one, Ahikar. Crushed it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Also the idea of eating a snake is very, very good. Like that&#039;s a very good image. Verse 23, not so good. I think.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;O my son! spare not to beat thy son, for the drubbing of thy son is like manure to the garden, and like tying the mouth of a purse, and like the tethering of beasts, and like the bolting of the door.&amp;quot; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is as bad as Tobin telling Tobias he needs to marry a cousin.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Possibly worse.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Probably endorsing child abuse is. Yeah. Especially calling it drubbing. Like that&#039;s even worse.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I don&#039;t know if this came up in your translation. &#039;Cause you said it was the same one, but I&#039;m not quite sure. The word drubbing comes up a lot.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. It does in mind too. We have the same translation. It&#039;s just mine has been revised a little bit. So I think some of the like thees and thous have been taken out of mine, but it is the same translation that I have that you&#039;re looking at.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay. I&#039;ve only got one more and it&#039;s my favorite one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; All right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Although I think this is probably meant in a different way than I&#039;m taking it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;O my son! a living dog is better than a dead poor man.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah. It&#039;s, it&#039;s again, not very nice to dogs here, but yeah, that follows up one that I want to look at later. &#039;Cause I don&#039;t want it to say it now. &#039;Cause it&#039;s favorite one, spoilers, I picked out for the end.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I just think a living dog is better than a dead man is a good general philosophy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it is. Yeah, no, that&#039;s a good one. I don&#039;t think we need to really go through all of them. I mean, most of them follow the same train of thought, which is associate with the good and avoid the bad and that. But also take advantage of the things that you have and don&#039;t waste your time wishing for things that you can&#039;t have, which is also a reasonable philosophy that we still tend to preach today. So, anyway, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; A couple of them do go off the rails though.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. What do you got?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Verse 61: &amp;quot;Let the wise man beat thee with a rod, but let not the fool anoint thee with sweet salve.&amp;quot; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I would say maybe don&#039;t let the wise man beat you with a rod, but maybe let the fool treat you like a fellow human being.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah, that one&#039;s clearly a little bit more metaphorical, but yeah, still, still strange. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Also there&#039;s some real, like just taking some pot shots at wives. Am I right, fellas?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. It&#039;s about 50/50 good advice versus...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I do. I do like this one, &amp;quot;Desire not a woman bedizened with dress and with ointments, who is despicable and silly in her soul.&amp;quot; I like, I mean, I like it in an ironic way. &#039;Cause I like the word &amp;quot;bedizened&amp;quot; primarily, but. &amp;quot;Woe to thee if you bestow on her anything that is yours, or commit to her what is in your hand and she entice thee into sin, and God be angry with you.&amp;quot; Yeah. Some not so good ones about wives and some ones about beating your children, that don&#039;t quite hold up, but there&#039;s some gems in there. There&#039;s some good ones. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
He wraps up basically saying, &amp;quot;There are four things in which neither the king nor his army can be secure: oppression by the vizier, and bad government, and perversion of the will, and tyranny over the subject; and four things which cannot be hidden: the prudent, and the foolish, and the rich, and the poor.&amp;quot; So he wraps up there, you know, basically saying that like, no matter how much wealth and power you have, there are certain things that you can&#039;t protect against, you know, and he should have been watching his own advice here, right? He talks about the King can&#039;t protect against oppression by the vizier. And in this case, he&#039;s the vizier, but his own second in command is the one who he should be watching out for, but can&#039;t protect against. Because that&#039;s what happens next.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Surprisingly, after Ahikar takes this child, puts him in a room and then spends every day and every night shoving wet bread into his mouth and screaming things like, &amp;quot;let the wise man beat you!&amp;quot; Nadan turns out bad. Nadan does not like Ahikar.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It doesn&#039;t go well.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Going back through this, I&#039;m kind of on his side.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh no, no way. So Ahikar is getting old and the question is who&#039;s going to, who&#039;s going to take your place. And so he decides to deliver over to Nadan all of his goods and the slaves and the handmaidens and the horses and the cow. So he gives them all this stuff. So Ahikar is still alive. He&#039;s just, he&#039;s old. But he&#039;s like, well, &amp;quot;Nadan, you can go ahead and take over. It&#039;ll be fine. I&#039;ll kind of retire. You&#039;ve been, we&#039;ve been training for this our whole lives, your whole life.&amp;quot; And then immediately it goes bad.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; He gives him the stuff in verse 2, Verse 3 is like, &amp;quot;and then Ahikar kicked back.&amp;quot; Verse 4: it goes bad.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah. &amp;quot;When Nadan perceived that the power of bidding and of forbidding was in his own hand, he despised the position of Ahikar and scoffed at him, and set about blaming him whenever he appeared, saying, &#039;My uncle Ahikar is in his dotage, and he knows nothing now.&amp;quot; So he beats the slaves and the maidens. He sells the horses and the camels. He starts wasting all of his money. And then Ahikar is like, &amp;quot;what have I done? I&#039;ve made a huge mistake.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; These three things, by the way, are presented as being equally bad.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I would say it&#039;s probably not as bad to sell the camels and waste the money as it is to beat the handmaidens.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s probably number one bad. I am no longer on Nadan&#039;s side.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. It goes very bad. And so the king is like, &amp;quot;This Nadan guy is bad. So while Ahikar is still alive, let&#039;s make sure Nadan doesn&#039;t take over anything.&amp;quot; And Ahikar is like, &amp;quot;I need a backup plan.&amp;quot; And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Nadan has a brother who is not spoiled yet. So I guess that&#039;s going to be my plan B.&amp;quot; And so he&#039;s going to raise up Nadan&#039;s brother, Benuzardan, to be his actual heir. Nadan doesn&#039;t care for that at all. And so he puts his plan in motion.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; He cooks up a scheme.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s quite a scheme. It&#039;s a surprisingly handwriting-based scheme.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. He forges some letters. Uh, first he forges a letter to the Pharaoh in Egypt. And it says, &amp;quot;Hey, come to Assyria on this day at this time and we&#039;ll make peace. I&#039;ll hand our kingdom over to you.&amp;quot; And then he writes a letter to the king of Persia, says the same thing, but those letters he doesn&#039;t send. Instead, he writes a third letter in the King&#039;s handwriting telling Ahikar, &amp;quot;Hey, gather up my army. I&#039;m putting you in charge of the army. You go here at a certain time. And then when you see the other forces show up, you know, just run out, I&#039;m scaring them a little bit.&amp;quot; Then he takes the two forged letters that are Ahikar&#039;s letters of trying to hand over the kingdom to these foreign powers and shows them to the king or to Sennacherib.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sennacherib, King of Assyria and Nineveh. And he is like, &amp;quot;Hey, sorry to break this to you. Ahikar&#039;s trying to sell us out to the Persians and the Egyptians. And I can prove it if we go here at this time.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep. And they do. They do go out there. And as in the forged letter from Sennacherib, Ahikar sees the king. And when the king motions to him, he charges towards him and it looks like it looks like an attack. And so Ahikar gets arrested and Sennacherib is like, &amp;quot;What has happened? How do we get into this, into this position?&amp;quot; And yeah, he&#039;s not just arrested. He&#039;s going to be executed for treason and they hand him over to a swordsman whose name is Abu Samik.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Through the course of his trial, by the way, Ahikar never goes, &amp;quot;You sent me a letter and asked me to do that. Can we compare this real quick?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; For a guy whose main attribute is supposed to be wisdom. It does seem like that might be a defense he would present at literally any time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Instead he&#039;s going to like, Br&#039;er Fox his way out of this situation in a minute.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Br&#039;er Rabbit his way out, I should say.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it is a little bit that kind of position. So we got the swordsman Abu Samik and in some versions, his name is Nabu Samik and probably the original Hebrew name would have been Elisamock. I don&#039;t know, but he&#039;s, he&#039;s a swordsman and he&#039;s about to cut off Ahikar&#039;s head. But first Ahikar calls his wife. It says his wife, which one, Ahikar? You got 60 of them. But he calls his wife and he says, &amp;quot;Come out and meet me and let there be with you a thousand young virgins and dress them in gowns of purple and silk that they may weep for me before my death,&amp;quot; which seems like a weird thing, but it&#039;s all part of the plan. And then when he&#039;s alone with the swordsman, he says, &amp;quot;Hey man, remember how I saved your life before when it was the old King here, he&#039;s called Sarhadum, but that would, that would be Sargon. Sargon II who was Sennacherib&#039;s father. &amp;quot;Do you not know that when Sarhadum the King, the father of Sennacherib wanted to kill you, I took you and hid you in a certain place. So the King&#039;s anger subsided and he asked for you. And when I brought you into his presence, he rejoiced in you. And now remember the kindness I did you.&amp;quot; Right? So he&#039;s calling in a favor. I guess it&#039;s good to be friends with the King&#039;s executioner.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Did you mention what exactly his sentence is, by the way?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I did not.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The, the swordsman is supposed to take Ahikar to his house, cut his head off and then throw his head a hundred cubits, which, I checked, 50 yards. That&#039;s a solid head punt.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s, that&#039;s true. It is a, not an immaterial distance. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But that is a, that is a narrative convenience.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it is. It, that does turn out to be very convenient for Ahikar.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Cause what Ahikar says is, Hey, I know you&#039;re going to need to kill somebody. So I&#039;m just going to go down and live in my basement for a little while. And I have this slave who deserves to die. So... Which, he glosses over that one, but good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;You know, Steve? Steve&#039;s a real jerk. So why don&#039;t you cut his head off and punt his head 50 yards and then dress him in my clothes and take the body back to Sennacherib and we&#039;ll be square.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And why will the servants of the executioner, why will they not notice that this is a different body? Cause they got drunk with a thousand virgins.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Because Ahikar told his wife, &amp;quot;Hey, I need you to set up a party. I need the best wine. I need Doritos. I need regular tortilla chips with some of that good salsa and maybe some queso. If we could get some of that queso with the chorizo in it, that would be best. Also 1,000 virgins.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So I&#039;m guessing this means between 9 and 20.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Could be. Yeah. Yeah. Ahikar&#039;s wife just swung by San Diego Comic-Con, rounded up as many as she could find.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s rude.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That was low hanging fruit. I apologize. I apologize. So anyway, yeah, this condemned criminal, in this case, the slave, which makes it very uncomfortable for me, the modern reader, is executed in Ahikar&#039;s place. Abu Samik, yeah, punts his head a hundred cubits. So no one can check his face or his, you know, dental records for comparison. And then, yeah, Ahikar goes to live in a cellar for a while and Abu Samik just sneaks him food. Or maybe...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And his wife.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And his wife. Yeah. Yeah. And partially, it&#039;s because Abu Samik knows that the King&#039;s going to regret this and he&#039;s right. And he&#039;s immediately right because as soon as word gets out that Ahikar, the wise vizier is dead, the Pharaoh of Egypt goes, &amp;quot;The wisest man of Assyria is dead? This is a perfect time for a riddle contest.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So, chapter 4, there&#039;s a little bit of &amp;quot;wherein&amp;quot;...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; ...in this translation I&#039;m reading and this is called &amp;quot;The Riddles of the Sphinx: What really happened to Ahikar?&amp;quot; And I got excited, especially when Sennacherib is like, &amp;quot;Oh man, I wish I hadn&#039;t killed Ahikar. He knew all the secrets and riddles.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There are no actual riddles asked in this section. Don&#039;t get excited.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, in this section, right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Don&#039;t go looking at, at Ahikar when you&#039;re planning your next D&amp;amp;D adventure. Ain&#039;t no riddles in here.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; The riddles are later. The riddles are later. Because here&#039;s the letter from Pharaoh. He says, &amp;quot;I&#039;ve been desiring to build a castle between the heaven and the earth. And I want you to send me a wise clever man to build it for me and to answer me all my questions and that I may have the taxes and the custom duties of Assyria for three years.&amp;quot; So basically what he&#039;s saying is, &amp;quot;I have a riddle contest. The prime riddle I want is I want someone to build me a castle in the sky. And if you can&#039;t do it and if you can&#039;t answer all my riddles, you have to pay me tribute for three years.&amp;quot; That&#039;s the letter. And so, Sennacherib gets this and he freaks out cause he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;How do you build a flying castle? How do you do it?&amp;quot; And he shows it to the assembled old men and learned men and wise men and philosophers, diviners and astrologers and everyone in the country. They can&#039;t do it. And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;Well this is Nadan&#039;s job, obviously hand it over to him. He&#039;s the new vizier. He&#039;s been trained by Ahikar.&amp;quot; And Nadan just straight up says, &amp;quot;Who can build a sky castle? Peace out.&amp;quot; That&#039;s like Nadan&#039;s reaction. And so things are going crazy in Assyria because Sennacherib is very worried that they&#039;re going to have to default on this riddle contest.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here&#039;s another question for me though. Why doesn&#039;t Sennacherib just go, &amp;quot;Yeah, I don&#039;t want to do this real contest.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Well, I mean, I presumably Egypt would then wage war demanding the tribute. I don&#039;t know. Is Egypt more powerful than Assyria at this time? That seems like, no, probably not. But someone who&#039;s better versed in this era of history might know, but I feel like the Assyrian empire would have been the big one at this time. It seems a little presumptuous of Pharaoh to just demand this tribute. But...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Also, I want to build a castle between heaven and earth. So build it or you lose the riddle contest. That ain&#039;t a riddle.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, there are the other riddles are later you build the castle and to the other, the other riddles are riddles either.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The other riddles aren&#039;t riddles either. The other riddles aren&#039;t riddles either.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; They are. Kinda.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, kinda.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; They&#039;re cosplay-based riddles and challenges. Anyway, we&#039;ll get there in a second.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Asking someone to do something impossible is not a riddle. Anyway, that&#039;s my first point. If I was Sennacherib, I would have sent back a sternly worded refusal.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. Okay. It&#039;s not riddles in the like Bilbo Baggins sense. That&#039;s absolutely true. Yes. Basically...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It actually is like riddles in the Bilbo Baggins sense.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; In that they&#039;re impossible and there&#039;s no actual answer or you&#039;d have to ask...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s a garbage riddle too.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. But anyway, so while Sennacherib is like literally crying for paragraphs, eventually the swordsman Abu Samik, he shows up and he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Sennacherib, King Sennacherib, I have good news and bad news.&amp;quot; And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Okay, what&#039;s the bad news?&amp;quot; He&#039;s like, &amp;quot;The bad news is I lied to you.&amp;quot; And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Okay, that&#039;s bad. What&#039;s the good news?&amp;quot; He&#039;s like, &amp;quot;The good news is I lied to you and actually Ahikar is alive.&amp;quot; And Sennacherib says, &amp;quot;First of all, you&#039;re lying and I&#039;m going to kill you for that.&amp;quot; And then Abu Samik says, &amp;quot;No, no, no, it&#039;s real. It&#039;s true. I promise.&amp;quot; And then he goes, &amp;quot;Yeah, now I&#039;m going to kill you, kill you with rewards and riches.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;If your speech be true, I would feign enrich you and exalt your dignity above that of all your friends.&amp;quot; And so, yeah, they go to Ahikar&#039;s house, they open up the cellar, they find him sitting there praising God. And he&#039;s a little, a little raggedy. Here he&#039;s described, &amp;quot;The King looked at him, he saw him in a state of want and that his hair had grown long like the wild beasts&#039; and his nails like the claws of an eagle and that his body was dirty with dust and the color of his face had changed and faded and was now like ashes.&amp;quot; Not looking his finest. But Sennacherib is very happy because now he&#039;s got a ringer to send to Egypt.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And so, yeah, so chapter five is about Ahikar preparing for the riddle contest. And it&#039;s nice because there&#039;s a little bit of suspense to it because you&#039;re just like, what is he doing? Because he reads the letter and he goes, &amp;quot;All right, Pharaoh wants me to build a castle in the sky. Someone bring me some baby eagles and two children, please.&#039;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, &amp;quot;I need some little birds and some boys. I got a plan. It&#039;s an eagle boy plan.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;I have this boy related eagle plan, also ropes, please make me some very long ropes.&amp;quot; And who could possibly suspect ill of this plan at this point? What he ends up doing is he raises these eagles from a young age. Apparently he does this, he says 40 days. So I don&#039;t know how fast eagles grow up, but whatever. He feeds the eagles and he feeds the boys. That was our reading here at the beginning. Eagles used to being tied to the rope. Also, by the way, the boys are riding on the eagles&#039; backs.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The boys ride on the eagles&#039; backs and they are described in this verse, as you heard at the top of the show as little lads, which I find very charming.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, little lads. And so with the rope, they do a little bit at a time, right? They start with them going up to 10 cubits, but ultimately the ropes are 2000 cubits long. So what did you say? The thousand yards? Is that what you would say probably?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Probably about a thousand. If a hundred cubits is 50 yards, then yeah, this is about 3000 feet.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So he&#039;s-&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Quite high in the air.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But little by little he&#039;s training these boys to ride on the eagles&#039; back, a little bit higher, a little bit higher. And then he tells them that when they get to full height, what they need to do is call out, &amp;quot;bring us clay and stone.&amp;quot; And so we read that and we go, &amp;quot;That&#039;s weird. I don&#039;t understand this plan.&amp;quot; But, it&#039;s all going to be resolved, eventually, once Ahikar makes his way to Egypt.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And when he gets there, he introduces himself to the Pharaoh, he does not tell him he&#039;s Ahikar. Because Ahikar is supposed to be dead, right? And so he tells him that he is actually Abiqam, &amp;quot;a little ant of the ants of King Sennacherib.&amp;quot; And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Why? Why this nobody?&amp;quot; The Pharaoh is like &amp;quot;Why did Sennacherib send this nobody? This is an insult.&amp;quot; And Ahikar is just like, &amp;quot;No man, I just want God to fulfill your every want.&amp;quot; But the cool thing is that Ahikar, in this cool disguise, flips it around a little bit. He flips the script and he says to Pharaoh, &amp;quot;Look, I understand that the penalty for defaulting on this challenge is that we have to pay you three years of tribute,&amp;quot; and he says, &amp;quot;If I can do it, you have to pay us.&amp;quot; And Pharaoh is like, &amp;quot;Uh, yeah. Okay.&amp;quot; And so he accepts this challenge.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is this like a triple dog dare situation where you just cannot turn down a riddle contest?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I feel like it, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like, why doesn&#039;t the Pharaoh just go, &amp;quot;No, I don&#039;t think I&#039;m going to be doing that. Thank you.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;This is my contest and I make the rules?&amp;quot; But no, I think the fact that this guy, yeah, it would be a matter of honor that this nobody, Abiqam, comes and returns the challenge. And so yeah, we get to the beginning of the riddle contest, which is, yeah, it&#039;s-&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I hate this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very strange parade. It&#039;s a parade of costumes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This probably made a lot of sense in 500 BCE.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I think for the most part, it makes sense.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It doesn&#039;t, but go on.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; The first day, he summons Ahikar into his throne room and Pharaoh is sitting on the throne and he&#039;s surrounded by his viziers and the other courtiers. Pharaoh is dressed in purple on the throne and all the viziers are in red. And he says to Ahikar, &amp;quot;Okay, who am I?&amp;quot; And so the idea is what does this visual thing represent? With Pharaoh in the middle, his courtiers all around, Pharaoh&#039;s in purple, courtiers are in red. But he goes, &amp;quot;Oh yeah, okay, well, no problem. You&#039;re Baal,&amp;quot; which is the name we&#039;ve seen a bunch of times now, and remember is not the actual name of any particular god, but it&#039;s actually a Canaanite term that means Lord. And so it&#039;s not the actual specific name of a god, but it was kind of the go-to boogeyman name for Jewish texts to refer to as the king of idolatrous gods. And so he goes, &amp;quot;Well, your Baal and all the nobles are his servants.&amp;quot; Because the idol Baal would have been dressed in purple and the special sacramental robes of the priests of Baal would have been red. So that&#039;s what that is. That&#039;s the solution to the puzzle. &amp;quot;Who am I?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Well, your Baal, these are the priests of Baal.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Look, I understand that this is like, if he was like, &amp;quot;Hey, I&#039;m all in purple and these guys are all in red. Who are we?&amp;quot; I understand that makes as much sense for the intended audience of this book as like, &amp;quot;Oh, well, you&#039;re Hawkeye and all these dudes are Daredevil.&amp;quot; I understand that. It&#039;s still bad. It&#039;s a bad riddle.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; All right. Well, anyway, so the next day is the Pharaoh is in red and all the nobles are in white and the solution is Pharaoh is the sun and all the nobles are the rays of the sun.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah. Oh, no. Yeah. You know the sun? The famously red sun?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Look, man.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very red.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; In the desert, in the desert wastes. That&#039;s the sun is, I don&#039;t know. Anyway, the next day Pharaoh&#039;s in white.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The red sun with its white rays. Yup.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, man.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sure is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; All right. And then Pharaoh&#039;s in white, the nobles in white. And so now he says, &amp;quot;You&#039;re the moon. They&#039;re the stars.&amp;quot; Great. The next day...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; First one that&#039;s made sense. First one that&#039;s made sense.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Pharaoh&#039;s in red velvet and then everyone else is in multi-colors. And so he says, &amp;quot;You&#039;re the month of April. The nobles are the flowers.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; What does your dress is the month of April mean?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; You&#039;re the springtime. You&#039;re the springtime.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, yeah. Springtime. Red velvet. Got it. Perfect.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s warm.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; What are you talking about?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s warm and sunny because the sun is red.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right, because the sun is red. And so April is the red month.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; The sun is red like a pumpkin&#039;s head. It&#039;s shining so your nose won&#039;t freeze.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s in the winter, my man.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Anyway.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That is specifically a marshmallow world in the winter.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; So anyway, here&#039;s the thing that I like about this. So I understand your quibbles with the color choices and the riddles. But what I like about this is that Pharaoh is very pleased that Ahikar got these right because he says, &amp;quot;You said it. You said, &#039;I&#039;m like Baal and all my guys are like his priests. I&#039;m like the sun. I&#039;m like the moon. I&#039;m the month of April. I&#039;m the best.