Data Over Dogma

71:15

Episode 103: The Pastor Skeptic

Data Over Dogma ·

2025/03/24

This week we welcome "deep skeptic" pastor Jeremy Steele to the show. Jeremy has spent recent years building an online congregation of people who don't feel seen or understood by the traditional church. He's here to tell us about life as a pastor, how he gathered his flock, and why people who are deconstructing the theologies they were raised with might still need a community like his.You can find Jeremy on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@skeptic.pastor Or find links to his book How Not to

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58:03

Episode 102: The Dave Ramsey Takedown

Data Over Dogma ·

2025/03/17

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the big fight! In the red corner: personal finance guru and guy who makes millions by making poorer people feel bad about their debt, Dave "how's your retirement fund looking?" Ramsey. And in the blue corner: with a much lighter pocketbook but much heavier t-shirt collection, Dan "alright let's see it" McClellan. What could a Bible scholarship show possibly have to say about a personal finance guy, you might ask. Well, Mr. Ramsey styles himself a Christian personal

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64:58

Episode 101: The Slave Bible

Data Over Dogma ·

2025/03/10

Christians have had a missionary zeal since the beginning. From the dawn of Christianity, the mandate to share the "good news" has been a central theme of Christian life. But what is a Christian to do when it is clear that the audience they want to share the gospel with would react poorly to much of what's in the Bible? Well, at least in one case, the solution was just redact the heck out of it. On this week's show, we're talking about "The Slave Bible," a heavily truncated version of the good

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62:22

Episode 100: Give Me Your Slave!

Data Over Dogma ·

2025/03/03

Come celebrate round numbers with us as we embark on our 100th episode of Data Over Dogma! And what, you might ask, are we doing to mark this grand event? Have we carefully crafted a clips show looking back on the best moments of the last 100 weeks? Have we mindfully chosen topics that relate to the number 100? Well, no. No we haven't. It's just a regular show. Sorry.That said, it's an interesting one! First, we're covering a very interesting letter Paul sent to his buddy Philemon. Aside from

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63:10

Episode 99: Why Can't You Be Like Your Brother?

Data Over Dogma ·

2025/02/24

If you think you had it rough living in your sibling's shadow, just imagine how James, the brother of Jesus must've felt! Well, today James gets his due. We'll discuss who he was, what he did, and what it might mean theologically, that Jesus wasn't an only child.Then, if you listened to this show for more than a few episodes, you're likely to have heard Dan McClellan mention "the Masoretic text". Well... what the heck is that? Never fear! We're going to get you all up to speed on one of the most

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60:35

Episode 98: Did Jesus Go to Hell?

Data Over Dogma ·

2025/02/17

Jesus went to hell! Briefly. He gave the place a look-see after he died, and then left to go be resurrected. Or at least that's the claim that some theologies make. Where did the idea that Jesus visited hell come from? Is it Biblical? I mean, it would have to be, wouldn't it? People wouldn't just make up something like that long after the Bible had been written just because, right? Right? And speaking of hell, not every part of the Bible treats that place the same. In our second segment, we'll

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61:29

Episode 97: The Neighborhood of Make-Believe

Data Over Dogma ·

2025/02/10

Would you be mine, could you be mine, won't you be my neighbor? If you know that song, then you know that at least one person understood Jesus' answer to the lawyer. Far fewer seem to now. But that's in the second half of our show!First, we're exploring some imaginative pretending that would almost be cute if so many people hadn't taken it seriously. It's the amazing amateur (read: fake) archeology of Ron Wyatt. We've encountered Wyatt's work on the show before, because the man was prolific. This

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57:54

Episode 96: "Render Unto Caesar" with Congressperson...

Data Over Dogma ·

2025/02/03

This week we're talking government on the Data Over Dogma show, and woof! It's a doozy!First, we're going into the belly of the beast and talking to and actual, honest-to-goodness United States congressperson. Eric Swalwell has a D next to his name, which, if you ask some in our country, means he's a godless communist. In fact, he's a professed Christian who is nevertheless concerned about the dangerous rise of Christian Nationalism here. He's come on the show to talk about secularism in

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58:21

Episode 95: Uh-Oh, Jericho

Data Over Dogma ·

2025/01/27

"Hey- it sure is raining a lot, do you have a boat?" "No, but I *Noah* guy." That's right, on this week's episode of Data Over Dogma, we're going diluvian all up in here. It's the story of Noah and the great... vinyard? Here's the twist: It seems that the account of Noah we get in our version of Genesis may not be exactly what we were told it was! Then, call Richard Wagner, because we're talking about the power of a strong horns section. It's Joshua's time to shine as he leads the Israelites into

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63:17

Episode 94: Getting to Gnow the Gnostics

Data Over Dogma ·

2025/01/20

Sometimes on this show, big ten-dollar words show up like apotropaic or etiology or deuterocanonical, where, unless you're pretty well-versed in this stuff, you may not know what we're talking about (ok fine- you may not know what Dan M is talking about). This week we're tackling two ten-dollar concepts in one show, so buckle in and bust out twenty bucks!First, we're diving into Gnosticism. We've glanced off this topic several times, but never stopped to talk about what it is. Who were the

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70:