&#039;&amp;quot; And he goes, &amp;quot;Now tell me, who is Sennacherib like?&amp;quot; And basically Ahikar goes, &amp;quot;Yeah.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I will say this is the one part of the whole riddle contest that I like because Pharaoh goes, &amp;quot;All right. Yeah. So I&#039;m like all these things. So what&#039;s Sennacherib like?&amp;quot; And Ahikar goes, &amp;quot;You put some respect on his name when you say it. You stand up.&amp;quot; Which is a bold move.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because his response is, &amp;quot;Yeah, you&#039;re like Baal because you know what Baal is? He&#039;s a fake god for chumps. Sennacherib, my king, is like the real god from heaven and his followers are like the storm and the thunder that crush April and destroy the moon and all of these things. He commands the tempest. It blows and the rain falls and tramples out April and the flowers of the houses.&amp;quot; And so he&#039;s just-&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hey Benito.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I know we haven&#039;t read a lot of Old Testament books.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Uh huh.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Are we going to get the one where God fights the month of April and destroys the moon?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Who knows? There&#039;s a lot of pseudepigrapha.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is that Lamentations?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s a lot of pseudepigrapha to get to. So you never know. But I have a question for you, Chris. Why is Pharaoh crying?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because he just got dunked on.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s right. That&#039;s right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which also, it is not adequately explained why Pharaoh does not immediately have Ahikar killed.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Well, he&#039;s greatly perplexed and he&#039;s wroth with a great wrath. Which is, if you&#039;re going to be wroth with something, wrath I think is probably the number one thing. He&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Okay, who are you really?&amp;quot; And he goes, &amp;quot;I&#039;m Ahikar!&amp;quot; And then he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Oh, I have to believe it even though you&#039;re supposed to be dead. Because who else could have done this?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Who else could have said, &amp;quot;Another person was better than I am.&amp;quot; Who else?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; What a bad riddle contest. Great ending to a bad riddle contest.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, riddle contest is not over because the main event, the main event is that castle in the sky. Who&#039;s going to build that sky castle? And so they go out and that&#039;s our next chapter. Next chapter is time to build the sky castle. And this is so good. I love it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This is very, very good. This is a truly boss dunk that Ahikar is setting up here.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; So yeah, he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;All right, how are you going to do it? How are you going to build me this floating sky castle, this Studio Ghibli production?&amp;quot; And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Bring out the boys!&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here&#039;s my eagle boys.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And so his eagle boys come out. He opens the boxes. The eagles with the boys on their back fly out and they go up into the sky and they&#039;re circling around like a thousand cubits in the sky. And then they just shout down like, &amp;quot;All right, send up the bricks. We&#039;re ready to go.&amp;quot; And all the Egyptians are like, &amp;quot;What are they talking about? How are we supposed to get bricks up there?&amp;quot; And Ahikar&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Look, man, I got the builders. They&#039;re up there. It&#039;s your responsibility to get the materials up there. If you can&#039;t do that, that&#039;s not my fault.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Yeah, I&#039;m not going to bring bricks all the way from Assyria, dude. Come on.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And so they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;Well, I guess that one&#039;s on us. Score one for Assyria.&amp;quot; And so that does seem like you would build up to that one, right? Like that&#039;s the showstopper.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Then we get a really bananas bit of animal cruelty.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; This actually legit made me uncomfortable. So if you do not like to hear stories of full-on bonkers animal abuse, maybe skip ahead a little bit or we&#039;ll catch you next week.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, just skip just a little bit because Pharaoh&#039;s new claim is that Sennacherib has a stallion that neighs so loud that its voice carries into Egypt and is causing the mares of Egypt to miscarry.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is a fully bananas claim.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yes, it is. I mean, it&#039;s not impossible. Like if an actual pregnant mayor does actually hear something that frightens it enough, it will miscarry. Like that&#039;s a thing. But yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s not the part I was taking issue with, but thank you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, you&#039;re right. But that&#039;s the part that Ahikar takes issue with. And to prove that, he does it in the worst way possible. He says, &amp;quot;Bring me a cat and I&#039;m going to beat the crap out of the cat.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;And when Ahikar heard this speech he went and took a cat, and bound her and began to flog her with a violent flogging till the Egyptians heard it, and they went and told the king about it.&amp;quot; Yeah, good call Egyptians.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And so Pharaoh says, &amp;quot;Why did you do that?&amp;quot; And he goes, &amp;quot;Oh, well, because I have a fancy prize rooster that I got as a gift from the king. And this cat ran out there last night, killed my rooster and then came back.&amp;quot; And then the Pharaoh says, &amp;quot;That&#039;s impossible, idiot, because Egypt and Nineveh are 68 parasangs apart.&amp;quot; A parasang is basically the distance you can walk in an hour. And so he&#039;s saying this would be, there&#039;s a 68 hour walk from Egypt to Nineveh. How–&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So close to the nice number.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I know. I know, right? And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;How did the cat go out last night and then kill the rooster and then come back?&amp;quot; And he goes, &amp;quot;Oh, well, you played yourself, Pharaoh. Because if a cat can&#039;t run that distance in one night, how are you going to hear a horse from that far?&amp;quot; And so Pharaoh has to concede that Ahikar is right. And so the next challenge comes, and he goes–&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, wait, wait, wait, before we move on, real quick, I just want to point out, you said the word rooster, the text does not say the word rooster. It&#039;s very funny. I suggest you, if there&#039;s one good part of this section of the story, it is that. Do enjoy it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, yes. Sennacherib has given me a fine rooster. Anyway, so the next challenge, Pharaoh tells Ahikar to make ropes out of sand. So he basically, Ahikar solves this by basically drilling molds for ropes in the sand, and then he pours fresh sea sand in there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I did not understand this at all.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, well, I mean, basically he drills the mold in the shape of ropes, and then he puts fresh sea sand in there, and when the sun shines down on the sea sand, it dries and hardens like clay. And so that&#039;s how he manages to make ropes out of sea sand. That&#039;s the solution there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That doesn&#039;t make any sense.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s a little bit, it&#039;s a folk story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That absolutely does not make sense.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then, basically the final challenge is, he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;All right, well if you can do all that, do me a favor, I got this cracked millstone, will you stitch it up for me?&amp;quot; And he basically solves this one in a smaller version of the castle in the sky problem. He goes, &amp;quot;Well, I came all this way, you didn&#039;t tell me to bring a needle and thread, so if your guys will cut some awls from stone, I&#039;ll sew that millstone up.&amp;quot; Right, and of course since the Egyptians can&#039;t make a needle and awl out of stone, they have to forfeit their half of the challenge. And so, he wins.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And so Pharaoh says, &amp;quot;Blessed be the Most High God, who gave thee this wit and knowledge.&amp;quot; He strips off his robes, puts them on Ahikar, go in peace, he gives him all the tribute and stuff to go back to Nineveh, and he goes back in great procession. The news reaches Sennacherib that Ahikar is coming. He went out to meet him, meets him with kisses and hugs. &amp;quot;Welcome, my kinsmen, my brother Ahikar, the strength of my kingdom and the pride of my realm.&amp;quot; And he says, &amp;quot;I&#039;ll give you anything you want.&amp;quot; And he goes, &amp;quot;I want you to give the rewards to Abu Samik, because if it weren&#039;t for him, none of this would have happened.&amp;quot; Which is true. And so he makes the station of Abu Samik the Swordsman &amp;quot;higher than all my Privy Councillors and my favourites.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
And then as a bonus gift, Sennacherib delivers to Ahikar, Nadan, bound in chains. &amp;quot;Chains of iron, heavy fetters on his feet, tied with a tight knot, binding him thus, cast him into a dark room beside the resting place, and appointed Nebuhal as sentinel over him, and commanded him to give him a loaf of bread and a little water every day.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Just cram it in there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Just cram it in there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then, for about 55 verses, Ahikar tells Nadan how much he sucks.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; He completely drags him for a very long time. You might say he Nadabs on him.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No one would say that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; You might say that. Someone might say that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No one might say that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Someone might say that. But yeah, and he makes all these comparisons to how he is like various terrible animals.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The thing that I like is that he says, &amp;quot;You&#039;re like a guy who tried to throw a rock at God, but you couldn&#039;t do it.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes. That one is really good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &#039;Cause that&#039;s not even, like there&#039;s not even a metaphor. It&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Yeah, you came at the king, son.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep. And you missed. It&#039;s bad. I like this. &amp;quot;Know that if the tail of the dog or the pig were ten cubits long, it would not approach the worth of the horses, even if it were like silk.&amp;quot; What a strange image. I mean, I get it because these people hate dogs and pigs, but like, even if a dog had a 20 foot tail, it wouldn&#039;t be as good as a horse, idiot.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There is about a six verse story about setting a trap for a lark that is a very confused metaphor.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;You&#039;ve been to me like a trap which is set up on a dunghill.&amp;quot; That seems like enough. Like you stop at the trap and the dunghill.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We also get, I hope I can get through this. We also get in verse 21, &amp;quot;Oh my boy, thou has been to me as a lion who made friends with an ass and the ass kept walking before the lion for a time. And one day the lion sprang upon the ass and ate it up.&amp;quot; Is that the first reference to eating ass that we&#039;ve gotten?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, he eats it like groceries.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, that one was just for you and me, buddy. That one&#039;s getting cut out.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh no, it&#039;s so good. It&#039;s so, it&#039;s very good. Think about it. Think about it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Point being, he ethers Nadan so hard for 55 verses that &amp;quot;And when Nadan heard that speech from his uncle Ahikar, he swelled up immediately and became like a blown-out bladder. And his limbs swelled and his legs and his feet and his side, and he was torn and his belly burst asunder and his entrails were scattered, and he perished, and died.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And he went to hell.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then he went to hell.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; So I know guys that old classic standard from this show, it&#039;s been a hot minute, but here we are, a guy got dragged so bad he exploded and it&#039;s beautiful. It&#039;s a beautiful description of a man just being- it&#039;s like that one Achewood where Todd&#039;s head explodes, but he&#039;s just like the most perfect thing to say ever and it just explodes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, which of all the superpowers that we have seen in the Bible, that is the one I would want.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like I do genuinely like the ultimate moral here that we get after Nadan goes to hell, we get the ultimate moral: &amp;quot;He who digs a pit for his brother shall fall into it; and he who sets up traps shall be caught in them.&amp;quot; Yeah, it&#039;s a good one. And yeah, the &amp;quot;chronicle is finished with the help of God, may He be exalted: Amen, Amen, Amen.&amp;quot; That&#039;s the story of Ahikar.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So that is it for Ahikar. Did you have a reading? Did you have a favorite verse?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I had one that I picked out here that I liked because you know how like in English we have the saying, &amp;quot;A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.&amp;quot; Very commonly known saying meaning, you know, something you have is worth something that you might be able to get in the future. Ahikar was like, &amp;quot;That&#039;s not enough. Let&#039;s build on that a little.&amp;quot; And he says, &amp;quot;O my child,&amp;quot; this is in chapter two. &amp;quot;O my child! the thigh of a frog in thy hand is better than a goose in the pot of thy neighbour; and a sheep near thee is better than an ox far away; and a sparrow in thy hand is better than a thousand sparrows flying; and poverty which gathers is better than the scattering of much provision; and a living fox is better than a dead lion; and a pound of wool is better than a pound of wealth, I mean of gold and silver; for the gold and the silver are hidden and covered up in the earth, and are not seen; but the wool stays. in the markets and it is seen, and it is a beauty to him who wears it.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Ahikar really was losing the plot of that metaphor there at the end.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, you know wealth?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I feel like Ahikar messed up when he was like, &amp;quot;I&#039;d rather have a pound of wool than a pound of gold. Wait a second. I mean a pound of gold that I don&#039;t actually have because I haven&#039;t dug it out of the earth yet. That&#039;s what I meant to say. Cause you know, wool is great.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So yeah, I liked that one very much because that definitely, that one got out of hand a little bit. What do you have?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; My favorite verse comes from the diss track in chapter seven. It&#039;s chapter seven, verse 43. &amp;quot;O my boy! I wished thee well, and thou didst reward me with evil and hatefulness, and now I would fain tear out thine eyes, and make thee food for dogs, and cut out thy tongue, and take off thy head with the edge of the sword, and recompense thee for thine abominable deeds.&amp;quot; A thing we know about Ahikar is that he doesn&#039;t end a sentence where he should. He just keeps going for a little bit.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah. Oh man. That&#039;s a good one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Weird book. Weird book, dude.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I liked it. I enjoyed reading this very much.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There are parts of it that I like. The whole, like the riddle contest is very frustrating because the costume riddles are bad. And then like everything, you&#039;re right. It should have either built to or ended at, &amp;quot;I have trained these eagle boys.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah. But it does kind of keep going and ends on, it does end on that anticlimax of the &amp;quot;make me a needle and thread out of stone.&amp;quot; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Then he dug some holes in the beach and was like, &amp;quot;Here&#039;s some beach holes.&amp;quot; Like what are you talking about? Again, Ahikar and the person who wrote Ahikar don&#039;t know where to end the story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. But we do because it&#039;s now.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. That&#039;s it. That&#039;s it for this week&#039;s show, everybody. Before we get out of here, Benito, where can everybody find us online?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Well, first of all, if you&#039;d like to get some of the supplementary material, including things like links to the readings, if we do something that&#039;s not contained in any kind of biblical canon, if we read something, a piece of like Jewish pseudepigrapha like this, if you want to find links to that, plus images of things like pictures of Tobit and Tobias chilling with their dog, which I haven&#039;t posted yet, but I will soon, hopefully by the time this goes up. If you want to see that kind of stuff, go to our Tumblr at apocrypals.tumblr.com where you can find all sorts of supplemental materials, including this past week, more information about Belphegor, the seventh prince of hell that we knew the least about, thanks to our friend Tracy Shepard, who posted that on her own very excellent blog that I recommend, [https://arcanebeastsandcritters.wordpress.com/2018/07/31/belphegor/ The Compendium of Arcane Beasts and Critters]. You should check that one out if you like monsters from around the world.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
But also, with a piece of advice, a very good piece of advice from Ahikar, the wise vizier, he said, &amp;quot;O my son! I have eaten a colocynth, and swallowed aloes, and I have found nothing more bitter than poverty and scarcity.&amp;quot; And I agree, that said, please go to ko-fi.com/apocrypals, where you can tip us if you like this show. You can make a donation in multiples of $3, so it could be anywhere from $3 to $3 million. I don&#039;t know, you really want to go wild. But if you want to help support the show, help us pay for things like hosting and for music drops, and help us buy additional books and texts that we use to read weirder and stranger things as the podcast keeps going. You can help us out there. We&#039;ve had a number of very generous donors that we appreciate very much. Probably at some point we should read their names off. Eh, we&#039;ll do that. I&#039;m going to say next week, we&#039;ll do it next week. We will read off the names of all our very generous donors.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, as we know from Paul&#039;s letter to the Romans, it is better to do those acts secretly and not make a show of it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s true, you make an excellent point. You make an excellent point.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you do want us to read your name out, let us know, we will.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, absolutely. And if you want to find me, you can find me on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram. I&#039;m on Twitter and Instagram is Benito_Cereno. I&#039;m on Tumblr @benito-cereno. So you can find me there on those places. What about you, Chris?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You can find links to everything that I do online at the-isb.com, including columns that I write here and there around the web at different places and comic books that you can buy either at your local comic book store or on amazon.com or on Comixology if you get your comics digitally. That&#039;s going to be it. Benito, what are we doing next week?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; So next week, as we mentioned, is a very special week. The next episode will theoretically, barring any kind of natural disaster or whatever, land on Chris&#039;s actual birthday, August 12th. And so, and the fact that my birthday is then approximately a week after that, we&#039;re doing a special birthday episode for the two of us. And so while we have so far managed to basically confine our readings to antiquity, late antiquity, we&#039;re going to be dipping into the middle ages a little bit. We&#039;re finally going to break out the seminal work of the middle ages on the life of the saints, Jacobus de Voragine&#039;s The Golden Legend. We&#039;re not reading the whole thing. It&#039;s very, very long. We will specifically be looking at [[An Approximate Week | the life of St. Christopher for Chris and the life of St. Benedict for me, Benito.]] And so you can find those online. I will definitely post links on the Tumblr if you guys want to follow along and read the life of St. Christopher, the very good werewolf boy, and the life of St. Benedict, who was a monk, which is slightly less interesting, but still going to find plenty of interesting, cool miracles to talk about next week on our very special birthday episode.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s right. So join us for that. Until then, for Benito Cereno, I&#039;ve been Chris Sims. Benito, peace be with you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And also with you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music:  &amp;quot;Where Eagles Dare&amp;quot; by Misfits]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Episode_List&amp;diff=135</id>
		<title>Episode List</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Episode_List&amp;diff=135"/>
		<updated>2025-04-07T18:27:22Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: /* Episodes */&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;In each episode, [[Benito Cereno|Benito]] and [[Chris Sims|Chris]] read, watch or play something from the Bible (or Bible-adjacent) and talk about its history, authors, and contents. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
You can listen to all episodes at the show&#039;s [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com Libsyn page] or by subscribing through [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/apocrypals/id1366302177 Apple Podcasts]. [[Bonus Episodes|Bonus video episodes]] can all be seen on [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvsqJ485UTPgVIP1i-BTgMfSsmk4S7ouE Benito&#039;s YouTube channel].&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Episodes==&lt;br /&gt;
{| class=&amp;quot;wikitable sortable&amp;quot; style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
! Episode !! &amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;Date&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp; !! Title !! Subject !! Source !! Transcript&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/episode-0-ive-been-to-my-share-of-pizza-parties 0] || 2018-03-29 || [[I&#039;ve Been To My Share of Pizza Parties]] || nonspecific || || [[I&#039;ve Been To My Share of Pizza Parties (Transcript) | Yes]] &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/porky-party-the-book-of-acts 1] || 2018-04-08 || [[Porky Party]] || Acts || New Testament || [[Porky Party (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/2-one-weird-trick-the-book-of-daniel-with-apocrypha 2] || 2018-04-14 || [[One Weird Trick]] || Daniel as well as The Prayer of Azariah aka the Song of the Three Holy Children; Susanna; and Bel and the Dragon || Tanakh and Deuterocanon  || [[One Weird Trick (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/3-various-heresies-the-acts-of-peter-and-paul 3] || 2018-04-22 || [[Various Heresies]] || The Acts of Peter and The Acts of Peter and Paul || Apocrypha  || [[Various Heresies (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/4-wittgensteins-monster-the-book-of-isaiah 4] || 2018-05-06 || [[Wittgenstein&#039;s Monster]] || The Book of Isaiah || Tanakh || [[Wittgenstein&#039;s Monster (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/5-on-the-road-to-rome-pauls-letter-to-the-romans 5] || 2018-05-20 || [[On the Road to Rome]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Romans || New Testament || [[On the Road to Rome (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/6-fresh-prince-of-beliar-the-ascension-of-isaiah 6] || 2018-05-27 || [[Fresh Prince of Beliar]] || The Ascension of Isaiah &amp;amp; The Prayer of Manasseh || Pseudepigrapha and Deuterocanon  || [[ Fresh Prince of Beliar (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/7-neon-genesis-good-news-the-gospel-of-mark-and-secret-mark-0 7] || 2018-06-03 || [[Neon Genesis Good News]] || The Gospel of Mark and Secret Mark || New Testament and Apocrypha  || [[Neon Genesis Good News (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/8-whats-up-doctor-goodacre-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-one 8] || 2018-06-10 || [[What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre]] || The Gospel of Matthew, Part One || New Testament  || [[ What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/9-simon-peters-sweet-sixteen-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-two 9] || 2018-06-24 || [[Simon Peter&#039;s Sweet Sixteen]] || The Gospel of Matthew, Part Two || New Testament || [[Simon Peter&#039;s Sweet Sixteen (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/10-the-dude-hates-wizards-the-gospel-of-luke 10] || 2018-07-02 || [[The Dude Hates Wizards]] || The Gospel of Luke || New Testament || [[The Dude Hates Wizards (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/11-90s-vertigo-jesus-the-gospel-of-john-part-one 11] || 2018-07-09 || [[90s Vertigo Jesus]] || The Gospel of John, Part One || New Testament  || [[ 90s Vertigo Jesus (Transcript)| Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/12-whomst-was-at-the-tombst-the-gospel-of-john-part-two 12] || 2018-07-15 || [[Whomst Was At the Tombst?]] || The Gospel of John, Part Two || New Testament || [[ Whomst Was At the Tombst? (Transcript)| Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/11-90s-vertigo-jesus-the-gospel-of-john-part-one 13] || 2018-07-30 || [[Bonus Goat]] || The Deuterocanonical Book of Tobit || Deuterocanon  || [[Bonus Goat (Transcript)|Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/14-the-boy-related-eagle-plan-the-story-of-ahikar 14] || 2018-08-06 || [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan]] || The Story of Ahikar || Pseudepigrapha || [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan (Transcript)|Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/15-an-approximate-week-the-golden-legend-st-christopher-and-st-benedict 15] || 2018-08-13 || [[An Approximate Week]] || The Golden Legend: St. Christopher and St. Benedict || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/16-doamurder-west-virginia-the-book-of-genesis-part-1 16] || 2018-08-19 || [[Doamurder, West Virginia]] || The Book of Genesis, Part 1 || Tanakh || [[Doamurder, West Virginia (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/17-five-gallons-of-bread-the-book-of-genesis-part-two 17] || 2018-08-27 || [[Five Gallons of Bread]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Two || Tanakh  || [[Five Gallons of Bread (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/18-literally-and-figuratively-wrestling-with-god-the-book-of-genesis-part-three-0 18] || 2018-09-09 || [[Literally and Figuratively Wrestling With God]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Three || Tanakh || [[ Literally and Figuratively Wrestling With God (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/19-mbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbam-the-book-of-genesis-part-four 19] || 2018-09-23 || [[MBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBaM]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Four || Tanakh  || [[ MBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBaM (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/20-shalom-birdie-genesis-commentary-with-david-wolkin 20] || 2018-09-30 || [[Shalom Birdie (with David Wolkin)]] || The Book of Genesis || Tanakh  || [[ Shalom Birdie (with David Wolkin) (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/21-biblerella-the-acts-of-paul-and-thecla 21] || 2018-10-07 || [[Biblerella]] || The Acts of Paul and Thecla || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/22-oceans-two-the-book-of-judith 22] || 2018-10-15 || [[Ocean&#039;s Two]] || The Book of Judith || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/23-dunking-on-satan-the-acts-of-pilate-and-the-gospel-of-nicodemus 23] || 2018-10-21 || [[Dunking on Satan]] || The Acts of Pilate and The Gospel of Nicodemus || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/25-butt-stuff-dragon-the-testament-of-solomon 24] || 2018-10-29 || [[Butt Stuff Dragon]] || The Testament of Solomon || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/25-one-rinthies-baby-first-corinthians 25] || 2018-11-14 || [[One Rinthies, Baby]] || First Corinthians || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/26-some-other-christmas-man-the-lives-of-st-nicholas-and-st-lucy 26] || 2018-11-19 || [[Some Other Christmas Man]] || The Lives of St. Nicholas and St. Lucy || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/27-the-book-of-the-dynasty-of-gods-resisters-the-first-book-of-maccabees 27] || 2018-12-02 || [[The Book of the Dynasty of God&#039;s Resisters]] || The First Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/28-second-maccabees-second-furious-the-second-book-of-maccabees 28] || 2018-12-10 || [[Second Maccabees Second Furious]] || The Second Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/29-these-apocryphal-ravings-the-infancy-gospel-of-james 29] || 2018-12-16 || [[These Apocryphal Ravings]] || The Infancy Gospel of James || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/30-apples-and-oranges-the-legend-of-the-three-kings 30] || 2019-01-07 || [[Apples and Oranges]] || The Legend of the Three Kings by John of Hildesheim || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/31-yartzed-upon-a-distant-shore-the-book-of-jonah 31] || 2019-01-24 || [[Yartzed Upon a Distant Shore]] || The Book of Jonah || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/32-return-of-the-twelve-foot-volcel-lion-questions-answers 32] || 2019-02-03 || [[Return of the Twelve-Foot Volcel Lion]] || Questions &amp;amp; Answers || Listener questions  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/33-thicc-darkness-the-book-of-exodus-part-one 33] || 2019-02-10 || [[Thicc Darkness]] || The Book of Exodus, Part One || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/34-thorn-bushes-and-pushups-the-song-of-songs 34] || 2019-02-24 || [[Thorn Bushes and Pushups]] || The Song of Songs || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/35-down-in-the-donkey-hole-the-book-of-exodus-part-two 35] || 2019-03-03 || [[Down in the Donkey Hole]] || The Book of Exodus, Part Two || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/36-grazacham-the-life-of-st-patrick 36] || 2019-03-12 || [[GRAZACHAM!]] || Muirchu’s Life of Saint Patrick || Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/37-bigger-esther-the-book-of-esther-and-greek-esther 37] || 2019-03-20 || [[Bigger Esther]] || The Book of Esther and Greek Esther || Tanakh and Deuterocanon ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/38-sword-drill-online-bible-trivia-special 38] || 2019-03-31 || [[Sword Drill Online]] || Bible Trivia Special || Complete Book of Bible Trivia  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/39-rain-is-boy-water-the-book-of-enoch-part-one 39] || 2019-04-07 || [[Rain is Boy Water]] || The Book of Enoch, Part One || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/40-devil-got-a-hog-the-book-of-enoch-part-two 40] || 2019-04-19 || [[Devil Got a Hog]] || The Book of Enoch, Part Two || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/41-neo-mary-is-about-to-e-x-p-l-o-d-e-the-questions-of-bartholomew 41] || 2019-04-29 || [[Neo-Mary Is About To E X P L O D E]] || Questions of Bartholomew and The Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Bartholomew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/42-the-roasting-of-the-apostle-paul-second-corinthians 42] || 2019-05-06 || [[The Roasting of the Apostle Paul]] || Second Corinthians || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/43-why-prophets-so-nasty-the-book-of-jeremiah 43] || 2019-05-27 || [[Why Prophets So Nasty?]] || The Book of Jeremiah || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/44-terms-and-conditions-the-book-of-jeremiah-part-2 44] || 2019-06-23 || [[Terms and Conditions]] || The Book of Jeremiah, Part 2 || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/45-mummy-dust-and-skeleton-bones-the-book-of-ruth 45] || 2019-07-14 || [[Mummy Dust and Skeleton Bones]] || The Book of Ruth || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/46-ctrl-z-on-a-murder-the-acts-of-john 46] || 2019-08-09 || [[CTRL-Z On A Murder]] || The Acts of John || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/47-approximate-week-ii-the-quickening-the-syriac-infancy-gospel 47] || 2019-08-21 || [[Approximate Week II: The Quickening]] || The Syriac Infancy Gospel || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/48-the-almighty-ambush-bear-the-book-of-lamentations 48] || 2019-08-28 || [[The Almighty Ambush Bear]] || The Book of Lamentations || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/49-wajesus-the-first-second-and-third-epistles-of-john 49] || 2019-09-16 || [[Wajesus]] || The First, Second, and Third Epistles of John || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/50-the-terf-of-babylon-the-revelation-of-john-0 50] || 2019-10-02 || [[The TERF of Babylon]] || The Revelation of John || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/51-jesus-buffy-halloween-chick-tracts 51] || 2019-10-28 || [[Jesus, Buffy]] || Halloween Chick Tracts || Chick Tracts  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/51-apocrypals-chris-and-benito-the-book-of-ecclesiastes 52] || 2019-11-24 || [[Apocrypals Chris And Benito]] || The Book of Ecclesiastes || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/52-maccabees-3-elephant-drift-the-third-book-of-maccabees 53] || 2019-12-08 || [[Maccabees 3: Elephant Drift]] || The Third Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/54-our-favorite-murders-the-infancy-gospel-of-thomas 54] || 2019-12-22 || [[Our Favorite Murders]] || The Infancy Gospel of Thomas || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/55-the-parable-of-the-sexy-blood-baby-the-book-of-ezekiel-part-one 55] || 2020-01-12 || [[The Parable of the Sexy Blood Baby]] || The Book of Ezekiel, Part One || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/56-welcome-to-the-bone-zone-the-book-of-ezekiel-part-two 56] || 2020-01-26 || [[Welcome to the Bone Zone]] || The Book of Ezekiel, Part Two || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/57-we-holy-ghost-bro-the-life-of-xanthippe-polyxena-and-rebecca 57] || 2020-02-08 || [[We Holy Ghost, Bro?]] || The Life of Xanthippe, Polyxena, and Rebecca || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/58-blaise-your-dead-homie-the-lives-of-st-sebastian-st-blaise-and-st-agatha 58] || 2020-02-23 || [[Blaise, Your Dead Homie]] || The Lives of St. Sebastian, St. Blaise, and St. Agatha || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/59-source-of-the-flow-the-book-of-leviticus 59] || 2020-03-08 || [[Source of the Flow]] || The Book of Leviticus || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/59-joses-crust-the-acts-of-andrew-and-matthias 60] || 2020-03-22 || [[Joses Crust]] || The Acts of Andrew and Matthias || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/60-countless-large-gregs-the-second-book-of-enoch 61] || 2020-04-05 || [[Countless Large Gregs]] || The Second Book of Enoch || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/62-oh-the-jews-manatees-the-book-of-numbers 62] || 2020-04-19 || [[Oh, the Jews&#039; Manatees!]] || The Book of Numbers || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/63-wist-not-to-whom-ne-whither-the-lives-of-st-roche-and-st-guinefort 63] || 2020-05-06 || [[Wist Not To Whom Ne Whither]] || The Lives of St. Roche and St. Guinefort || Golden Legend, Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/64-spiritual-warfare-is-good-actually-bible-adventures-and-the-wisdom-tree-catalogue 64] || 2020-05-18 || [[Spiritual Warfare Is Good, Actually]] || Bible Adventures and the Wisdom Tree catalogue || Video Games  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/65-adonai-is-ichiban-the-book-of-deuteronomy 65] || 2020-06-02 || [[Adonai is Ichiban!]] || The Book of Deuteronomy || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/66-jesus-with-two-cool-ses-the-acts-of-thomas-and-his-wonderworking-skin 66] || 2020-06-14 || [[JeSuS With Two Cool Ses]] || The Acts of Thomas and his Wonderworking Skin || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/67-bad-things-to-call-your-mother-the-book-of-bartholomew 67] || 2020-06-28 || [[Bad Things to Call Your Mother]] || The Book of Bartholomew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/68-scent-of-a-jesus-the-first-second-and-third-apocryphal-apocalypses-of-john 68] || 2020-07-12 || [[Scent of a Jesus]] || The First, Second, and Third Apocryphal Apocalypses of John || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/69-thirst-corinthians-the-lives-of-st-mary-of-egypt-and-st-pelagia 69] || 2020-07-26 || [[Thirst Corinthians]] || The Lives of St. Mary of Egypt and St. Pelagia || Separate books  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xHQHK_SLX8 69 Secret] || 2020-08-28 || [[Secret 69]] || The Greater Questions of Mary || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/70-two-firkin-bored-the-letter-of-aristeas-0 70] || 2020-08-09 || [[Two Firkin Bored]] || The Letter of Aristeas || Pseudepigrapha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/71-approximate-week-chapter-3-parabellum-the-war-scroll 71] || 2020-08-23 || [[Approximate Week Chapter 3: Parabellum]] || The War Scroll || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/72-cold-brew-paul-pauls-letter-to-the-galatians 72] || 2020-09-06 || [[Cold Brew Paul]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Galatians || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/73-be-courageous-the-book-of-joshua 73] || 2020-09-20 || [[Be Courageous!]] || The Book of Joshua || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/74-howl-of-the-ostrich-the-books-of-micah-and-nahum 74] || 2020-10-04 || [[Howl of the Ostrich]] || The Books of Micah and Nahum || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/75-lazer-babies-the-apocalypse-of-peter 75] || 2020-10-18 || [[Lazer Babies]] || The Apocalypse of Peter || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/76-filling-the-room-the-life-of-st-martin 76] || 2020-11-01 || [[Filling the Room]] || The Life of St. Martin || Separate books  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/77-the-blessed-voltrons-the-lives-of-st-catherine-and-st-barbara 77] || 2020-11-15 || [[The Blessed Voltrons]] || The Lives of St. Catherine and St. Barbara || Golden Legend ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/78-maccabees-the-fourth-book-of-maccabees 78] || 2020-11-29 || [[MACCABEES]] || the Fourth Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/79-marys-christmas-the-infancy-gospel-of-pseudo-matthew 79] || 2020-12-13 || [[Marys Christmas]] || The Infancy Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/bonus-bill-bless-us-every-ted-christmas-gift-exchange-2020 79 Bonus] || 2020-12-22 || [[Bill Bless Us, Every Ted]] || Christmas Gift Exchange 2020 || The Joy of Friendship  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/80-the-deadliest-skambush-of-them-all-the-book-of-judges 80] || 2021-01-10 || [[The Deadliest Skambush of Them All]] || The Book of Judges || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/81-sometimes-its-just-sucky-pauls-letter-to-the-ephesians 81] || 2021-01-24 || [[Sometimes It&#039;s Just Sucky]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Ephesians || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/82-sedeqetelebab-the-book-of-jubilees 82] || 2021-02-07 || [[Sedeqetelebab!]] || The Book of Jubilees Pt 1 || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/83-speedrun-tactics-the-book-of-jubilees-part-2 83] || 2021-02-21 || [[Speedrun Tactics]] || The Book of Jubilees Pt 2 || Pseudepigrapha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/84-just-one-more-thing-the-life-of-st-columba 84] || 2021-03-07 || [[Just One More Thing]] || The Life of St. Columba || Hagiography  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/85-old-clootie-the-life-of-st-dunstan 85] || 2021-03-21 || [[Old Clootie]] || The Life of St. Dunstan || Golden Legend ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/87-god-junior-the-third-book-of-enoch-part-1 86] || 2021-04-04 || [[God Junior]] || The Third Book of Enoch (Part 1) || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/87-crisis-on-18000-earths-the-third-book-of-enoch-part-2 87] || 2021-04-18 || [[Crisis On 18,000 Earths]] || The Third Book of Enoch (Part 2) || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/88-a-miserable-pile-of-secrets-the-da-vinci-code-commentary 88] || 2021-05-09 || [[A Miserable Pile of Secrets]] || The Da Vinci Code, the film || Fiction  || [[A Miserable Pile of Secrets (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/89-2000-bc-the-first-book-of-samuel 89] || 2021-05-23 || [[2000 B.C.]] || The First Book of Samuel || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/90-worfin-the-lions-the-second-book-of-samuel-part-1 90] || 2021-06-06 || [[Worfin’ the Lions]] || The Second Book of Samuel (Part 1) || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt4B2OXgHN4 90.1] || 2021-06-20 || [[Double Chai: Rock Me, Asmodeus]] || Solomon and the Devil || Talmudic Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/90-the-me-in-this-story-is-you-the-second-book-of-samuel-part-2 91] || 2021-06-27 || [[The Me In This Story Is You]] || The Second Book of Samuel (Part 2) || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/92-slayer-of-men-conqueror-of-space-the-gospel-of-philip-the-gospel-of-mary-and-the-gospel-of-jesuss-wife-0 92] || 2021-07-11 || [[Slayer of Men, Conqueror of Space]] || The Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Mary, and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife || Apocrypha (Gnostic)  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HKZ-U4W7Ew 92 Bonus] || 2021-08-04 || [[Cephalo4: Protect Yr Neck]] || Cephalophores || Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/93-approximate-week-iv-oblivion-joseph-and-aseneth 93] || 2021-08-15 || [[Approximate Week IV: OblIVion]] || Joseph and Aseneth || Apocrypha (Tanakh)  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/94-little-martha-and-the-small-vandellas-the-lives-of-st-mary-magdalene-and-st-wilgefortis 94] || 2021-09-26 || [[Little Martha and the Small Vandellas]] || The Lives of St. Mary Magdalene and St. Wilgefortis || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/95-an-abyss-of-significant-depth-the-apocalypse-of-paul 95] || 2021-10-10 || [[An Abyss of Significant Depth]] || The Apocalypse of Paul || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/96-the-goku-of-judaism-stories-of-the-baal-shem-tov 96] || 2021-10-24 || [[The Goku of Judaism]] || Stories of the Baal Shem Tov || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbw3BxiTfKU Bonus] || 2021-11-16 || [[Guess the Persona-fied Bible Character]] || Persona 5 || Video Games ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/97-pretty-sus-lesbius-the-acts-of-andrew 97] || 2021-12-02 || [[Pretty Sus, Lesbius]] || The Acts of Andrew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/98-you-know-the-manger-christmas-chick-tracts 98] || 2021-12-23 || [[You Know, the Manger?]] || Christmas Chick Tracts || Chick Tracts  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/99-for-sale-baby-legs-not-attached-the-first-book-of-kings 99] || 2022-01-30 || [[For Sale, Baby Legs, Not Attached]] || The First Book of Kings || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/100-escape-from-flesh-island-the-gospel-of-judas 100] || 2022-03-05 || [[Escape From Flesh Island]] || The Gospel of Judas || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/101-the-apocrypals-solve-theodicy-the-book-of-job 101] || 2022-04-21 || [[The Apocrypals Solve Theodicy]] || The Book of Job || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/102-napalm-toots-the-lives-of-st-mary-of-bethany-and-st-margaret-of-antioch 102] || 2022-06-12 || [[Napalm Toots]] || The Lives of The Lives of St. Martha of Bethany and St. Margaret of Antioch || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/103-sucky-james-the-history-of-joseph-the-carpenter 103] || 2022-07-03 || [[Sucky James]] || The History of Joseph the Carpenter || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/104-previously-on-bible-the-epistle-to-the-hebrews 104] || 2022-08-01 || [[Previously, on Bible]] || The Epistle to the Hebrews || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/103-approximate-week-v-ravager 105] || 2022-08-12 || [[Approximate Week V: RaVager]] || El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron || Video Games  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/104-a-serious-goku-move-the-second-book-of-kings 106] || 2022-10-30 || [[A Serious Goku Move]] || The Second Book of Kings || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/107-hellmensch-stories-of-the-baal-shem-tov-vol-2 107] || 2022-11-13 || [[Hellmensch]] || Stories of the Baal Shem Tov || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin  || [[Hellmensch (Transcript) | Yes ]] &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/108-skip-this-one-the-book-of-hosea 108] || 2022-11-27 || [[Skip This One]] || The Book of Hosea || Tanakh  || [[  Skip This One (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/109-chris-and-benitos-bible-bonkers-the-didache 109] || 2023-10-11 || [[Chris and Benito&#039;s Bible Bonkers]] || The Didache || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/110-the-beastie-boys-worst-nightmare-the-lock-in-2014 110] || 2023-10-30 || [[The Beastie Boys&#039; Worst Nightmare (The Lock-In (2014))]] || The Lock-In (2014) || Fiction ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/111-all-skips-no-hits-1-chronicles 111] || 2024-08-09 || [[All Skips No Hits]] || 1 Chronicles || Tanakh || [[All Skips No Hits (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/112-approximate-week-vi-the-undiscovered-country 112] || 2024-08-17 || [[Approximate Week VI: The Undiscovered Country]] || Illuminator || Comics ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/113-jaoel-instant-messenger-the-apocalypse-of-abraham 113] || 2024-09-05 || [[Jaoel Instant Messenger]] || The Apocalypse of Abraham || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/114-sin-onyms-the-devils-argument-the-martyrdom-of-perpetua-and-felicity 114] || 2024-10-03 || [[Sin-onyms, The Devil&#039;s Argument]] || The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/115-hell-is-the-big-show-the-life-of-st-christina-the-astonishing 115] || 2024-10-27 || [[Hell Is The Big Show]] || The Life of St. Christina the Astonishing || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/116-its-his-birthday-be-nice-the-revelation-of-the-magi 116] || 2024-12-22 || [[It&#039;s His BIRTHDAY, Be Nice!]] || The Revelation of the Magi || Pseudepigrapha || &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/117-king-solomons-hog-the-second-book-of-chronicles-feat-aaron-higashi 117] || 2024-02-17 || [[King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi]] || 2 Chronicles || Tanakh || [[King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|}&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Sub-series==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
{| class=&amp;quot;wikitable sortable&amp;quot; style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
! Podcast !! Episode !! &amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;Date&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp; !! Title !! Transcript !! Wolverine Costume&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-01-dr-dan-mcclellan 1] || 2023-04-20 || [[Multipals 01: Dr. Dan McClellan]] || [[Multipals 01: Dr. Dan McClellan (transcript) | Yes]] || Brown and Tan&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-02-aaron-higashi 1] || 2023-06-23 || [[Multipals 02: Aaron Higashi]] || [[Multipals 02: Aaron Higashi (transcript) | Yes]] || Kimono&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-03-anne-thriault 3] || 2023-04-20 || [[Multipals 03: Anne Thériault]] || [[Multipals 03: Anne Thériault (transcript) | Yes]] || Hugh Jackman as the Music Man&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-04-tony-burke-and-janet-spittler 4] || 2023-08-20 || [[Multipals 04: Tony Burke &amp;amp;amp; Janet Spittler]] || [[Multipals 04: Tony Burke &amp;amp;amp; Janet Spittler (transcript) | Yes]] || Brown and Tan / Yellow Guy From Cartoon&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-05-dr-alexiana-fry 5] || 2023-12-13 || [[Multipals 05: Dr. Alexiana Fry]] || [[Multipals 05: Dr. Alexiana Fry (transcript) | Yes]] || Logan (2017) Suit&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-06-dr-justin-sledge 6] || 2023-12-13 || [[Multipals 06: Dr. Justin Sledge]] || [[Multipals 06: Dr. Justin Sledge (transcript) | Yes]] || &#039;90s Yellow&lt;br /&gt;
|}&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=The_Boy-Related_Eagle_Plan&amp;diff=456</id>
		<title>The Boy-Related Eagle Plan</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=The_Boy-Related_Eagle_Plan&amp;diff=456"/>
		<updated>2025-04-07T17:55:27Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/6891320/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
Get out of the cistern and cut your nails, Theophiloi, because it&#039;s time for a brand new episode! Join us as we take on the extremely apocryphal book of Ahikar, Tobit&#039;s maybe nephew. This leads us to the biggest fight we&#039;ve ever had on the show, which is about whether the Pharaoh&#039;s riddle contest is actually a riddle contest or not (it&#039;s not, but the eagle boys are pretty dope).&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion: A debate over the premise of the show that sends Chris&#039;s voice spiraling up about six octaves, Tu B&#039;av, the Jewish calendar, a bit of self-promotion unrelated to Bible, Aesop who isn&#039;t real either, Deuterocanon and pseudepigrapha, the first of what we assume will be many mentions of Grand Admiral Thrawn, a number that constitutes &amp;quot;a lot of wives,&amp;quot; all the numbers in the Bible, a pretty vindictive answer to a prayer, Ahikar&#039;s dubious teaching methods, drubbing, some low-hanging fruit, God vs. April, a truly bonkers level of animal cruelty, and Chris getting lightheaded from laughing at his own joke. It&#039;s a good one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you enjoy the show, you can support us at: ko-fi.com/apocrypals&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Listener Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
The version that was hosted on [https://earlyjewishwritings.com/ Early Jewish Writings] has gone missing, but is [https://apocrypals.wiki/resources/assets/Ahikar.html archived here] with some minor corrections.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ON8zNL3e7c Where Eagles Dare] by Misfits&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Favorite Verses==&lt;br /&gt;
Benito:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;O my child! the thigh of a frog in thy hand is better than a goose in the pot of thy neighbour; and a sheep near thee is better than an ox far away; and a sparrow in thy hand is better than a thousand sparrows flying; and poverty which gathers is better than the scattering of much provision; and a living fox is better than a dead lion; and a pound of wool is better than a pound of wealth, I mean of gold and silver; for the gold and the silver are hidden and covered up in the earth, and are not seen; but the wool stays in the markets and it is seen, and it is a beauty to him who wears it.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Story of Ahikar 2:49&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Chris: &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;O my boy! I wished thee well, and thou didst reward me with evil and hatefulness, and now I would fain tear out thine eyes, and make thee food for dogs, and cut out thy tongue, and take off thy head with the edge of the sword, and recompense thee for thine abominable deeds.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; The Story of Ahikar 7:43&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Pseudepigrapha]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=King_Solomon%27s_Hog_feat._Aaron_Higashi&amp;diff=1047</id>
		<title>King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=King_Solomon%27s_Hog_feat._Aaron_Higashi&amp;diff=1047"/>
		<updated>2025-03-08T23:21:56Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: /* Show Notes */&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/35322080/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Yes, Theophiloi, that quote at the top of the show is actually in Bible. Like, full canon Bible that you can find in the back of the pew or the hotel room drawer. I was surprised too, but you know who wasn&#039;t? Our special guest [[Friends of the Show#Aaron_Higashi | Aaron Higashi]], who returns to the show from his Multipals appearance to help us through the seemingly endless slog that is 2 Chronicles! Will he be able to rescue us from the most boring book in the whole canon by revealing that it&#039;s actually secretly really interesting? Aaron thinks so, and if anyone can convince you, it&#039;s him!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of Discussion: The Alliance To End Dan McClellan, the statistics of death by cow, John Wick: Ad Bestias, the impact of the Babylonian exile on the development of the Torah, Solomonsplaining, the common currency/new ages of comics, a whole lot of Hog Talk, Rob Liefeld&#039;s The Covenant, Azazel (NOT Nightcrawler&#039;s dad), Zera the Cushite&#039;s alleged army, avoidance of seeking the Baals, incurable nasty butt disesase, the hands-on God of P, the Neko King, Chris just fully giving up, an eight year-old with Biblically bad vibes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Hymnal: An instrumental track whose name escapes me for some reason, &amp;quot;Take a Chance On Me&amp;quot; by Stephen Mann of English Martyrs Church.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
This episode of Apocrypals was edited by Chris.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Offertory: As Enoch writes, &amp;quot;Whoever of you spends gold or silver for his brother&#039;s sake, he will receive ample treasure in the world to come.&amp;quot; Support the show via http://ko-fi.com/apocrypals, or check out Official Apocrypals merchandise designed by Erica Henderson! https://www.teepublic.com/stores/apocrypals?ref_id=18246 &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Black Lives Matter. Trans Lives Matter. Heck 12. Isaiah 54:17&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Opening Verse==&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;Then the young men who had grown up with him told him, “This is what you should say to the people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you, make it lighter on us!’ This is what you should say to them: ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins. &amp;amp;mdash; 2 Chronicles 10:10&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Choice Quotes==&lt;br /&gt;
Chris:&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;When the Queen of Sheba shows up, it says that &amp;quot;she came to Solomon and spoke with him about everything that was on her mind. So Solomon answered all her questions. Nothing was too difficult for Solomon to explain to her.&amp;quot; So it&#039;s nice that we have the invention of Solomon-splaining.&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
(Help fill this in by checking out the [[King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi (Transcript)|transcript]].)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxcXrTN9TRY My Raps (feat. Mic Mountain)] by CrDnlSn&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqffs_FWxtc Take a Chance On Me] by Stephen Mann of English Martyrs Church&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Tanakh]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=The_Boy-Related_Eagle_Plan&amp;diff=455</id>
		<title>The Boy-Related Eagle Plan</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=The_Boy-Related_Eagle_Plan&amp;diff=455"/>
		<updated>2025-03-08T22:48:44Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/6891320/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
Get out of the cistern and cut your nails, Theophiloi, because it&#039;s time for a brand new episode! Join us as we take on the extremely apocryphal book of Ahikar, Tobit&#039;s maybe nephew. This leads us to the biggest fight we&#039;ve ever had on the show, which is about whether the Pharaoh&#039;s riddle contest is actually a riddle contest or not (it&#039;s not, but the eagle boys are pretty dope).&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion: A debate over the premise of the show that sends Chris&#039;s voice spiraling up about six octaves, Tu B&#039;av, the Jewish calendar, a bit of self-promotion unrelated to Bible, Aesop who isn&#039;t real either, Deuterocanon and pseudepigrapha, the first of what we assume will be many mentions of Grand Admiral Thrawn, a number that constitutes &amp;quot;a lot of wives,&amp;quot; all the numbers in the Bible, a pretty vindictive answer to a prayer, Ahikar&#039;s dubious teaching methods, drubbing, some low-hanging fruit, God vs. April, a truly bonkers level of animal cruelty, and Chris getting lightheaded from laughing at his own joke. It&#039;s a good one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you enjoy the show, you can support us at: ko-fi.com/apocrypals&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Listener Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
The version that was hosted on [https://earlyjewishwritings.com/ Early Jewish Writings] has gone missing, but is [https://apocrypals.wiki/resources/assets/Ahikar.html archived here] with some minor corrections.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ON8zNL3e7c Where Eagles Dare] by Misfits&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Pseudepigrapha]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=The_Boy-Related_Eagle_Plan&amp;diff=454</id>
		<title>The Boy-Related Eagle Plan</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=The_Boy-Related_Eagle_Plan&amp;diff=454"/>
		<updated>2025-03-08T22:43:14Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/6891320/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
Get out of the cistern and cut your nails, Theophiloi, because it&#039;s time for a brand new episode! Join us as we take on the extremely apocryphal book of Ahikar, Tobit&#039;s maybe nephew. This leads us to the biggest fight we&#039;ve ever had on the show, which is about whether the Pharaoh&#039;s riddle contest is actually a riddle contest or not (it&#039;s not, but the eagle boys are pretty dope).&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion: A debate over the premise of the show that sends Chris&#039;s voice spiraling up about six octaves, Tu B&#039;av, the Jewish calendar, a bit of self-promotion unrelated to Bible, Aesop who isn&#039;t real either, Deuterocanon and pseudepigrapha, the first of what we assume will be many mentions of Grand Admiral Thrawn, a number that constitutes &amp;quot;a lot of wives,&amp;quot; all the numbers in the Bible, a pretty vindictive answer to a prayer, Ahikar&#039;s dubious teaching methods, drubbing, some low-hanging fruit, God vs. April, a truly bonkers level of animal cruelty, and Chris getting lightheaded from laughing at his own joke. It&#039;s a good one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you enjoy the show, you can support us at: ko-fi.com/apocrypals&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Listener Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
The version that was hosted on [https://earlyjewishwritings.com/ Early Jewish Writings] has gone missing, but is [https://apocrypals.wiki/resources/assets/Ahikar.html archived here] with some minor corrections.&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ON8zNL3e7c Where Eagles Dare] by Misfits&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Pseudepigrapha]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=The_Boy-Related_Eagle_Plan&amp;diff=453</id>
		<title>The Boy-Related Eagle Plan</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=The_Boy-Related_Eagle_Plan&amp;diff=453"/>
		<updated>2025-03-08T22:41:03Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/6891320/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
Get out of the cistern and cut your nails, Theophiloi, because it&#039;s time for a brand new episode! Join us as we take on the extremely apocryphal book of Ahikar, Tobit&#039;s maybe nephew. This leads us to the biggest fight we&#039;ve ever had on the show, which is about whether the Pharaoh&#039;s riddle contest is actually a riddle contest or not (it&#039;s not, but the eagle boys are pretty dope).&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion: A debate over the premise of the show that sends Chris&#039;s voice spiraling up about six octaves, Tu B&#039;av, the Jewish calendar, a bit of self-promotion unrelated to Bible, Aesop who isn&#039;t real either, Deuterocanon and pseudepigrapha, the first of what we assume will be many mentions of Grand Admiral Thrawn, a number that constitutes &amp;quot;a lot of wives,&amp;quot; all the numbers in the Bible, a pretty vindictive answer to a prayer, Ahikar&#039;s dubious teaching methods, drubbing, some low-hanging fruit, God vs. April, a truly bonkers level of animal cruelty, and Chris getting lightheaded from laughing at his own joke. It&#039;s a good one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you enjoy the show, you can support us at: ko-fi.com/apocrypals&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Listener Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
The version that was hosted on [https://earlyjewishwritings.com/ Early Jewish Writings] has gone missing, but is [https://apocrypals.wiki/resources/assets/Akihar.html archived here] with some minor corrections.&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ON8zNL3e7c Where Eagles Dare] by Misfits&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Pseudepigrapha]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=The_Boy-Related_Eagle_Plan&amp;diff=452</id>
		<title>The Boy-Related Eagle Plan</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=The_Boy-Related_Eagle_Plan&amp;diff=452"/>
		<updated>2025-03-08T16:39:43Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/6891320/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
Get out of the cistern and cut your nails, Theophiloi, because it&#039;s time for a brand new episode! Join us as we take on the extremely apocryphal book of Ahikar, Tobit&#039;s maybe nephew. This leads us to the biggest fight we&#039;ve ever had on the show, which is about whether the Pharaoh&#039;s riddle contest is actually a riddle contest or not (it&#039;s not, but the eagle boys are pretty dope).&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion: A debate over the premise of the show that sends Chris&#039;s voice spiraling up about six octaves, Tu B&#039;av, the Jewish calendar, a bit of self-promotion unrelated to Bible, Aesop who isn&#039;t real either, Deuterocanon and pseudepigrapha, the first of what we assume will be many mentions of Grand Admiral Thrawn, a number that constitutes &amp;quot;a lot of wives,&amp;quot; all the numbers in the Bible, a pretty vindictive answer to a prayer, Ahikar&#039;s dubious teaching methods, drubbing, some low-hanging fruit, God vs. April, a truly bonkers level of animal cruelty, and Chris getting lightheaded from laughing at his own joke. It&#039;s a good one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you enjoy the show, you can support us at: ko-fi.com/apocrypals&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ON8zNL3e7c Where Eagles Dare] by Misfits&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Pseudepigrapha]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Bonus_Goat&amp;diff=448</id>
		<title>Bonus Goat</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Bonus_Goat&amp;diff=448"/>
		<updated>2025-03-08T16:35:50Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: /* Choice Quotes */&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/6863846/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
We are back, Theophiloi! After a bona fide Act of God, we&#039;ve returned to read the capital-A Apocryphal Book of Tobit, and it is a wild one. Join us for the most canonical of the non-canonical books, in which we find out exactly why you shouldn&#039;t go to sleep under a wall, what fish parts you need if you do, and meet an ironically prudish demon and an angel who&#039;s cool but rude. Plus: What happens if we find a brand new book of the Bible, autographed by God?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion include: Janelle Monae, Tisha B&#039;Av, the debatable sacrament of Cheddar Bay Biscuits, &amp;quot;The Sons of Thunder,&amp;quot; the Dead Sea Scrolls, Antigone, the second ominous black sarcophagus, the lowercase grateful dead, Monster In The Bridal Chamber as a genre, Jack of the Tales and the sack that he used to capture Death, rough times in Ninevah, Asmodeus, Watership Down (or maybe Redwall?), the Seven Princes of Hell, Solomon and his demon bros, the Malleus Maleficarum aka the Witch Hammer (please note we only endorse the title, not the content), the Lantern of Light, the actual true amount of money for which Julius Caesar was ransomed because I know things sometimes too, Angel Disguises, a continuity patch for the book of Daniel, St. Raphael, Dubuque, Iowa, why angels are also saints, Tobias the Eighth, Tiffany and Chad, the first of many rules about angels, Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Special thanks to Cathy Leamy for telling us about &amp;quot;Sons of Thunder!&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you like the show, why not head to ko-fi.com/apocrypals to pitch in a few bucks? You don&#039;t have to tithe 10% of your income to us, but, I mean, we also wouldn&#039;t turn that down.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Opening Verse==&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Then Tobit answered his son Tobias, ‘He gave me his bond and I gave him my bond. I divided his in two; we each took one part, and I put one with the money. And now twenty years have passed since I left this money in trust. So now, my son, find yourself a trustworthy man to go with you, and we will pay him wages until you return. But get back the money from Gabael.&amp;quot;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;mdash; Tobit 5:3&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X_2IdybTV0 Carry On Wayward Son] by Kansas&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Favorite Verses==&lt;br /&gt;
Benito:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Do not keep over until the next day the wages of those who work for you, but pay them at once. If you serve God you will receive payment.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; Tobit 4:14&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Chris: &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;For almsgiving delivers from death and keeps you from going into the Darkness. Indeed, almsgiving, for all who practise it, is an excellent offering in the presence of the Most High.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; Tobit 4:10-11&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;For he afflicts, and he shows mercy; he leads down to Hades in the lowest regions of the earth, and he brings up from the great abyss, and there is nothing that can escape his hand.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; Tobit 13:2&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Choice Quotes==&lt;br /&gt;
(Help fill this in by checking out the [[Bonus Goat (Transcript) | transcript]].)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Deuterocanon]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Bonus_Goat&amp;diff=447</id>
		<title>Bonus Goat</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Bonus_Goat&amp;diff=447"/>
		<updated>2025-03-08T16:35:37Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/6863846/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
We are back, Theophiloi! After a bona fide Act of God, we&#039;ve returned to read the capital-A Apocryphal Book of Tobit, and it is a wild one. Join us for the most canonical of the non-canonical books, in which we find out exactly why you shouldn&#039;t go to sleep under a wall, what fish parts you need if you do, and meet an ironically prudish demon and an angel who&#039;s cool but rude. Plus: What happens if we find a brand new book of the Bible, autographed by God?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion include: Janelle Monae, Tisha B&#039;Av, the debatable sacrament of Cheddar Bay Biscuits, &amp;quot;The Sons of Thunder,&amp;quot; the Dead Sea Scrolls, Antigone, the second ominous black sarcophagus, the lowercase grateful dead, Monster In The Bridal Chamber as a genre, Jack of the Tales and the sack that he used to capture Death, rough times in Ninevah, Asmodeus, Watership Down (or maybe Redwall?), the Seven Princes of Hell, Solomon and his demon bros, the Malleus Maleficarum aka the Witch Hammer (please note we only endorse the title, not the content), the Lantern of Light, the actual true amount of money for which Julius Caesar was ransomed because I know things sometimes too, Angel Disguises, a continuity patch for the book of Daniel, St. Raphael, Dubuque, Iowa, why angels are also saints, Tobias the Eighth, Tiffany and Chad, the first of many rules about angels, Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Special thanks to Cathy Leamy for telling us about &amp;quot;Sons of Thunder!&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you like the show, why not head to ko-fi.com/apocrypals to pitch in a few bucks? You don&#039;t have to tithe 10% of your income to us, but, I mean, we also wouldn&#039;t turn that down.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Opening Verse==&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Then Tobit answered his son Tobias, ‘He gave me his bond and I gave him my bond. I divided his in two; we each took one part, and I put one with the money. And now twenty years have passed since I left this money in trust. So now, my son, find yourself a trustworthy man to go with you, and we will pay him wages until you return. But get back the money from Gabael.&amp;quot;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;mdash; Tobit 5:3&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X_2IdybTV0 Carry On Wayward Son] by Kansas&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Favorite Verses==&lt;br /&gt;
Benito:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Do not keep over until the next day the wages of those who work for you, but pay them at once. If you serve God you will receive payment.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; Tobit 4:14&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Chris: &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;For almsgiving delivers from death and keeps you from going into the Darkness. Indeed, almsgiving, for all who practise it, is an excellent offering in the presence of the Most High.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; Tobit 4:10-11&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;For he afflicts, and he shows mercy; he leads down to Hades in the lowest regions of the earth, and he brings up from the great abyss, and there is nothing that can escape his hand.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; Tobit 13:2&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Choice Quotes==&lt;br /&gt;
(Help fill this in by checking out the [[Bonus Goat(Transcript) | transcript]].)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Deuterocanon]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Bonus_Goat_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1054</id>
		<title>Bonus Goat (Transcript)</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Bonus_Goat_(Transcript)&amp;diff=1054"/>
		<updated>2025-03-08T16:34:48Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: Created page with &amp;quot;(Back to  episode page.)  &amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039;Chris Sims:&amp;#039;&amp;#039;&amp;#039; &amp;quot;Then Tobit answered his son Tobias, ‘He gave me his bond and I gave him my bond. I divided his in two; we each took one part, and I put one with the money. And now twenty years have passed since I left this money in trust. So now, my son, find yourself a trustworthy man to go with you, and we will pay him wages until you return. But get back the money from Gabael.&amp;quot; The Book of Tobit, chapter 5, verse 3.  [Mus...&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;(Back to [[Bonus Goat | episode page]].)&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;Chris Sims:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Then Tobit answered his son Tobias, ‘He gave me his bond and I gave him my bond. I divided his in two; we each took one part, and I put one with the money. And now twenty years have passed since I left this money in trust. So now, my son, find yourself a trustworthy man to go with you, and we will pay him wages until you return. But get back the money from Gabael.&amp;quot; The Book of Tobit, chapter 5, verse 3.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music: &amp;quot;Carry On Wayward Son&amp;quot; by Kansas]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hello, everybody, and welcome to Apocrypals. It&#039;s the podcast where two non-believers sit down to read the Bible, but we try not to be jerks about it. We are your heavenly hosts. My name is Chris Sims, and with me as always is Benito Cereno. Benito, how are you today?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;Benito Cereno:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;m great. I&#039;m great. I&#039;m pumped, now, thanks to that top of the show music. I got the music in me.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; About that, about that music. We had a really hard time figuring out what music to use for Tobit. And then it, like a thunderbolt from the heavens, I realized it was right in front of us all along.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s very good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s right, everybody. Today we are reading the apocryphal book of Tobit. This is capital A, Apocrypha, correct?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Absolutely, yep.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And you can find that in the NRSV version of the Bible, where it is included, which is on Bible Gateway.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Some of you guys might have noticed, we missed a week. That one, well, it&#039;s kind of on me, kind of on the one who controls things like weather. I&#039;m not pointing any particular fingers, but whoever it is that controls the weather.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Someone who could maybe speak and calm the storm.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. That person or spirit or presence, whatever, decided to send a very large multi-state encompassing storm this past weekend that knocked out my power for a couple of days. And so we were not able to record. Someone was not looking forward to us talking about Tobit, I guess, which is weird because Tobit is a very fine book. I think we&#039;re going to have positive things to say about it. I don&#039;t know. But here we are. We&#039;re back. Thank you for your patience. Thanks for waiting on us. How about you, Chris? What have you been up to?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do you feel like maybe we should stop doing this show?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, like when a storm hits my house and not just my house, but leaves 70,000 people in my city without power for like three days. Yeah, it does seem like a sign.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; When we&#039;re planning on doing this show where we talk about the Bible and then a storm that stretches from Lexington, Kentucky to Minneapolis, Minnesota knocks your power out. I don&#039;t believe in signs.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But if I did, that would be a sign, my man.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it really, yeah, I had to send Chris the weather map to show him how huge the storm system was. Because yeah, we were right at the bottom of it. But if you just zoomed out on the map, you can see, oh, Ohio too. Oh, and Indiana. Oh, also Wisconsin. Oh, that goes all the way up into Minnesota and most of the way to Canada, is a very large, it&#039;s a very large storm. And the way that they color how serious the storm is, like where it&#039;s like a red or orangish red where the storm is worse, then yellow, then you got green outside that. It looked like the scariest avocado was just sitting over the Midwest and South. Like it was very bad.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, because it&#039;s been a couple weeks since we&#039;ve recorded, I had an eventful time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I had a very eventful couple days.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I need to hear about this.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, first of all, I had an interesting experience. Do you remember in the Gospel of John?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;ve heard of it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; When the Romans come to get Jesus and they ask him if he&#039;s Jesus and he says, I am, and the force of those two words like knocks everybody over.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I do remember that. It&#039;s a very memorable passage.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I understand that completely now because I saw Janelle Monáe in concert and it was a very similar experience.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I can see that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; She is incredible, first of all. If you have the chance to go see Janelle Monáe live and you don&#039;t, you hecked up, big time. But she put on an amazing show to the point where she left the stage, everyone left the stage, and Aiden my wife turned to me and said, &amp;quot;What is she going to do for an encore after that?&amp;quot; The answer was that she was going to come out and tell us that the devil was real and that we were gonna all join together and take back America from him so give me a heck yeah on that one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Heck yeah. Wow.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Janelle Monáe rules–&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I wasn&#039;t expecting that. You really caught me with that encore anecdote&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The tone of your voice sounds a little bit sarcastic.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not at all, I&#039;m being completely sincerely astonished,&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, heed the words of Janelle Monáe: the devil is out there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Even though he&#039;s the size of a kitty cat.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But nevertheless...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Watch your back.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; He roams the earth like a lion seeking whom he may devour. By missing last week we missed a Jewish holiday. Last weekend was Tisha B&#039;Av, which means the ninth of Av, so it&#039;s kind of Cinco de Mayo in that way. Av is just a month on the Jewish calendar. But it&#039;s not a happy one. It&#039;s not one where you say Chag Sameach to somebody because it&#039;s a sad one. In fact, it&#039;s considered the saddest day in the Jewish calendar, saddest day of the year, because it commemorates what they call five catastrophes, five calamities, the two major ones being the destruction of the first temple by the Babylonians And then also the destruction of the second temple by the Romans, which according to Talmud happened on the same day, which huge if true. Like anniversary. You know what I mean? Like hundreds of years apart. Like if it were literally both of those things happened on the 9th of Av, that&#039;s wild.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; A real Shakespeare&#039;s birthday situation there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I mean the other calamities are not as big. It&#039;s like the spies that Moses sent into the promised land coming back with a bad report, a couple of revolts that got knocked down. Really, it&#039;s the temples getting destroyed are the big one. So like, it&#039;s a day where you&#039;re not supposed to do anything cool or fun. Like it&#039;s a fast day, first of all, but you&#039;re not even supposed to– you&#039;re not supposed to wear leather shoes because that might be too comfortable. And there&#039;s not a thing you say to each other. Like even on like Yom Kippur, which is another sad holiday. And by the way, like what does it say about us as a world that Judaism as a culture has to have multiple sad holidays? What does it say? What have we done? What have we done to these people is terrible.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But even on Yom Kippur, you can at least say, hey, have an easy fast. But this one, you don&#039;t say anything because you&#039;re not even supposed to say hello to other people on Tisha B&#039;Av. You&#039;re not supposed to greet anybody. You&#039;re not supposed to read the Torah because that might be too fun or cool. So you&#039;re only allowed to read sad books of the Bible like Lamentations or Job. And yeah, obviously you don&#039;t eat. You may not have marital or presumably extramarital relations. Not allowed. No application of creams or oils, so dry cracking skin has to carry on. But anyway it&#039;s considered to be a day on which on which terrible things happen and considering that this year it landed right in the middle of San Diego Comic-Con, I would say that tracks.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But yeah, like sad holidays man I was trying to like, does Christianity have sad holidays? I guess, I mean Lent.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean Easter!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well no easter&#039;s the happy one, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay easter&#039;s the happy one, but I mean Good Friday.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Good Friday, yeah, but like.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We call it Good Friday, but it was actually a pretty rough Friday for all concerned.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so I mean, yeah, I guess, so like Lent, I guess, but like in the church I grew up in we didn&#039;t really do anything for like, we didn&#039;t even give things up, right? But for a lot of the catholic kids I know it&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Oh I can&#039;t eat as much candy for a while or whatever and then maybe I have to eat more fish or lentils than I normally do.&amp;quot; It doesn&#039;t feel the same as like, &amp;quot;Oh yeah, by the way, the center of our entire religion was destroyed twice. And also some other people have taken over it and we can&#039;t have it back.&amp;quot; That&#039;s a whole thing.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But... I mean, most Christian holidays are good times.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Christmas, very good time. Easter, the resurrection, that&#039;s a good time. Pretty much every day is somebody&#039;s feast day.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So you always have a chance to go down to the Olive Garden like I know you like to do.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Your favorite place to go.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is my favorite. That&#039;s where Jesus went. Jesus went to the Olive Garden. He went there to pray and presumably eat breadsticks.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We actually had someone say that Jesus&#039;s bread was probably more like the cinnamon bread that you get at Dollywood.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; We also had the suggestion of Cheddar Bay Biscuits from Red Lobster.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Cheddar Bay Biscuits, overrated.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Coming down hard on that. That was an Apocrypals judgment call.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Nope, not from this half. Nope. I don&#039;t need Karla Pacheco coming to murder me. I don&#039;t need that. I don&#039;t need that on my conscience.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So one last thing to mention before we get into Tobit. Benito.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yes, Chris.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; What can you tell me about the Sons of Thunder?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, there are two of them. James and John.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, no, no, I&#039;m sorry. I&#039;m sorry. You thought I meant the apostles, James and John, the sons of Zebedee. No, I&#039;m talking about the 1999 CBS action drama, Sons of Thunder.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Wow.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The spinoff of Walker, Texas Ranger that I found out about the day we were supposed to record this episode.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh no.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;When Reverend Thunder Malloy, a close friend of Walker, dies from a heart attack, his son Trent returns home and eventually quits the army to stay. Walker and his partner Trivette go after a serial cop killer who has Carlos on his list, which Trent ends up getting involved in by accident when he saved Carlos&#039;s life, and later helped Walker and Carlos take down the criminal. Finally, in 1999, they got their own spinoff series, which only lasted six episodes. Carlos resigns from the police department after his partner is murdered. He teams up with Trent to find the assassin, and they later decide to form their own private investigation firm called Thunder Investigations.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Wow. That&#039;s a lot.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I got to the part where he is literally the son of a man named Thunder.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And I feel like, obviously that is not scripture, but it does seem scripturally adjace.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I feel like the producers of Walker, Texas Ranger knew who their demographic was. And they&#039;re like, let&#039;s do this very good Bible allusion spinoff show. Also a man actually named Thunder is there. He&#039;s a preacher.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But yeah, I am genuinely surprised that Sons of Thunder has not been used as a title more often.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. It seems like a very comic book-y superhero kind of thing that you could have. Like if I guess you could do a future generation, the children of Black Lightning&#039;s daughter, right? Thunder and Lightning are his daughters, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Or the Captain Marvel of the 853rd century. Her name was also Thunder. CeCe Beck was her name.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; A very good touch.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; All right. So you want to talk about the Bible?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Hey, let&#039;s talk about Tobit a little bit. All right. So yeah, Tobit, named after the guy who&#039;s in it. Not really the main character, actually. Most of it&#039;s about his son, Tobias, but Tobit is the framing character. And he is allegedly the narrator of the story, right? It starts in first person before shifting to third person a couple of chapters in. And so it&#039;s just named after Tobit, the guy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And the Greek name Tobit or Tobith comes from the Hebrew word Tovi, which means my good. I didn&#039;t know Hebrew before the show, but I feel like I&#039;m going to come out the other side knowing a decent amount of Hebrew here. Because the T-O-V, the Tov there is the same as in Mazel Tov, right? When you say Mazel Tov to somebody, you say it to mean congratulations, but it literally means good luck, right? As in you&#039;ve had good luck, not wishing someone good luck, right? And you can also hear it in Shana Tova, which is a good year. You say to someone on Rosh Hashanah, right, when it&#039;s the Jewish New Year, you say Shana Tova. And so this is it, Tovi, with the E there at the end. I&#039;m guessing from context, similar to the Eloi, meaning which was my God. Now we&#039;ve got Tovi, so that&#039;s my good.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And then his son is Tobias. And so that&#039;s from Tobiah, which is Yah is good. As we&#039;ve learned, pretty much anyone from a Greek portion of the Bible whose name ends in I-A-S is probably from a Hebrew name that ends in I-A-H, which means something about Yah, as in Yahweh. And we see that Tobit&#039;s dad is Tobiel. And so that would just be El, another name for God. That El, that God, is good or my good. So Yah is good, Yah is my good, El is my good, my good. So many good, good boys. So many good, good boys in Tobit.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here&#039;s what we know about the authorship of Tobit. If you want to go the traditional route, it was written by Tobit, a real man who existed and had mysterious, magical things happen to his eyes and face, and also his son, Tobias. And he lived during the Assyrian exile, which would put us roughly during the time of the 8th century BCE, which would have been around time of 1st Isaiah. So if you&#039;re going to traditional view, it&#039;s easy. Tobit wrote it, and he wrote it in the 8th century BCE.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; What we do know outside of that is the author is Jewish. The original was probably written in Hebrew or Aramaic, and we do have some fragments of an Aramaic version. But the full versions that the translations we would have read came from would be from Greek and Latin versions. Obviously, as part of the capital A Apocrypha, the deuterocanon, it would be part of the Septuagint, part of the Greek Old Testament. We don&#039;t know exactly where it was written. The information is a little tricky. It might be from somewhere in Mesopotamia, might be from Judea, maybe somewhere in Egypt. People think there&#039;s a lot of different theories.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But if you don&#039;t accept the traditional view, if you don&#039;t believe that Tobit was real and wrote down his own life story, the historical view is that Tobit was probably actually written considerably later than the Assyrian exile, probably between 225 and 175 BCE, which would put us closer to the composition of Daniel. Originally, people thought that it was quite a bit later, maybe as late as 100 CE. But then copies were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. And we know the Dead Sea Scrolls, or fragments, I should say, the Dead Sea Scrolls we know range from 100 BCE to 25 CE. So it couldn&#039;t be that late. But the fact that it quotes prophets like Amos and Nahum, it shows that the prophetic books were kind of fixed and canonical by that point, which indicates a date post-Babylonian exile. And the phrase that he uses a couple times, Book of Moses, Law of Moses, that indicates a later date as well. However, it&#039;s probably from before 175 BCE because there&#039;s no references to Hellenization. It doesn&#039;t include any references whatsoever to the Seleucids and the people that would have been relevant during the Hasmonean times, the Maccabee times. So the rough window, it&#039;s about 225 to 175 BCE.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; The book, like we said, is capital A Apocrypha, which means that among the Catholic Church, it&#039;s considered deuterocanon, secondary canon, or later canon. Also the timing of it, the books of the deuterocanon are generally considered to be from the intertestamental period. They were written between the end of the composition of the Old Testament and the composition of the New Testament. but it&#039;s not considered Jewish canon. Originally, people thought it wasn&#039;t part of the Jewish canon because of the late date in which it was composed, but it&#039;s possibly for halakhic reasons, halakha being the law, the Jewish law, and so namely the fact that in the story, the bride&#039;s father, Sarah&#039;s father, writes out the marriage contract instead of Tobias. And according to law, the groom should be the one to write the marriage contract. And so because of that kind of contradiction of law, some people think maybe that&#039;s why Tobit didn&#039;t make it into the Jewish canon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But like I said, it was part of the Septuagint, so that makes it canon or deuterocanon for Catholic and Orthodox churches. It was listed and mentioned as canonical at the Council of Rome in 382, at the Council of Hippo in 393, the Council of Carthage in 397, the Council of Florence in 1442, and the Council of Trent in 1546. So Tobit is among the most canonical, non-canonical books, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So wait, wait. How does it in the 1500s, in the 16th century, how is it considered canon when it&#039;s not canon now?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; So again, it&#039;s like it&#039;s considered deuterocanon because of its late date. The reason it&#039;s not canon for for Protestant churches and the reason why it&#039;s considered fully apocryphal and not included in most Protestant Bibles, in American Protestant Bibles especially, is because it&#039;s because it&#039;s only in the Septuagint and not in the Hebrew canon. So the 66 books that we think of in America as like full canon, that&#039;s from the Hebrew canon. And so the things that are considered apocryphal by Protestants and considered deuterocanon by Catholics and Orthodox churches, those are from the Septuagint but are not included among the Jewish canon. Does that make sense?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean, no. Not at all. I don&#039;t understand how these decisions are made, because we talked about this would be in the same level of apocrypha as we got back when we were talking about the [[One Weird Trick | Prayer of Azariah and Susanna and Bel and the Dragon when we went through Daniel and those are other adventures of Daniel]] right like those are we talked about how those kind of obviously don&#039;t fit in, but Tobit being its own thing because it does tell a complete story beginning to end. And after we read in the gospel of John about how there was a lake where an angel would just come down and make an angel jacuzzi for a minute, nothing in this seems that unusual.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; True. Yeah. But yeah, it really, I mean, for the Catholic church, it really has to do with the timing of it. It&#039;s the fact that it would have been written in that intertestamental period.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here&#039;s my question for you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
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&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Has anything ever been considered apocryphal and then instated into full canon, like reinstated?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not that I can think of off the top of my head, but I&#039;m sure some very dutiful listener, if they know of one, will know that. I mean, there were so many debates about what was canon, especially for the Christian church. A Jewish canon was decided relatively early on, but the Christian canon was argued for so long. And there&#039;s all sorts of different lists of what books are in and what books are out. And a lot of Christian canons would have included Tobit and would have included some of these other books, Judith, Maccabees, and so on. I don&#039;t have the book on me right now, but I do have a book that includes lists of canon that were proposed by different early church fathers. And they mostly line up with the 27 books of the New Testament we have now.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But sometimes they would have other things. There&#039;s other books, the Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas. Those were books that would have been considered basically canon early on and then got knocked out. I don&#039;t know of a book that was fully non-canonical that was brought in later. There&#039;s definitely some that were heavily debated in the New Testament. Some of the early church fathers didn&#039;t like Hebrews or James, and those got brought in later. Some books in the Old Testament were considered not worthy of inclusion, like Esther or Song of Solomon, some others. But they ultimately, because of their popularity or because of the fact that they&#039;re attributed to an important figure from history, do eventually get brought in. So it&#039;s not a clean or easy process for either the Jewish canon or the Christian canon because it&#039;s a lot of debate over a lot of time. So yeah, there are some things in and out. But I don&#039;t know if something that was fully out at some point that later gets brought in, especially in the New Testament canon. But maybe I&#039;m just forgetting an egregious example that somebody, aka Ben Rowe, will message me about later.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So that leads me to a question.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because you talked about how there is– there was at least a debate over when Tobit was written. And that the Dead Sea Scrolls provided an earlier version than we previously knew about.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. The version would be about the same, but it dates it earlier. We know that it is from much earlier than it was originally thought.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So if they find a second ominous black sarcophagus in Egypt, because it&#039;s 2018, who knows anymore what&#039;s going to happen.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And they, they crack that bad boy open and inside it is a, a piece of parchment with Tobit on it that dates back to the eighth century BCE.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Then what do we do? Do we go, okay, I guess this one counts, and then it gets into our HCSB Bibles so that we don&#039;t have to go on BibleGateway to read this one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, I doubt it. The canon is considered closed and has been for many hundreds of years. So I really don&#039;t think that there, I mean, the fact that it already was declared, you know, canon at one, two, three, four or five different ecumenical councils, like I feel like it&#039;s got as much as it&#039;s going to get. Like I said, it is as canonical as a deuterocanon book can be. Like Tobit, Judith, 1st and 2nd Maccabees. Those are the ones that are like, yeah, basically. Those are basically canon.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, I forgot to mention, when they open up the 2nd Black Sarcophagus and find the parchment, it&#039;s autographed.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Ah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And it says, to my good friend Tobit, keep your eyes open. Ha-ha, God. Then what do we do?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; If it&#039;s autographed by God, maybe. It feels more likely it would be autographed by Raphael, maybe. But who knows? Maybe God. Yeah, maybe God. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Don&#039;t sleep under any fences. Ha ha.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; My good dude.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Have a great summer. God.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, man. So, of course, according to the first person account here, Tobit claims to be a historical account, but it actually is kind of a compilation of three different secular folk tales. The first one being a folk tale of the type known as the Grateful Dead, which is actually the source of where the name of the band comes from. In that particular story type, it&#039;s one in which a poor man buries a corpse and then gets rewarded. We see that, like that&#039;s Tobit&#039;s main thing is burying dead bodies.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You may be familiar with that type of story from Hellboy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Here in the modern era.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Hellboy or Antigone. She doesn&#039;t get rewarded, though, unless you consider her martyrdom a reward, which Christians would. I don&#039;t know that Sophocles did. But anyway, Grateful Dead, that&#039;s one. Number two, Monster in the Bridal Chamber. Worse than Monster in Your Pocket. But we obviously see that here with Sarah and the demon who kills her husband on a wedding night.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Don&#039;t, don&#039;t think you can move past that. We&#039;re gonna get to that section of the story and how buck wild that is. You&#039;re telling me that&#039;s a genre?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, like there&#039;s a number of stories featuring that element to it, yeah. Like if you go if you go back– I don&#039;t have examples on hand, but I&#039;m sure I&#039;m sure that story carries on. There&#039;s probably like a Brother&#039;s Grimm story that&#039;s got a similar element to it, if you looked, because yeah, it&#039;s a trope. And then finally, the third story is a story from a popular, one of the first internationally popular stories, the [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan | tale of Ahikar]], who is the wise courtier who was falsely incriminated by his adopted son. And he&#039;s actually called by name. In this version, he&#039;s integrated in the story and made into Tobit&#039;s nephew, and he&#039;s a recurring background character. But yeah, those are the three main elements that are tied together.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Some of the things that make it a little dubious, a little doubtful at least, that Tobit is a fully historical narrative: there&#039;s a couple of historical errors, like the succession of the Assyrian emperors or Assyrian kings, and then also some of the geographical stuff, right? There&#039;s a lot of stuff where Tobias walks a distance in a day that couldn&#039;t possibly be done. I mean, if you want to say, okay, he could walk a day because there was a secret angel, but maybe?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Spoilers?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, sorry.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Benito?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sorry.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Jeepers.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But from a historical perspective, Tobit doesn&#039;t hold up to a lot of scrutiny as a 100% true historical account from the 8th century.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean, that makes sense, because if anybody was reading along with us, it has the structure of a fable.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It has, it&#039;s very much, you know about wickety-wack into my sack, I&#039;m sure. Did they show that to you in school?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Mm-hmm.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you don&#039;t know, like there was a series of extremely Southern versions of like &amp;quot;Jack&amp;quot; stories.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You&#039;re familiar with Jack, I assume.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Jack the Giant Killer?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, Jack of the Tales. And this is very much a literal &amp;quot;go off and get your fortune&amp;quot; story that involves all of those classic elements of Tobias leaving home, wandering through some wilderness, getting a mysterious piece of advice that becomes extremely relevant later, and accomplishing these heroic feats in a very neat fashion in that everything he gets comes back. Chekhov&#039;s fish parts.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Chekhov&#039;s fish parts. Yes. Very good. Yeah, let&#039;s– you want to just run through the story? I think we can fairly assume that our listeners, especially those who didn&#039;t read along, are not as familiar with this story as they are with say for example the [[What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre  | Gospel of Matthew]] so maybe let&#039;s just go through the story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay so we start out with Tobit basically dropping an intro verse about how great he is. Very Jay-Z.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; He tells us who he is. He gives us his family line. It&#039;s interesting here because here, obviously, if you guys remember from our Isaiah episode, the Assyrian exile was the one in which the Northern Kingdom of Israel, they were conquered by the Assyrians. And so this is a story of the North. We&#039;ve really focused a lot on the South and that&#039;s not going to change. A lot of the Bible was written in the Southern Kingdom where Jerusalem was. But here we really have a story of someone from the north. He&#039;s from the tribe of Naphtali, which is like the northernmost tribe. And so it&#039;s kind of a cool change to see that. But yeah, so keep in mind this is around the time of what we call First Isaiah in our [[Wittgenstein&#039;s Monster | Isaiah episode]]. So if you want to go back and listen to that for some of that historical context.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But yeah, he&#039;s here in exile. He&#039;s one who has been driven out of his home and now he currently lives in Assyria.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So the entire upshot of Tobit chapter one is that Tobit&#039;s a good dude, and we know he&#039;s a good dude because of chapter 1 verse 17 which says, &amp;quot;I would give my food to the hungry and my clothing to the naked.&amp;quot; Standard stuff, standard good guy stuff, right? &amp;quot;Oh, and if I saw the dead body of any of my people thrown out behind the wall of Nineveh, I would bury it,&amp;quot; which... I have questions&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, well, I mean...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s a rough place to be living.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is. It is. And again, I mean, it really shows you what a tough spot the Israelites were in at this time. Like if you guys have read Antigone, you have an idea, like for the Greeks, what it means to leave a body uncovered, right? Antigone is the story of the daughter of Oedipus. Her brothers killed each other and one was considered a traitor and the other wasn&#039;t. And the one that was considered a traitor was left out. His body was left out. And she snuck out and buried it in order that his soul might move on to the to the afterlife.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s a similar kind of thing where like burial of the dead is a major thing for the Jewish people and for the bodies to be left out. And we&#039;ve seen it several times, like in the story, the good Samaritan, for example. And in your story about let the, you know, let the dead bury the dead and so on. Dead bodies are ritually unclean. It&#039;s a big deal for dead bodies to be out and you don&#039;t want to touch one. You don&#039;t want to see one. You don&#039;t want to come in contact with one at all. And so, yeah, so Tobit, like we see like one of his main things besides the fact that he gives away as much of his wealth as he can, and helps out people, one of his main things is he sneaks out in the night and he buries dead bodies that are left out to rot because it&#039;s a huge insult to his people.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So I just want to I just want to point out, I know that there... I know that things are bad in a lot of parts of the world but if you&#039;re listening to a podcast currently, I think it&#039;s safe to say that unless it is specifically your job, you do not generally encounter dead bodies on the street.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. Probably not.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you do, it is a notable event in your life.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s happening so often to Tobit that it&#039;s his thing. Like, people are going, &amp;quot;There goes Tobit, off to bury another dead body.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, which is, that&#039;s not a joke. Like, that&#039;s actually from the text. Yeah, and he does it so often he gets in trouble for it. We see the kings here, Shalmaneser and then Sennacherib. That&#039;s a name we saw in Isaiah. He takes over. But really, Shalmaneser actually died before the fall of Samaria. So Shalmaneser would not have been relevant to this story. It would have been Sargon II. And so Sennacherib succeeds his father, Sargon II, in 705 BC. Historical note, for those of you keeping track, of Assyrian kings.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But yeah, Sennacherib did not like that. at all. And so Tobit and his family are actually kicked out of Nineveh, which is the capital of Assyria. Most of you guys probably, if you&#039;re like me, you mostly know Nineveh from the story of Jonah, but it was actually, it was the capital of the Assyrian empire. And so not 40 days passed before two of Sennacherib&#039;s sons killed him. And then a new king comes in, Esarhaddon, and he appoints Ahikar, the wise counselor who&#039;s the nephew of Tobit. And so Tobit&#039;s able to come back, but he&#039;s lost all his wealth, basically. He was very wealthy before, and now he has basically nothing.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Tobit&#039;s good-natured habit of burying the dead has some unfortunate consequences. This is chapter 2, verse 7. &amp;quot;When the sun had set, I went and dug a grave and buried him. And my neighbors laughed and said, Is he still not afraid? He has already been hunted down to be put to death for doing this. And he ran away. Yet here he is again, burying the dead again.&amp;quot; That&#039;s the text.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;That same night I washed myself and went into my courtyard and slept by the wall of the courtyard. And my face was uncovered because of the heat.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Tobit, no!!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Now, what– I want everybody to take a moment, get out a pencil and a little piece of paper, and I want you to write down what you think happens to Tobit because he&#039;s outside sleeping, under his courtyard wall with his face uncovered because of the heat. Do you want to give everybody a minute?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we&#039;ll just give everyone a second to write down your answers and enter them into the Guess-o-tron 5000.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Uh-huh. Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Good news, everybody. If you wrote down that sparrows poop in his eyes and he goes blind, you got it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Good news.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I&#039;m looking in the Guess-o-tron 5000. There&#039;s not a lot of those entries. Not a lot.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Congratulations, Ben Rowe.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, congratulations, Ben Roe. Everyone else who didn&#039;t write poop blindness, I&#039;m sorry.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So sparrows poop in his eyes, and he&#039;s blind now.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And it says because his walls have white films over them.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So he&#039;s got like Batman eyes now.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And doctors try to heal him by rubbing ointment on his eye, which, ugh. And it makes it worse.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is, yeah, of course it is. &amp;quot;I went to physicians to be healed, but the more they treated me with ointments, the more my vision was obscured by the white films.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, the more Vaseline they rubbed in my eyes, the harder it was for me to see.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; The more they just jammed their fingers in there. Sorry, everybody. I know a lot of people have eye things. I apologize. But yeah, so Tobit&#039;s blind and now his wife, Anna, has to go earn money.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. There&#039;s a lot of weird stuff in this book. This is the weirdest part to me. The part that she goes to work and she does so well, they give her a bonus goat. That part&#039;s not weird. The part that she brings the goat home and then Tobit is furious because he thinks his wife stole the goat. I don&#039;t understand this. I actually tried to search. I went searching for commentaries on this. I was like, can anyone explain to me what the meaning is behind Tobit being mad about this bonus goat?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;But she said to me, &#039;It was given to me as a gift in addition to my wages,&#039; but I did not believe her and told her to return it to the owners. I became flushed with anger over this. Then she replied to me &#039;Where are your acts of charity? Where are your righteous deeds?&#039;&amp;quot; Why are you being such a jerk Tobit?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I got a bonus goat.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; This does not come back. There&#039;s no resolution to Tobit being– he gets so mad he goes to pray. He&#039;s like, &amp;quot;I gotta pray about this goat situation,&amp;quot; and then he does a prayer, a pretty nice, pretty good prayer. &amp;quot;You&#039;re righteous to the Lord and all Your deeds are just, all Your ways, mercy and truth to judge the world,&amp;quot; etc.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean, you say it&#039;s a &amp;quot;pretty nice prayer&amp;quot; and then you say, &amp;quot;etc.&amp;quot; The back half of that prayer is him begging God to kill him because he would rather be dead.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; True. You&#039;re right. You&#039;re right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;So now deal with me as You will. Command my spirit to be taken from me so that I may be released from the face of the earth and become dust. For it is better for me to die than to live because I have had to listen to undeserved insults and great is the sorrow within me.&amp;quot; Same TBQH.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. But what&#039;s cool about this is it makes a very nice segue because it&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Speaking of someone who&#039;s wishing for death: meanwhile in Ecbatana in Media... [Batman &#039;66 transition sound effect] We cut and we get introduced to another one of our major characters. Her name is Sarah. Very good name for a wife to have, if you&#039;re going to have one, I recommend it. But she lives in Media which is in what today would be like northwestern Iran, close to where Persia would have been. And so that&#039;s why the Persians and the Medes are always mentioned together in Daniel, because they were geographically close to one another.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; And we also meet the villain of the piece. We get, that&#039;s right, a new named demon. And you know who it is?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music: &amp;quot;Runnin&#039; with the Devil&amp;quot; by Van Halen]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, it&#039;s a big one.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Are you ready for this, Chris? Asmodeus, Asmodeus, Asmodeus, Asmodeus, Asmodeus, Asmodeus, Asmodeus, Asmodeus, Asmodeus, Asmodeus. Rock me Asmodeus!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is it not AsMOdeus or did you do that for the meter?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, it&#039;s actually ASmoDEus. It actually is. I also thought it was AsMOdeus, had to look it up. It&#039;s actually ASmoDEus.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So this is the wicked demon Asmodeus who just stays killing Sarah&#039;s husbands. Yeah, but you say, &amp;quot;Sarah - good name for a wife?&amp;quot; Mmmm. Not if you&#039;re one of these dudes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, it&#039;s not good for, it&#039;s not good for– I&#039;m just saying it&#039;s a good name. If you&#039;re going to have a wife, Sarah&#039;s a good name for your wife to have, is what I&#039;m saying.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You say I do. I do take this woman, Sarah, to be my lawfully wedded wife. And then Asmodeus shows up, and see you at the crossroads, my man.ß&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It&#039;s, yeah. She&#039;s had. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, quick question. I&#039;m sure that if a demon shows up, like a straight up devil that we in 2018 CE know the name of.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s probably only going to happen like once, max three times, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not seven times. Not as many as seven times.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s the highest number Peter can think of.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. It&#039;s like in Watership Down, which is my favorite book, by the way, for those who are assembling trivia about me. You know about Watership Down, Chris? You know, have you ever read it?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Never read it. That&#039;s the one where all the, like, rabbits kill each other, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, yes. Yeah, it&#039;s a book about rabbits and they&#039;re traveling. Their warren is destroyed and some of them escape and build a new one. And it&#039;s very – it&#039;s got many parallels to the destruction of Troy and the establishment of Rome, part of the reason I like it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It would probably be much harder to get a giant wooden horse into a city for rabbits.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s true.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Maybe you could get a regular-sized wooden horse in there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, a little pull-string horse. Anyway, a thing about the rabbits, like you learn part of their language and stuff in the book. And one of the things that you learn about rabbits is they can count as high as four. And then anything over four, they call prayer, which is a thousand. So it&#039;s like one, two, three, four, a thousand, because they can&#039;t handle any number larger than that. That&#039;s what I think of every time we talk about Peter getting to seven. He&#039;s just like, &amp;quot;Seven and that&#039;s it, right? What could possibly be bigger than seven?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Two things. One, we know that Peter is three numbers smarter than a rabbit.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Two, I feel like rabbits generally have like more than four kids.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; They do. And one of the characters, like the second main character of the book, his English name is Fiver, but his name in the rabbit language is Hrairoo, which means &amp;quot;little thousand&amp;quot; because he was the fifth one born. And his mom was just like, &amp;quot;I don&#039;t know how many kids I got now. You&#039;re just the thousandth one, I guess.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know, I might be thinking of Redwall. Is that the one where all the rabbits kill each other?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, you&#039;re thinking of Watershed Down because a lot of people remember the movie as being very scary. There definitely is a rabbit war that happens at one point, which is definitely dramatized in a frightening way in the animated movie. But yeah, anyway, that was just a cool little aside. Let&#039;s talk more about Asmodeus, why don&#039;t we?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so he&#039;s a seven-time husband killer.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And a real wedding night blocker, I guess is the best way to put that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is ironic because here&#039;s what we know about Asmodeus outside of the book of Tobit. Obviously, this is one of his major appearances. Like this is his big star move at this point, at least in any kind of like Bible-Bible that we&#039;re going to hold. But his name, he&#039;s known as Ashmedai in Hebrew. He is considered a king of demons. He&#039;s one of the seven princes of hell, which in later demonology, that&#039;s later. This is, I&#039;m getting into some medieval stuff. It&#039;s getting to be a mishmash. You guys, you could sort it out. You&#039;ll figure it out.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Wait, there are as many as seven princes of hell?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; As many as seven. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Huh.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And the idea is each of the seven princes of hell corresponds to one of the seven deadly sins. Right? And so the irony is that he&#039;s the demon of lust, which he&#039;s not doing a great job letting that go on. Maybe he doesn&#039;t like intramarital relations. Maybe that&#039;s what it is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I mean, I kind of feel like if you&#039;re Sarah, you&#039;re probably looking forward to your wedding night.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And about time number four, you&#039;re like, all right, this time it&#039;s going to happen. And no, no, here comes Asmodeus.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; To just keep you frustrated.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; To the point where you start praying for death.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, she&#039;s because, yeah, she feels ashamed. She&#039;s about to kill herself too. So there&#039;s a nice parallel. I&#039;m still talking about Asmodeus. Hold on. So despite the fact that in later demonology, he&#039;s considered the demon of lust, his name may derive from an Avestan name, which was the Eastern Iran that originates in Zoroastrianism. It may come from the term &amp;quot;Aishmadaiva,&amp;quot; which would mean demon of wrath from Zoroastrianism. But that specific form is not actually attested to. So some people have kind of constructed that because it gives you a sound like Asmodeus. But that specific form is not ever found in any Zoroastrian documents.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Asmodeus, besides his big star turn here as the heavy of Tobit, he also appears in the Talmud as a foe/frenemy of Solomon. In the Talmud, Solomon and Asmodeus, their relationship is kind of similar to how Thor and Loki are in the movies, where they don&#039;t like each other, but it&#039;s a frenemy kind of thing. Hopefully we&#039;ll get to do some of those stories later, like where Solomon, for example, tricks Asmodeus into actually building the temple form. But he also appears in a more serious form in the Testament of Solomon, much later in the Malleus Maleficarum and the Dictionnaire Infernal, and also the Lesser Key of Solomon. Of course any kind of list of major demons: Asmodeus is going to be there. He&#039;s one of the big big big big guys so...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Are we gonna eventually get into the Malleus Maleficarum?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It would be a while because that definitely is much later than most of the material that we&#039;re looking at but maybe?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s the bad hammer, everybody.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s the bad hammer.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s the hammer of witches. The hammer of the witches, &amp;quot;the hexan hammer,&amp;quot; as it&#039;s called. &amp;quot;Hexenhammer,&amp;quot; as it&#039;s called in German.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So dope.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like maybe the best name any book has ever had.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, so yeah. We, I mean, maybe if this show goes on forever, and eventually we&#039;re just like, &amp;quot;all right ,we just gotta hit that medieval renaissance/early modern stuff. We just gotta do it. There&#039;s no other options.&amp;quot; Yeah, we might get there, but I do...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We&#039;re gonna need Halloween specials going forward.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Exactly, but I do feel let&#039;s call it &amp;quot;wink wink&amp;quot; extra confident that we&#039;ll definitely hit the [[Butt Stuff Dragon | Testament of Solomon]] sooner rather than later, Lesser Key of Solomon is a likely probability as well. Probably not as early as Testament of Solomon however. But anyway, yeah, so Asmodeus, he&#039;s a big deal. And here he is, this big thing in canon. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Before we move on, do you know off the top the other six princes of hell?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, boy.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, according to the Lantern of Light, which is from 1409, the seven princes of hell are Lucifer, Beelzebub, Satan, Abaddon, Mammon, Belphegor, and Asmodeus.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Familiar names.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, probably.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, familiar names in Belphegor.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; He doesn&#039;t get a lot of play these days.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. No, the other ones though, yeah, should all sound familiar. We&#039;ve hit, we&#039;ve encountered a couple of them already. Obviously we think of Lucifer, Beelzebub and Satan all as the same guy. We hit Abaddon somewhere. Isaiah maybe? Mammon, of course, when Jesus talks about you can&#039;t serve God and Mammon. There he is. That&#039;s that guy. He represents greed and wealth. But yeah, so according to that list, those are the seven princes of hell.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; All right. So yeah. Anyway, back to our story. We&#039;ve got these two parallel narratives. And then...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, Sarah&#039;s getting yelled at by her maids.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that&#039;s rough.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. They&#039;re like, &amp;quot;Hey, stop killing your husbands.&amp;quot; And she&#039;s like, &amp;quot;it&#039;s actually Asmodeus who is a demon.&amp;quot; And they&#039;re like, &amp;quot;That sounds super fake, actually.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah. And then at the end of chapter 3, we decide instead of going for tension, Tobit, or the author of Tobit decides...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Bad narrative choice. Bad narrative choice.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; ...decides to go for dramatic irony instead of tension by basically telling us what&#039;s going to happen.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah we&#039;re going to skip over though. All you need to know is that these two prayers come in on the hotline and God gets on his phone and goes, &amp;quot;Get me one of the ninja turtles.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;That&#039;s right some summon one.&amp;quot; Which one? We&#039;ll see in just a second. What happens then in the story? Tobit remembers that he has some money saved up, that he, for safety reasons, left with a relative of his in Media. So he decides to send his son Tobias, who is our actual protagonist of the Book of Tobit. He&#039;s brought in and he&#039;s gonna go travel to Media to return his father&#039;s bond and pick up this considerable sum of money. I can&#039;t remember how much it says it is. Is it...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; 10 talents.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; 10 talents. That&#039;s a lot of money. That&#039;s, we can&#039;t, it&#039;s, I can&#039;t, you know convert it to dollars but it&#039;s a lot...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is one fifth of what Julius Caesar would be ransomed for.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; There you go, but it&#039;s a lot.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I know things!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; All right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I know history!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. It&#039;s a lot. Anyway. So yeah, the problem is Tobias he&#039;s young. He&#039;s never been to Media, he doesn&#039;t know how to get there. Also he doesn&#039;t know Gabael, this relative he&#039;s never met him, and he&#039;s a little worried about that. So, well first, Tobit gives him this long very long list of ways to be good which kind of shows us that someone probably picked a chunk out of some traditional wisdom literature. Wisdom literature being a genre similar to like Proverbs or [[Apocrypals Chris And Benito | Ecclesiastes]] or other books like the Wisdom of Sirach and other things that we&#039;ll eventually get to. But it&#039;s just a bunch of Proverbs and advice on, on how to be good. First he says, you need to, you need to get a good wife. Someone we&#039;re related to that one doesn&#039;t hold up as much. Find a good, good cousin to get married to.  Even setting aside the fact that we&#039;re not talking about like super close blood relatives necessarily, the fact that he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;only marry within your own tribe,&amp;quot; like, &amp;quot;avoid miscegenation,&amp;quot; like that doesn&#039;t hold up I think. That&#039;s not–&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, that part&#039;s a little... he&#039;s very strict on that point too.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, &amp;quot;First of all, marry a woman from among the descendants of your ancestors; do not marry a foreign woman, who is not of your father’s tribe,&amp;quot; okay slow down Tobit. But anyway he&#039;s got other good advice for him. It it really reminded me, of course reminds me of Polonius and Hamlet the whole–&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Did you think of that too?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; The whole to thine own self be true and all that stuff. It&#039;s very similar to that, so if you guys know that bit from Hamlet, it&#039;s that but longer. So that&#039;s basically the entirety of chapter four of Tobit.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But yeah, Tobit&#039;s like, &amp;quot;I&#039;ll do everything you said, dad, but how do I get that money?&amp;quot; And so he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Well, you need to find somebody. Find somebody to go with you who knows the way to media.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So this is amazing.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Tobit chapter 5, verse 4. &amp;quot;o Tobias went out to look for a man to go with him to Media, someone who was acquainted with the way. He went out and found the angel Raphael standing in front of him; but he did not perceive that he was an angel of God.&amp;quot; That&#039;s quick.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, very fortunate. Yeah. So here we go. Raphael, we got our third named angel. I did go back and double check because I wasn&#039;t sure if Gabriel and Michael are specifically called by name in Daniel. They are. So this is definitely our third named angel&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; in here, obviously, deuterocanon. So in full canon, it&#039;s just Gabriel and Michael. But here, among Catholic and Orthodox churches, for a book that is considered canon, You&#039;ve got a third angel here. And of course he&#039;s in disguise.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I like to imagine that he is still like a six winged on fire dude covered in eyes, but he&#039;s wearing one of those plain black baseball caps that they had in like Winter Soldier.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. What he&#039;s actually doing, if you know...&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Where Chris Evans, the most beautiful man in the world, just puts on a black baseball cap and we&#039;re all like, &amp;quot;That can&#039;t be Captain America. He doesn&#039;t wear a hat.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; If you actually know the habits of Raphael, you know that he&#039;s wearing a trench coat and a fedora, and that&#039;s how he&#039;s disguising himself while walking around the streets of man.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And probably a red mask too.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like a red domino mask.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. He&#039;s got a different bandana over every pair of eyes. It&#039;s lots of bandanas.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, that&#039;s a beautiful image. If we get fan art of anything going forward, please let it be that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh man. Do we want to talk about Raphael here for a second? Let&#039;s talk about.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Well, here, before we talk about Raphael, I got to say.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There is, not to be a Roy Thomas, there&#039;s a missed continuity opportunity here.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; All right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because it&#039;s, if memory serves, Gabriel, who&#039;s in the book of Daniel.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And Michael. They both are.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Who goes into the furnace?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That one is not said by name. Gabriel and Michael both appear in Daniel&#039;s apocalypse and his vision.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay, well then maybe that&#039;s Raphael. I think we should, in the way that we have discovered the absolute true fact that the apostle Peter was 16 years old during the time of Christ, I think we need to pin that angel as Raphael. Because when he&#039;s in disguise, when he puts on his trench coat and his fedora and goes and gets a pizza, he gives the name Azariah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, he sure does. Azariah son of Hananiah, and we saw both of those names, that&#039;s Shadrach and Abednego, sorry Meshach.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I like Raphael coming down from heaven and being like, &amp;quot;What&#039;s a human name?&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;What&#039;s a name that a human has?&amp;quot; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And Tobias is like, &amp;quot;hey what&#039;s your name?&amp;quot; He goes, &amp;quot;Hmmmm... Tobias?&amp;quot; and Tobias goes, &amp;quot;No that&#039;s my name.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh man, so yeah, alright. So Raphael also pronounced RAYphael or Raphael depending sometimes but we&#039;re gonna go Raphael that&#039;s the name. That&#039;s how we&#039;re all familiar with it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And of course the El is, I&#039;ve learned this from the show the EL is Elohim, the name of God, and Raph means cool but rude.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah so God is cool but rude.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Very Old Testament.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It means God heals. And so that makes sense. Not to spoil it, but Raphael does turn out to be a bit of a healer. He is traditionally considered to be the jacuzzi boy from John. So it&#039;s typically considered that Raphael is the one who goes down and stirs up the water in the Bethesda pool that heals people because he&#039;s the healing angel. And so like Gabriel and Michael, the other archangels, he is venerated as a saint. His feast day is either October 24th or September 29th, which is the feast day of all archangels. When we see him in art, you can recognize Raphael a couple different ways. He might be holding a bottle, he might be holding a fish because of this story, or he might be carrying a traveler&#039;s staff, like in also from this story. And he is the patron and protector of ones that will make sense: apothecaries, pharmacists, and druggists. He is also the patron of ordained marriage, blind people, bodily ills, eye problems.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; All those make sense. All those track.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep. Happy meetings. We see that here, right? Like literally this chapter, right? He&#039;s just there when Tobias needs somebody. And he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Oh yeah, by the way, I&#039;m your cousin. And by the way, yeah, I live totally exactly where you need to go. So yeah, we&#039;re good.&amp;quot; So yeah, serendipity, he&#039;s your boy. He&#039;s also, among his other healing, he&#039;s the patron of people with mental illness, protection against nightmares. He&#039;s the patron of lovers, which makes sense from this story as well. Again, not trying to spoil anything, but he&#039;s the patron of physicians, shepherds, travelers, young people, and of course, Dubuque, Iowa. So. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Makes sense. Makes sense. Quick question.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; How are angel saints? That doesn&#039;t seem right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. It&#039;s, it&#039;s like a technical category. Like I&#039;ve looked into this cause like St. Michael, right. Michael, the archangel. Yeah. To the point where like the castle, Sant&#039;Angelo, the Pope&#039;s old Pope castle, the Saint angel is Michael. It&#039;s a different kind of category. Like it&#039;s, it&#039;s kind of synched in name, but they don&#039;t fit the rest of the qualifications to be a saint. So they do get that name, Saint Michael, Saint Gabriel, Saint Raphael. But yeah, it&#039;s a different kind of saint, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So basically the rest of the chapter is Azariah, aka the angel Raphael, going in to be interviewed by Tobit, which is basically Tobit going, &amp;quot;Are you Jewish?&amp;quot; And Raphael going, &amp;quot;I&#039;m extremely Jewish.&amp;quot; And Tobit going, &amp;quot;Great, that&#039;s exactly what I wanted to hear.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;You are hired.&amp;quot; He even says that he&#039;s related to Tobit and Tobias. So that&#039;s the best thing. Obviously, we know that Tobit doesn&#039;t want his son mixing with people from outside of their particular tribe. So, of course, Azariah says all the right things. And yeah, so he&#039;s hired. He gets hired.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Now, here&#039;s another part of the story that I thought was very lacking.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Chapter 6 we get, &amp;quot;The young man went out and the angel went with him; 2 and the dog came out with him and went along with them.&amp;quot; We do not get details on this dog. I want to know more about this dog. That is an excellent element of this story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It really is because first of all, this is like the only positive mention of a dog we&#039;re gonna get. Like, yeah like the idea that someone has a dog as a pet? This is like the only appearance of that in the Bible. And so yeah we see that, and then he doesn&#039;t play any role in the story we do not see the dog again until they&#039;re coming back home and it&#039;s like, &amp;quot;and the dog was there by the way.&amp;quot; So yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah just so everybody&#039;s cool with it: the dog lives the dog is fine.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; The dog lives, the dog is fine, because the dog is a completely extraneous element to the story, which is a sign that probably what happened was there&#039;s a dog in the original folktale that this is adapting, and the dog probably had a role in the original story, and that just kind of gets lost. Editorial fatigue.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So they go out and they stop and get some fish. And Tobias catches a fish. And Raphael&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Hey, keep that fish&#039;s heart and liver and gallbladder. Because if you keep the heart and liver, you can burn those to make smoke in the presence of a man or woman afflicted by a demon or an evil spirit. and every affliction will flee away and never remain with that person any longer. Also, interesting thing about gallbladders of fish, you can rub those on blind people&#039;s eyes and they can see again. Hope that&#039;s useful information for you.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Tobias does not immediately go home and cure his father of blindness.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, he goes, &amp;quot;You know what it&#039;s really good for? It&#039;s really good for that specific white film blindness. So if you know anybody that&#039;s got that, you might use that.&amp;quot; Which you actually, you didn&#039;t just catch the fish. He catches the fish because the fish tries to eat his foot. His foot is in the water. He went to wash his feet and a fish tried to eat his foot and he cried out. And the angel says, &amp;quot;Grab the fish, idiot.&amp;quot; And it&#039;s a very good, very useful fish.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I just want to point out that this is the same day. This is the first night. They leave Tobit&#039;s house, walk to the river, and they&#039;re like, this is a good place to camp for the night. Then Azariah, a.k.a. the Angel Raphael, goes, &amp;quot;Oh, that can cure blindness just like your dad has.&amp;quot; And Tobias doesn&#039;t go, &amp;quot;Cool, this journey can wait six hours,&amp;quot; and go back home. I feel like if I could cure my parents of blindness, I would maybe, the ten talents of silver are going to be there in another day.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I can go do this right now.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So that&#039;s their first stop. Their next stop is they go to Ecbatana.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yep.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And Raphael&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Hey, you have a hot cousin who lives here. You should marry her.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. You&#039;re her closest relative. Isn&#039;t that enticing?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Which means you&#039;ve got the claim more than anyone else.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is how marriages should work. It should always be your closest relative who you never met.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; The thing is, that is what he finds most enticing. He goes, &amp;quot;You&#039;re right. She is my closest relative. I love her.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, he&#039;s not fully up for it, though. Verse 14, &amp;quot;Then Tobias said in answer to Raphael, &#039;Brother Azariah, I have heard that she already has been married to seven husbands and that they died in the bridal chamber. On the night when they went in to her, they would die. I have heard people saying that it was a demon that killed them.&#039;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I don&#039;t want to die and then have my parents&#039; bodies rotting in the sun because I was not there to bury them. Thanks, but no thanks.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But then Raphael says, &amp;quot;Hey man, remember that fish that tried to eat your foot and then I told you very specific things that you could do with its internal organs? Great news. You have citronella for demons.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Quick question for you, Benito. We know that names are like – we know, for instance, that Jude and Judas and Judah are all the same name.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And that Jesus and Joshua are the same name.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Is the name Tobias at all related to the name Henry?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Henry?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not that I am aware of.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, because, see, he&#039;s about to get married to the widow next door and she&#039;s been married seven times before.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Okay. Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Second verse, same as the first. A little bit louder and a little bit worse. So they go in there and they get married. Like that– the courtship is a paragraph.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which is– and it&#039;s mostly him saying, &amp;quot;Hey check out how closely we&#039;re related!&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah of course, I mean of course it&#039;s him talking to her father, to Sarah&#039;s father Raguel. Raguel. And he&#039;s, &amp;quot;Hey, my dad&#039;s Tobit, and I&#039;m Tobias and I&#039;m your daughter&#039;s closest living relative. We should be married probably.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; You know, in accordance with the law and decree written in the book of Moses.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. And he&#039;s like, great, let&#039;s make this happen.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So they get married and then they have a very nice reception.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, they have a special double wedding. Because typically you have a seven-day marriage feast and he&#039;s like, let&#039;s do this one two times as big. But does that happen after the wedding night? They have the double wedding feast is declared.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I think that&#039;s after the wedding night, yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because, you know, you&#039;re not going to plan a 14-day party if you&#039;re pretty sure the groom&#039;s not going to make it out to day two.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, pretty sure a demon&#039;s going to show up and murder that dude in unspecified ways. So yeah, they get married. They have a quick party, like just knock out the Cha Cha Slide real quick. Raphael is the only one who knows how to Charlie Brown. And then they go into that bedroom.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And Tobias is like, &amp;quot;Hang on, this is where all those dudes got killed by demons. Let me real quick make some fish smoke.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;Yeah, I&#039;m going to vape that fish real, real nice. I&#039;m going to put some fish liver in my vaporizer just right quick.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;There&#039;s a lot of ohms, but it&#039;s worth it.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Now, here is again a poor narrative choice. &amp;quot;The odor of the fish so repelled the demon that he fled to the remotest parts of Egypt, but Raphael followed him and at once bound him there hand and foot.&amp;quot; The end.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No more of that story.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s the end of Asmodeus. So, I mean, it&#039;s Egypt because Egypt was associated with demons and magic and evil, dark magic. And so that&#039;s what that&#039;s about. But yeah, it feels like maybe I could get a little less description of the marriage contract and a little bit more of the archangel fighting the prince of hell in the desert, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I feel like there might be a theological reason for that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Do you?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, because presumably, like, we&#039;re all on God&#039;s side in this particular battle if we are engaging with the text. If there is drama to the fight, then there is the possibility that Raphael and therefore God are going to lose.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So presumably it&#039;s just a foregone conclusion, &amp;quot;oh yeah he&#039;s an angel – you know from God?&amp;quot; And that&#039;s that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right. yeah, no, I think you&#039;re absolutely right, but the fact that there&#039;s not a little bit more to it... but then again, it also shows you the author of Tobit&#039;s interest is in Tobias, not in Raphael. Right? It&#039;s Tobias&#039; story. The angel&#039;s just there to help him. So.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So what does Tobias do? Can we say &amp;quot;bones down&amp;quot; on this show? Because that is what happens.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s true. I&#039;m going to say yes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Clip from Brooklyn &#039;99: [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4UmQ1J2LmM0?t=5  How dare you, Detective Diaz? I am your superior officer! Bone! What happens in my bedroom, detective, is none of your business. Bone! Don&#039;t ever speak to me like that again.] ]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So that&#039;s what happens. Then they party for a full fortnight. They party for two weeks, which, again, I cannot stress this enough, is two extra weeks that Tobit is blind.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; They party so long that back at home, Tobit and Mrs. Tobit.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Anna is her name.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Tobit and Anna are like, oh, I guess our kid&#039;s dead.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, yeah, Anna is giving into despair. She&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Oh, Tobias is dead.&amp;quot; But Tobit is very much like, &amp;quot;He&#039;s probably fine. Who knows? All sorts of things could happen out there.&amp;quot; So yeah, Tobit&#039;s wife is Anna. I should also point out Raguel&#039;s wife&#039;s name is Edna, which is one of those that&#039;s a little bit shocking to hit in the Bible. Like I found out, I found out recently that there&#039;s a woman named Candace in the Bible. That feels weird.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I read recently that Tiffany was actually a name in the Middle Ages and that it is related to Theophilus.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Probably Theophania, I would guess, probably. So like the appearance of God, something like that, probably.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Someone was writing about how because of our perceptions about the past, like you could, it would be very historically accurate to have a couple in like the 13th century named Tiffany and Chad.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; But no readers would accept that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Which I think is very interesting.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. But it is a little bit strange to just be going along, and it&#039;s like, &amp;quot;and then Edna said,&amp;quot; yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So they party for two weeks. Then they head home. It&#039;s,&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s a party of 4 now.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, the thing is, Tobias does get worried about his parents. And so because he has sworn an oath to Raguel, that he won&#039;t leave the wedding party, he sends Raphael in his place to go get the 10 talents of silver from Gabael. And so that shows you how much at this point Tobias trusts Azariah, that he would send him completely in his place to go and get the money, which he does. He goes and Raphael, of course, says all the right things he needs to get the 10 talents of silver. And then he comes back and then yeah, Tobias, now with his wife and then half of Raguel&#039;s wealth and 10 talents of silver and an archangel, and by the way, a dog comes rolling back.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Second and final mention of the dog. I highlighted them both.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Comes rolling back home. Yeah, here it is. &amp;quot;When they came near to Kaserin, which is opposite Nineveh, Raphael said, &#039;You are aware of how we left your father. Let us run ahead of your wife and prepare the house while they are still on the way.&#039; As they went on together Raphael said to him, ‘Have the gall ready.’ And the dog went along behind them.&amp;quot; There it is.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So they just right quick, completely cure Tobit&#039;s blindness.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And Tobit is like, this is awesome. We&#039;re rich, which means I can give all of this money to the poor. You got a wife and took out a demon. We got a dog now, which is great.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I didn&#039;t know we had a dog. I just thought it was another stolen goat.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; But what I like about how he heals is it&#039;s not even, he doesn&#039;t even take the gall and rub it in his eyes. He like pulverizes it in his hand and then blows it into his face. And he doesn&#039;t even tell him he&#039;s going to do it. He just walks right up to him. &amp;quot;Then Anna ran up to her son and threw her arms around him, saying, &#039;Now that I have seen you, my child, I am ready to die.&#039; And she wept. Then Tobit got up and came stumbling out through the courtyard door. Tobias went up to him, with the gall of the fish in his hand, and holding him firmly, he blew into his eyes, saying, &#039;Take courage, father.&#039; With this he applied the medicine on his eyes, and it made them smart. Next, with both his hands he peeled off the white films from the corners of his eyes. Then Tobit saw his son.&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Gross, by the way. Horrifying.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Don&#039;t put your hands in your dad&#039;s eyes, y&#039;all.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; No, because it&#039;s like, it makes it sound like it&#039;s stickers.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And he&#039;s just like pulling, like, ugh.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Not into it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Don&#039;t you know you&#039;re supposed to take the sticker off? That&#039;s why the touch screen isn&#039;t working. You left the sticker on. Dad.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So then, everything has been solved. We have our classic comedy ending we have a wedding and then a blindness cure. Then, Raphael walks up to Tobias and Sarah and he&#039;s like, &amp;quot;Hey guys I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who stand ready and enter before the glory of the Lord,&amp;quot;which is a pretty heavy thing for your bro to drop on you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;That was me.&amp;quot; And my favorite detail is he says, &amp;quot;remember when you thought I was eating? That was an illusion!&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;You can&#039;t be an angel, I saw you eat a fish!&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; &amp;quot;No man it was all a trick! I was just I turned my head to the side and I made it look like it was going into my open mouth but I actually dropped it into my sleeve and then later flung it into a planter later. He says, &amp;quot;Although you were watching me, I really did not eat or drink anything—but what you saw was a vision,&amp;quot; and then he ascended. He&#039;s like, by the way, peace out.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; I don&#039;t really get angel rules yet. I&#039;m sure we&#039;ll run into that at some point. We got to get into some, some angelology.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we will.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Because there are rules about angels of which, with which we are not familiar.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Like how they don&#039;t eat. They don&#039;t eat and they just wear black baseball caps.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; They don&#039;t get married. That&#039;s the thing we learned in the gospels.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So everything ends up well. We get some final moral lessons. And then Tobit dies at 117 years old.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So really, he was only blind for four years of that. So it&#039;s really – it&#039;s basically nothing.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Could have been blind for like three years and 11 months. But his son needed to party down with his new wife.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s true. Yeah. Yeah, he was 62 when he lost his eyesight. And then he regains it and lives to be 112. And then we see that Tobias has seven sons. So that&#039;s good. That&#039;s the perfect maximum number of sons.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; It&#039;s as many as you could possibly have.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; As many as there could possibly be.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Oh, and then it&#039;s Tobias who lives to be 117.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Anna lives for a long time as well. Everything goes great. And then we also get a reference to Ahikar again. We see, &amp;quot;For I see that there is much wickedness within it, and that much deceit is practiced within it, while the people are without shame. See, my son, what Nadab did to Ahikar who had reared him. Was he not, while still alive, brought down into the earth? For God repaid him to his face for this shameful treatment. Ahikar came out into the light, but Nadab went into the eternal darkness, because he tried to kill Ahikar. Because he gave alms, Ahikar escaped the fatal trap that Nadab had set for him, but Nadab fell into it himself, and was destroyed.&amp;quot; So that kind of assumes a familiarity with the story of Ahikar there, right? But we get the idea here and we get a restatement of one of the major themes. The two main themes, give alms, bury the dead. It does do those. Those are like the two main things. If you want to be a good boy like Tovi and Toviah, who both are so good they got good in their name.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; All right. So that&#039;s it. That&#039;s the book of Tobit.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. Pretty cool, right?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Did you have a preferred verse that you wanted to talk about?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, I do. And I think you like this one too. This is from Tobit&#039;s long set of instructions for his son. Chapter 4. This is verse 14. &amp;quot;Do not keep over until the next day the wages of those who work for you, but pay them at once. If you serve God you will receive payment.&amp;quot; As a freelancer, I find this very good advice that editors might take to heart.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; When you get that invoice, remit promptly.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; How about you, man? You got a fave?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. I really liked the bit in chapter four because Tobit says a lot of, let&#039;s just say, disagreeable things in this. But it is important to remember that Tobit, like many of the biblical figures we&#039;ve seen, hates having money.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And knows what you should do with it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; In Tobit chapter 4, verses 10 and 11, &amp;quot;For almsgiving delivers from death and keeps you from going into the Darkness. Indeed, almsgiving, for all who practise it, is an excellent offering in the presence of the Most High.&amp;quot; Which I think is nice.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It is very nice. I mean, here&#039;s the thing I like about the book of Tobit. Once you remove Asmodeus, once you chain him up in Egypt, everyone in this book is a pure, likable, perfect person. They just want to do good things. It&#039;s like it&#039;s not just Tobit. It&#039;s not just Anna. It&#039;s also Raguel is very good, and he only wants the best for his people. Edna, Raphael, Gabael, anyone.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sarah.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Sarah too. Anyone in the book is such a perfect, pure cinnamon roll of a person.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; There&#039;s another real quick bit that I like. This is in chapter 13, verse 2, when they are talking about God. It says, &amp;quot;For he afflicts, and he shows mercy; he leads down to Hades in the lowest regions of the earth, and he brings up from the great abyss, and there is nothing that can escape his hand.&amp;quot; Which I think is a very, very nicely worded passage.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, it&#039;s really good. Tobias, or Tobit&#039;s, rather, Prayer of Thanksgiving here, his song of thanksgiving is really nice and it&#039;s a really good shout out to the exiles, right? It&#039;s very nice because he knows like people they&#039;re away from home but he knows God&#039;s gonna bring &#039;em back and so you know, &amp;quot;Acknowledge him before the nations, O children of Israel; for he has scattered you among them. He has shown you his greatness even there. Exalt him in the presence of every living being, because he is our Lord and he is our God.&amp;quot; and so he&#039;s just like shout out to all the exiles out there, stay strong. We&#039;ll go back home. And you know what? He was right. And they did. And not just once, right? Assyrian exile, Babylonian exile, diaspora. It&#039;s, I mean, rough times. It&#039;s so tough. There are multiple sad holidays in the Jewish calendar. But, you know, God&#039;s still looking out and Tobit recognizes that. It&#039;s really nice. Chapter 13.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, and I really like that. That is the kind of Bible verse that has that ominous ring to it that there is nothing that can escape his hand. But what it&#039;s talking about is lifting people up from hell. That is a nice thing to take comfort in because I like that it acknowledges – we&#039;ve seen in the Gospels, we saw Jesus say, &amp;quot;Hey, nothing bad is going to happen to you. Don&#039;t worry about it.&amp;quot; Did not actually turn out to be the case for all but one of the apostles.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Right.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; One of them exploded, several were crucified.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. many were stabbed with spears, etc. Of course, like we said in our gospel episodes, martyrdom was considered a happy ending like for so much of early christianity. I forget, I didn&#039;t even mention, I should have mentioned, like, even up through the middle ages because I thought we were talking definitely about early christianity where martyrdom narratives were, like I mentioned [[Sin-onyms, The Devil&#039;s Argument | Perpetua and Felicitas]], like that&#039;s a major early one where that&#039;s considered a happy story, where the two protagonists are killed. But even you get into the the middle ages and you&#039;ve got this nun named Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim who actually, very notable in the middle ages for writing comedies, like she writes comedic plays that are full of slapstick, right? But they&#039;re fully comedies because they end with the main characters getting martyred. They&#039;re big slapstick comedies in which the main characters are all killed and go to heaven at the end, so like martyrdom was the happy ending for christians for a very long time.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; And like, Santa Barbara you might have heard of Saint Barbara, she probably has the best because she is martyred, and then gets revenge from beyond the grave with explosions.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, she&#039;s the patron of explosions now.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. But I do like this acknowledgement that like, that even if suffering is going to be inevitable, like, yeah. Hey, sometimes it sucks out there, everybody, but here&#039;s hoping that Raphael will show up and teach somebody how to rub fish parts on your eyes.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; It could happen.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; So that&#039;s Tobit, everybody. We hope you enjoyed that little trip to the capital-A Apocrypha with us. Benito, do you want to talk about what we&#039;re doing next?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. We had something planned, we were going to get started, but we&#039;re going to push it back a little bit because it&#039;s another big thing, and because of missing a week last week, it kind of threw our schedule off a little bit. So we do have another big thing planned, but we&#039;re going to be starting it not next week, and not the week after that, but the week after that we&#039;ll be starting a new big series. And so next week, let&#039;s not be done with Tobit&#039;s family, what say. And so for next week, we&#039;re going to be reading and discussing the Story of Ahikar. So we&#039;re going to learn all about Tobias&#039;s cousin, Ahikar, the wise vizier who was framed by his adopted son. And I&#039;ll have a link for that for you guys that you can find on our blog, or you can find it also on earlyjewishwritings.com. We&#039;ve been using earlychristianwritings.com a lot, but there&#039;s also an early Jewish writings. If you guys want to go there, you can find a link to the complete text of the story of Ahikar. And that&#039;s what we&#039;ll be doing next week.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah. So in the meantime, where can everybody find us online?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Well, if you want to find links to such things as that, as well as supplemental art and music videos, sometimes and maps and all sorts of that kind of thing, you can find us at apocrypals.tumblr.com. If you like the show and you want to help us keep it going, help us improve it, help pay for things like the hosting and those very good music cues that Chris always drops in the show. If you want to help us out with that, you can leave us a tip at K O dash F I dot com slash apocrypals. That&#039;s ko-fi.com/apocarpals. And there you can leave us a tip in increments of $3. So you can be $3, $6, $9, or even $153, which, as a number, I realized upon re-listening to our previous episode is not a prime number but is in fact a multiple of three. Thank you no one. Thank you that no one called me out on that particular mistake. Although someone did call me out on the fact that actual historical Spartacus was not crucified, only movie Spartacus was crucified. Anyway thank you for not calling me out on my math there.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; We talked about Xena–&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I know&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; In that same discussion.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; I feel very justified in the fact that I could say Spartacus is a famous crucify-ee, because people are more familiar with the movie version. So I feel like I can say Spartacus is a famous crucified guy. And even if actual Spartacus presumably died in action, 6,000 of his men and supporters were crucified by Marcus Crassus. So by association, I think I&#039;m still pretty solid, including Spartacus in our list of famous crossboys.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Point being, thank you to everyone who has donated.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, also that.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; Over at kofi.com/apocrypals. Thank you if you have left a review, if you have talked about the show. We do appreciate that. As long as you are not saying mean things about me personally, please continue to do so.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;B:&#039;&#039;&#039; Yeah, we appreciate anybody who uses #apocrypals on Twitter. If we see you there, we might engage, probably retweet. And we super love, we love you all, but we super love people who leave written reviews on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Just in an informal way, I was thinking it would be really great if we could get to 100 reviews and ratings on Apple Podcasts by Chris&#039;s birthday, which is August 12th. We&#039;re a little over halfway there. I don&#039;t know if we&#039;ll be able to make it, but if you&#039;re listening and you haven&#039;t left a review, or a rating on Apple Podcasts. It would be really cool to do that because it helps us get noticed. It helps us get featured in such categories as best Christian comedy shows like we are.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&#039;&#039;&#039;C:&#039;&#039;&#039; That&#039;s it for this week. And yes, that big undertaking that we are going to be doing soon is probably the one you&#039;re thinking of. So be here for that. But in the meantime, we&#039;ve got a lot of fun stuff planned. So until then, for Benito Cereno, I&#039;ve been Chris Sims. Peace be with you.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[Music: &amp;quot;Carry On Wayward Son&amp;quot; by Kansas]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Episode_List&amp;diff=134</id>
		<title>Episode List</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Episode_List&amp;diff=134"/>
		<updated>2025-03-08T16:34:09Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: /* Episodes */&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;In each episode, [[Benito Cereno|Benito]] and [[Chris Sims|Chris]] read, watch or play something from the Bible (or Bible-adjacent) and talk about its history, authors, and contents. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
You can listen to all episodes at the show&#039;s [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com Libsyn page] or by subscribing through [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/apocrypals/id1366302177 Apple Podcasts]. [[Bonus Episodes|Bonus video episodes]] can all be seen on [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvsqJ485UTPgVIP1i-BTgMfSsmk4S7ouE Benito&#039;s YouTube channel].&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Episodes==&lt;br /&gt;
{| class=&amp;quot;wikitable sortable&amp;quot; style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
! Episode !! &amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;Date&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp; !! Title !! Subject !! Source !! Transcript&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/episode-0-ive-been-to-my-share-of-pizza-parties 0] || 2018-03-29 || [[I&#039;ve Been To My Share of Pizza Parties]] || nonspecific || || [[I&#039;ve Been To My Share of Pizza Parties (Transcript) | Yes]] &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/porky-party-the-book-of-acts 1] || 2018-04-08 || [[Porky Party]] || Acts || New Testament || [[Porky Party (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/2-one-weird-trick-the-book-of-daniel-with-apocrypha 2] || 2018-04-14 || [[One Weird Trick]] || Daniel as well as The Prayer of Azariah aka the Song of the Three Holy Children; Susanna; and Bel and the Dragon || Tanakh and Deuterocanon  || [[One Weird Trick (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/3-various-heresies-the-acts-of-peter-and-paul 3] || 2018-04-22 || [[Various Heresies]] || The Acts of Peter and The Acts of Peter and Paul || Apocrypha  || [[Various Heresies (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/4-wittgensteins-monster-the-book-of-isaiah 4] || 2018-05-06 || [[Wittgenstein&#039;s Monster]] || The Book of Isaiah || Tanakh || [[Wittgenstein&#039;s Monster (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/5-on-the-road-to-rome-pauls-letter-to-the-romans 5] || 2018-05-20 || [[On the Road to Rome]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Romans || New Testament || [[On the Road to Rome (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/6-fresh-prince-of-beliar-the-ascension-of-isaiah 6] || 2018-05-27 || [[Fresh Prince of Beliar]] || The Ascension of Isaiah &amp;amp; The Prayer of Manasseh || Pseudepigrapha and Deuterocanon  || [[ Fresh Prince of Beliar (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/7-neon-genesis-good-news-the-gospel-of-mark-and-secret-mark-0 7] || 2018-06-03 || [[Neon Genesis Good News]] || The Gospel of Mark and Secret Mark || New Testament and Apocrypha  || [[Neon Genesis Good News (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/8-whats-up-doctor-goodacre-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-one 8] || 2018-06-10 || [[What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre]] || The Gospel of Matthew, Part One || New Testament  || [[ What&#039;s Up, Doctor Goodacre (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/9-simon-peters-sweet-sixteen-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-two 9] || 2018-06-24 || [[Simon Peter&#039;s Sweet Sixteen]] || The Gospel of Matthew, Part Two || New Testament || [[Simon Peter&#039;s Sweet Sixteen (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/10-the-dude-hates-wizards-the-gospel-of-luke 10] || 2018-07-02 || [[The Dude Hates Wizards]] || The Gospel of Luke || New Testament || [[The Dude Hates Wizards (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/11-90s-vertigo-jesus-the-gospel-of-john-part-one 11] || 2018-07-09 || [[90s Vertigo Jesus]] || The Gospel of John, Part One || New Testament  || [[ 90s Vertigo Jesus (Transcript)| Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/12-whomst-was-at-the-tombst-the-gospel-of-john-part-two 12] || 2018-07-15 || [[Whomst Was At the Tombst?]] || The Gospel of John, Part Two || New Testament || [[ Whomst Was At the Tombst? (Transcript)| Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/11-90s-vertigo-jesus-the-gospel-of-john-part-one 13] || 2018-07-30 || [[Bonus Goat]] || The Deuterocanonical Book of Tobit || Deuterocanon  || [[Bonus Goat (Transcript)|Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/14-the-boy-related-eagle-plan-the-story-of-ahikar 14] || 2018-08-06 || [[The Boy-Related Eagle Plan]] || The Story of Ahikar || Pseudepigrapha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/15-an-approximate-week-the-golden-legend-st-christopher-and-st-benedict 15] || 2018-08-13 || [[An Approximate Week]] || The Golden Legend: St. Christopher and St. Benedict || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/16-doamurder-west-virginia-the-book-of-genesis-part-1 16] || 2018-08-19 || [[Doamurder, West Virginia]] || The Book of Genesis, Part 1 || Tanakh || [[Doamurder, West Virginia (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/17-five-gallons-of-bread-the-book-of-genesis-part-two 17] || 2018-08-27 || [[Five Gallons of Bread]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Two || Tanakh  || [[Five Gallons of Bread (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/18-literally-and-figuratively-wrestling-with-god-the-book-of-genesis-part-three-0 18] || 2018-09-09 || [[Literally and Figuratively Wrestling With God]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Three || Tanakh || [[ Literally and Figuratively Wrestling With God (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/19-mbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbam-the-book-of-genesis-part-four 19] || 2018-09-23 || [[MBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBaM]] || The Book of Genesis, Part Four || Tanakh  || [[ MBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBaM (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/20-shalom-birdie-genesis-commentary-with-david-wolkin 20] || 2018-09-30 || [[Shalom Birdie (with David Wolkin)]] || The Book of Genesis || Tanakh  || [[ Shalom Birdie (with David Wolkin) (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/21-biblerella-the-acts-of-paul-and-thecla 21] || 2018-10-07 || [[Biblerella]] || The Acts of Paul and Thecla || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/22-oceans-two-the-book-of-judith 22] || 2018-10-15 || [[Ocean&#039;s Two]] || The Book of Judith || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/23-dunking-on-satan-the-acts-of-pilate-and-the-gospel-of-nicodemus 23] || 2018-10-21 || [[Dunking on Satan]] || The Acts of Pilate and The Gospel of Nicodemus || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/25-butt-stuff-dragon-the-testament-of-solomon 24] || 2018-10-29 || [[Butt Stuff Dragon]] || The Testament of Solomon || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/25-one-rinthies-baby-first-corinthians 25] || 2018-11-14 || [[One Rinthies, Baby]] || First Corinthians || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/26-some-other-christmas-man-the-lives-of-st-nicholas-and-st-lucy 26] || 2018-11-19 || [[Some Other Christmas Man]] || The Lives of St. Nicholas and St. Lucy || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/27-the-book-of-the-dynasty-of-gods-resisters-the-first-book-of-maccabees 27] || 2018-12-02 || [[The Book of the Dynasty of God&#039;s Resisters]] || The First Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/28-second-maccabees-second-furious-the-second-book-of-maccabees 28] || 2018-12-10 || [[Second Maccabees Second Furious]] || The Second Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/29-these-apocryphal-ravings-the-infancy-gospel-of-james 29] || 2018-12-16 || [[These Apocryphal Ravings]] || The Infancy Gospel of James || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/30-apples-and-oranges-the-legend-of-the-three-kings 30] || 2019-01-07 || [[Apples and Oranges]] || The Legend of the Three Kings by John of Hildesheim || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/31-yartzed-upon-a-distant-shore-the-book-of-jonah 31] || 2019-01-24 || [[Yartzed Upon a Distant Shore]] || The Book of Jonah || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/32-return-of-the-twelve-foot-volcel-lion-questions-answers 32] || 2019-02-03 || [[Return of the Twelve-Foot Volcel Lion]] || Questions &amp;amp; Answers || Listener questions  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/33-thicc-darkness-the-book-of-exodus-part-one 33] || 2019-02-10 || [[Thicc Darkness]] || The Book of Exodus, Part One || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/34-thorn-bushes-and-pushups-the-song-of-songs 34] || 2019-02-24 || [[Thorn Bushes and Pushups]] || The Song of Songs || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/35-down-in-the-donkey-hole-the-book-of-exodus-part-two 35] || 2019-03-03 || [[Down in the Donkey Hole]] || The Book of Exodus, Part Two || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/36-grazacham-the-life-of-st-patrick 36] || 2019-03-12 || [[GRAZACHAM!]] || Muirchu’s Life of Saint Patrick || Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/37-bigger-esther-the-book-of-esther-and-greek-esther 37] || 2019-03-20 || [[Bigger Esther]] || The Book of Esther and Greek Esther || Tanakh and Deuterocanon ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/38-sword-drill-online-bible-trivia-special 38] || 2019-03-31 || [[Sword Drill Online]] || Bible Trivia Special || Complete Book of Bible Trivia  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/39-rain-is-boy-water-the-book-of-enoch-part-one 39] || 2019-04-07 || [[Rain is Boy Water]] || The Book of Enoch, Part One || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/40-devil-got-a-hog-the-book-of-enoch-part-two 40] || 2019-04-19 || [[Devil Got a Hog]] || The Book of Enoch, Part Two || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/41-neo-mary-is-about-to-e-x-p-l-o-d-e-the-questions-of-bartholomew 41] || 2019-04-29 || [[Neo-Mary Is About To E X P L O D E]] || Questions of Bartholomew and The Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Bartholomew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/42-the-roasting-of-the-apostle-paul-second-corinthians 42] || 2019-05-06 || [[The Roasting of the Apostle Paul]] || Second Corinthians || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/43-why-prophets-so-nasty-the-book-of-jeremiah 43] || 2019-05-27 || [[Why Prophets So Nasty?]] || The Book of Jeremiah || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/44-terms-and-conditions-the-book-of-jeremiah-part-2 44] || 2019-06-23 || [[Terms and Conditions]] || The Book of Jeremiah, Part 2 || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/45-mummy-dust-and-skeleton-bones-the-book-of-ruth 45] || 2019-07-14 || [[Mummy Dust and Skeleton Bones]] || The Book of Ruth || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/46-ctrl-z-on-a-murder-the-acts-of-john 46] || 2019-08-09 || [[CTRL-Z On A Murder]] || The Acts of John || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/47-approximate-week-ii-the-quickening-the-syriac-infancy-gospel 47] || 2019-08-21 || [[Approximate Week II: The Quickening]] || The Syriac Infancy Gospel || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/48-the-almighty-ambush-bear-the-book-of-lamentations 48] || 2019-08-28 || [[The Almighty Ambush Bear]] || The Book of Lamentations || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/49-wajesus-the-first-second-and-third-epistles-of-john 49] || 2019-09-16 || [[Wajesus]] || The First, Second, and Third Epistles of John || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/50-the-terf-of-babylon-the-revelation-of-john-0 50] || 2019-10-02 || [[The TERF of Babylon]] || The Revelation of John || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/51-jesus-buffy-halloween-chick-tracts 51] || 2019-10-28 || [[Jesus, Buffy]] || Halloween Chick Tracts || Chick Tracts  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/51-apocrypals-chris-and-benito-the-book-of-ecclesiastes 52] || 2019-11-24 || [[Apocrypals Chris And Benito]] || The Book of Ecclesiastes || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/52-maccabees-3-elephant-drift-the-third-book-of-maccabees 53] || 2019-12-08 || [[Maccabees 3: Elephant Drift]] || The Third Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/54-our-favorite-murders-the-infancy-gospel-of-thomas 54] || 2019-12-22 || [[Our Favorite Murders]] || The Infancy Gospel of Thomas || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/55-the-parable-of-the-sexy-blood-baby-the-book-of-ezekiel-part-one 55] || 2020-01-12 || [[The Parable of the Sexy Blood Baby]] || The Book of Ezekiel, Part One || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/56-welcome-to-the-bone-zone-the-book-of-ezekiel-part-two 56] || 2020-01-26 || [[Welcome to the Bone Zone]] || The Book of Ezekiel, Part Two || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/57-we-holy-ghost-bro-the-life-of-xanthippe-polyxena-and-rebecca 57] || 2020-02-08 || [[We Holy Ghost, Bro?]] || The Life of Xanthippe, Polyxena, and Rebecca || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/58-blaise-your-dead-homie-the-lives-of-st-sebastian-st-blaise-and-st-agatha 58] || 2020-02-23 || [[Blaise, Your Dead Homie]] || The Lives of St. Sebastian, St. Blaise, and St. Agatha || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/59-source-of-the-flow-the-book-of-leviticus 59] || 2020-03-08 || [[Source of the Flow]] || The Book of Leviticus || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/59-joses-crust-the-acts-of-andrew-and-matthias 60] || 2020-03-22 || [[Joses Crust]] || The Acts of Andrew and Matthias || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/60-countless-large-gregs-the-second-book-of-enoch 61] || 2020-04-05 || [[Countless Large Gregs]] || The Second Book of Enoch || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/62-oh-the-jews-manatees-the-book-of-numbers 62] || 2020-04-19 || [[Oh, the Jews&#039; Manatees!]] || The Book of Numbers || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/63-wist-not-to-whom-ne-whither-the-lives-of-st-roche-and-st-guinefort 63] || 2020-05-06 || [[Wist Not To Whom Ne Whither]] || The Lives of St. Roche and St. Guinefort || Golden Legend, Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/64-spiritual-warfare-is-good-actually-bible-adventures-and-the-wisdom-tree-catalogue 64] || 2020-05-18 || [[Spiritual Warfare Is Good, Actually]] || Bible Adventures and the Wisdom Tree catalogue || Video Games  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/65-adonai-is-ichiban-the-book-of-deuteronomy 65] || 2020-06-02 || [[Adonai is Ichiban!]] || The Book of Deuteronomy || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/66-jesus-with-two-cool-ses-the-acts-of-thomas-and-his-wonderworking-skin 66] || 2020-06-14 || [[JeSuS With Two Cool Ses]] || The Acts of Thomas and his Wonderworking Skin || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/67-bad-things-to-call-your-mother-the-book-of-bartholomew 67] || 2020-06-28 || [[Bad Things to Call Your Mother]] || The Book of Bartholomew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/68-scent-of-a-jesus-the-first-second-and-third-apocryphal-apocalypses-of-john 68] || 2020-07-12 || [[Scent of a Jesus]] || The First, Second, and Third Apocryphal Apocalypses of John || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/69-thirst-corinthians-the-lives-of-st-mary-of-egypt-and-st-pelagia 69] || 2020-07-26 || [[Thirst Corinthians]] || The Lives of St. Mary of Egypt and St. Pelagia || Separate books  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xHQHK_SLX8 69 Secret] || 2020-08-28 || [[Secret 69]] || The Greater Questions of Mary || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/70-two-firkin-bored-the-letter-of-aristeas-0 70] || 2020-08-09 || [[Two Firkin Bored]] || The Letter of Aristeas || Pseudepigrapha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/71-approximate-week-chapter-3-parabellum-the-war-scroll 71] || 2020-08-23 || [[Approximate Week Chapter 3: Parabellum]] || The War Scroll || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/72-cold-brew-paul-pauls-letter-to-the-galatians 72] || 2020-09-06 || [[Cold Brew Paul]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Galatians || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/73-be-courageous-the-book-of-joshua 73] || 2020-09-20 || [[Be Courageous!]] || The Book of Joshua || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/74-howl-of-the-ostrich-the-books-of-micah-and-nahum 74] || 2020-10-04 || [[Howl of the Ostrich]] || The Books of Micah and Nahum || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/75-lazer-babies-the-apocalypse-of-peter 75] || 2020-10-18 || [[Lazer Babies]] || The Apocalypse of Peter || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/76-filling-the-room-the-life-of-st-martin 76] || 2020-11-01 || [[Filling the Room]] || The Life of St. Martin || Separate books  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/77-the-blessed-voltrons-the-lives-of-st-catherine-and-st-barbara 77] || 2020-11-15 || [[The Blessed Voltrons]] || The Lives of St. Catherine and St. Barbara || Golden Legend ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/78-maccabees-the-fourth-book-of-maccabees 78] || 2020-11-29 || [[MACCABEES]] || the Fourth Book of Maccabees || Deuterocanon  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/79-marys-christmas-the-infancy-gospel-of-pseudo-matthew 79] || 2020-12-13 || [[Marys Christmas]] || The Infancy Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/bonus-bill-bless-us-every-ted-christmas-gift-exchange-2020 79 Bonus] || 2020-12-22 || [[Bill Bless Us, Every Ted]] || Christmas Gift Exchange 2020 || The Joy of Friendship  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/80-the-deadliest-skambush-of-them-all-the-book-of-judges 80] || 2021-01-10 || [[The Deadliest Skambush of Them All]] || The Book of Judges || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/81-sometimes-its-just-sucky-pauls-letter-to-the-ephesians 81] || 2021-01-24 || [[Sometimes It&#039;s Just Sucky]] || Paul&#039;s Letter to the Ephesians || New Testament ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/82-sedeqetelebab-the-book-of-jubilees 82] || 2021-02-07 || [[Sedeqetelebab!]] || The Book of Jubilees Pt 1 || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/83-speedrun-tactics-the-book-of-jubilees-part-2 83] || 2021-02-21 || [[Speedrun Tactics]] || The Book of Jubilees Pt 2 || Pseudepigrapha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/84-just-one-more-thing-the-life-of-st-columba 84] || 2021-03-07 || [[Just One More Thing]] || The Life of St. Columba || Hagiography  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/85-old-clootie-the-life-of-st-dunstan 85] || 2021-03-21 || [[Old Clootie]] || The Life of St. Dunstan || Golden Legend ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/87-god-junior-the-third-book-of-enoch-part-1 86] || 2021-04-04 || [[God Junior]] || The Third Book of Enoch (Part 1) || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/87-crisis-on-18000-earths-the-third-book-of-enoch-part-2 87] || 2021-04-18 || [[Crisis On 18,000 Earths]] || The Third Book of Enoch (Part 2) || Pseudepigrapha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/88-a-miserable-pile-of-secrets-the-da-vinci-code-commentary 88] || 2021-05-09 || [[A Miserable Pile of Secrets]] || The Da Vinci Code, the film || Fiction  || [[A Miserable Pile of Secrets (Transcript) | Yes ]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/89-2000-bc-the-first-book-of-samuel 89] || 2021-05-23 || [[2000 B.C.]] || The First Book of Samuel || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/90-worfin-the-lions-the-second-book-of-samuel-part-1 90] || 2021-06-06 || [[Worfin’ the Lions]] || The Second Book of Samuel (Part 1) || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt4B2OXgHN4 90.1] || 2021-06-20 || [[Double Chai: Rock Me, Asmodeus]] || Solomon and the Devil || Talmudic Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/90-the-me-in-this-story-is-you-the-second-book-of-samuel-part-2 91] || 2021-06-27 || [[The Me In This Story Is You]] || The Second Book of Samuel (Part 2) || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/92-slayer-of-men-conqueror-of-space-the-gospel-of-philip-the-gospel-of-mary-and-the-gospel-of-jesuss-wife-0 92] || 2021-07-11 || [[Slayer of Men, Conqueror of Space]] || The Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Mary, and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife || Apocrypha (Gnostic)  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HKZ-U4W7Ew 92 Bonus] || 2021-08-04 || [[Cephalo4: Protect Yr Neck]] || Cephalophores || Saint stories  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/93-approximate-week-iv-oblivion-joseph-and-aseneth 93] || 2021-08-15 || [[Approximate Week IV: OblIVion]] || Joseph and Aseneth || Apocrypha (Tanakh)  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/94-little-martha-and-the-small-vandellas-the-lives-of-st-mary-magdalene-and-st-wilgefortis 94] || 2021-09-26 || [[Little Martha and the Small Vandellas]] || The Lives of St. Mary Magdalene and St. Wilgefortis || Golden Legend  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/95-an-abyss-of-significant-depth-the-apocalypse-of-paul 95] || 2021-10-10 || [[An Abyss of Significant Depth]] || The Apocalypse of Paul || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/96-the-goku-of-judaism-stories-of-the-baal-shem-tov 96] || 2021-10-24 || [[The Goku of Judaism]] || Stories of the Baal Shem Tov || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbw3BxiTfKU Bonus] || 2021-11-16 || [[Guess the Persona-fied Bible Character]] || Persona 5 || Video Games ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/97-pretty-sus-lesbius-the-acts-of-andrew 97] || 2021-12-02 || [[Pretty Sus, Lesbius]] || The Acts of Andrew || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/98-you-know-the-manger-christmas-chick-tracts 98] || 2021-12-23 || [[You Know, the Manger?]] || Christmas Chick Tracts || Chick Tracts  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/99-for-sale-baby-legs-not-attached-the-first-book-of-kings 99] || 2022-01-30 || [[For Sale, Baby Legs, Not Attached]] || The First Book of Kings || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/100-escape-from-flesh-island-the-gospel-of-judas 100] || 2022-03-05 || [[Escape From Flesh Island]] || The Gospel of Judas || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/101-the-apocrypals-solve-theodicy-the-book-of-job 101] || 2022-04-21 || [[The Apocrypals Solve Theodicy]] || The Book of Job || Tanakh ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/102-napalm-toots-the-lives-of-st-mary-of-bethany-and-st-margaret-of-antioch 102] || 2022-06-12 || [[Napalm Toots]] || The Lives of The Lives of St. Martha of Bethany and St. Margaret of Antioch || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/103-sucky-james-the-history-of-joseph-the-carpenter 103] || 2022-07-03 || [[Sucky James]] || The History of Joseph the Carpenter || Apocrypha  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/104-previously-on-bible-the-epistle-to-the-hebrews 104] || 2022-08-01 || [[Previously, on Bible]] || The Epistle to the Hebrews || New Testament  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/103-approximate-week-v-ravager 105] || 2022-08-12 || [[Approximate Week V: RaVager]] || El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron || Video Games  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/104-a-serious-goku-move-the-second-book-of-kings 106] || 2022-10-30 || [[A Serious Goku Move]] || The Second Book of Kings || Tanakh  ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/107-hellmensch-stories-of-the-baal-shem-tov-vol-2 107] || 2022-11-13 || [[Hellmensch]] || Stories of the Baal Shem Tov || The Golden Mountain by Meyer Levin  || [[Hellmensch (Transcript) | Yes ]] &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/108-skip-this-one-the-book-of-hosea 108] || 2022-11-27 || [[Skip This One]] || The Book of Hosea || Tanakh  || [[  Skip This One (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/109-chris-and-benitos-bible-bonkers-the-didache 109] || 2023-10-11 || [[Chris and Benito&#039;s Bible Bonkers]] || The Didache || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/110-the-beastie-boys-worst-nightmare-the-lock-in-2014 110] || 2023-10-30 || [[The Beastie Boys&#039; Worst Nightmare (The Lock-In (2014))]] || The Lock-In (2014) || Fiction ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/111-all-skips-no-hits-1-chronicles 111] || 2024-08-09 || [[All Skips No Hits]] || 1 Chronicles || Tanakh || [[All Skips No Hits (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot; &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/112-approximate-week-vi-the-undiscovered-country 112] || 2024-08-17 || [[Approximate Week VI: The Undiscovered Country]] || Illuminator || Comics ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/113-jaoel-instant-messenger-the-apocalypse-of-abraham 113] || 2024-09-05 || [[Jaoel Instant Messenger]] || The Apocalypse of Abraham || Apocrypha ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/114-sin-onyms-the-devils-argument-the-martyrdom-of-perpetua-and-felicity 114] || 2024-10-03 || [[Sin-onyms, The Devil&#039;s Argument]] || The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/115-hell-is-the-big-show-the-life-of-st-christina-the-astonishing 115] || 2024-10-27 || [[Hell Is The Big Show]] || The Life of St. Christina the Astonishing || Saint stories ||&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/116-its-his-birthday-be-nice-the-revelation-of-the-magi 116] || 2024-12-22 || [[It&#039;s His BIRTHDAY, Be Nice!]] || The Revelation of the Magi || Pseudepigrapha || &lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;  &lt;br /&gt;
| [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website/117-king-solomons-hog-the-second-book-of-chronicles-feat-aaron-higashi 117] || 2024-02-17 || [[King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi]] || 2 Chronicles || Tanakh || [[King Solomon&#039;s Hog feat. Aaron Higashi (Transcript) | Yes]]&lt;br /&gt;
|}&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Sub-series==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
{| class=&amp;quot;wikitable sortable&amp;quot; style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
! Podcast !! Episode !! &amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;Date&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp;&amp;amp;nbsp; !! Title !! Transcript !! Wolverine Costume&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-01-dr-dan-mcclellan 1] || 2023-04-20 || [[Multipals 01: Dr. Dan McClellan]] || [[Multipals 01: Dr. Dan McClellan (transcript) | Yes]] || Brown and Tan&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-02-aaron-higashi 1] || 2023-06-23 || [[Multipals 02: Aaron Higashi]] || [[Multipals 02: Aaron Higashi (transcript) | Yes]] || Kimono&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-03-anne-thriault 3] || 2023-04-20 || [[Multipals 03: Anne Thériault]] || [[Multipals 03: Anne Thériault (transcript) | Yes]] || Hugh Jackman as the Music Man&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-04-tony-burke-and-janet-spittler 4] || 2023-08-20 || [[Multipals 04: Tony Burke &amp;amp;amp; Janet Spittler]] || [[Multipals 04: Tony Burke &amp;amp;amp; Janet Spittler (transcript) | Yes]] || Brown and Tan / Yellow Guy From Cartoon&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-05-dr-alexiana-fry 5] || 2023-12-13 || [[Multipals 05: Dr. Alexiana Fry]] || [[Multipals 05: Dr. Alexiana Fry (transcript) | Yes]] || Logan (2017) Suit&lt;br /&gt;
|- style=&amp;quot;vertical-align:top;&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
| Multipals || [https://apocrypals.libsyn.com/multipals-06-dr-justin-sledge 6] || 2023-12-13 || [[Multipals 06: Dr. Justin Sledge]] || [[Multipals 06: Dr. Justin Sledge (transcript) | Yes]] || &#039;90s Yellow&lt;br /&gt;
|}&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page&amp;diff=40</id>
		<title>Main Page</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page&amp;diff=40"/>
		<updated>2025-03-07T17:05:24Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;Apocrypals is podcast where two non-believers read through the [[Bible]] and try not to be jerks about it, while preserving their clean tag in iTunes. The show is hosted by [[Glossary#Show_Lingo|a scholar and a clown]], but there is no way to tell which is which. In each episode, your hosts read a passage from Bible (in the broadest conceivable sense) and discuss its origins, authorship, context and events, while making references to pop culture that may include Roy Thomas, anime and professional wrestling. Episodes are released biweekly, barring exigent circumstances, on Sunday mornings at church time, unless [[Chris Sims|Chris]] forgets to set the time, or they go off-schedule. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Your Humble Sons of Thunder™==&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Benito Cereno]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Chris Sims]]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==The Show==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Episode List]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Bonus Episodes]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Rawest Verses]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Glossary]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Reading List]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Recommended Podcasts]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Friends of the Show]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Books of the Bible Not Covered]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Every (Seven) Species Ever]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Mottos]]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2g5DdVJMAd5mwnOxiedcRu?si=cf3cbb27489441a0 Playlist]&lt;br /&gt;
* [[Every Gospel Ever]]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
== For more information ==&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://bsky.app/profile/apocrypals.bsky.social Apocrypals Bluesky]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://twitter.com/apocrypals Apocrypals Twitter] (Do not hit them up here.)&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://apocrypals.tumblr.com Tumblr]&lt;br /&gt;
* &amp;quot;[https://discord.gg/P9q3WbSrTr The horrible clown car that is our Discord server]&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
* [http://apocrypals.libsyn.com/website Website on Libsyn]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://ko-fi.com/apocrypals Make a Donation]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://apocrypals.dashery.com Merch]&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;!-- &lt;br /&gt;
== Getting started ==&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:Configuration_settings Configuration settings list]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/mediawiki-announce.lists.wikimedia.org/ MediaWiki release mailing list]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Localisation#Translation_resources Localise MediaWiki for your language]&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:Combating_spam Learn how to combat spam on your wiki]&lt;br /&gt;
--&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;strong&amp;gt;For an account on this wiki, contact Jemaleddin on the Discord!&amp;lt;/strong&amp;gt;&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
	<entry>
		<id>https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Bonus_Goat&amp;diff=446</id>
		<title>Bonus Goat</title>
		<link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://apocrypals.wiki/index.php?title=Bonus_Goat&amp;diff=446"/>
		<updated>2025-03-07T16:20:59Z</updated>

		<summary type="html">&lt;p&gt;Jemaleddin: /* Favorite Verses */&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr /&gt;
&lt;div&gt;&amp;lt;iframe key=&amp;quot;podcast&amp;quot; path=&amp;quot;embed/episode/id/6863846/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/000000/&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Show Notes==&lt;br /&gt;
We are back, Theophiloi! After a bona fide Act of God, we&#039;ve returned to read the capital-A Apocryphal Book of Tobit, and it is a wild one. Join us for the most canonical of the non-canonical books, in which we find out exactly why you shouldn&#039;t go to sleep under a wall, what fish parts you need if you do, and meet an ironically prudish demon and an angel who&#039;s cool but rude. Plus: What happens if we find a brand new book of the Bible, autographed by God?&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Topics of discussion include: Janelle Monae, Tisha B&#039;Av, the debatable sacrament of Cheddar Bay Biscuits, &amp;quot;The Sons of Thunder,&amp;quot; the Dead Sea Scrolls, Antigone, the second ominous black sarcophagus, the lowercase grateful dead, Monster In The Bridal Chamber as a genre, Jack of the Tales and the sack that he used to capture Death, rough times in Ninevah, Asmodeus, Watership Down (or maybe Redwall?), the Seven Princes of Hell, Solomon and his demon bros, the Malleus Maleficarum aka the Witch Hammer (please note we only endorse the title, not the content), the Lantern of Light, the actual true amount of money for which Julius Caesar was ransomed because I know things sometimes too, Angel Disguises, a continuity patch for the book of Daniel, St. Raphael, Dubuque, Iowa, why angels are also saints, Tobias the Eighth, Tiffany and Chad, the first of many rules about angels, Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Special thanks to Cathy Leamy for telling us about &amp;quot;Sons of Thunder!&amp;quot;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you like the show, why not head to ko-fi.com/apocrypals to pitch in a few bucks? You don&#039;t have to tithe 10% of your income to us, but, I mean, we also wouldn&#039;t turn that down.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Opening Verse==&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Then Tobit answered his son Tobias, ‘He gave me his bond and I gave him my bond. I divided his in two; we each took one part, and I put one with the money. And now twenty years have passed since I left this money in trust. So now, my son, find yourself a trustworthy man to go with you, and we will pay him wages until you return. But get back the money from Gabael.&amp;quot;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;mdash; Tobit 5:3&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Music==&lt;br /&gt;
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X_2IdybTV0 Carry On Wayward Son] by Kansas&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
==Favorite Verses==&lt;br /&gt;
Benito:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;Do not keep over until the next day the wages of those who work for you, but pay them at once. If you serve God you will receive payment.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; Tobit 4:14&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Chris: &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;For almsgiving delivers from death and keeps you from going into the Darkness. Indeed, almsgiving, for all who practise it, is an excellent offering in the presence of the Most High.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; Tobit 4:10-11&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&amp;lt;blockquote&amp;gt;&amp;quot;For he afflicts, and he shows mercy; he leads down to Hades in the lowest regions of the earth, and he brings up from the great abyss, and there is nothing that can escape his hand.&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash; Tobit 13:2&amp;lt;/blockquote&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
[[Category:Deuterocanon]]&lt;/div&gt;</summary>
		<author><name>Jemaleddin</name></author>
	</entry>
</feed>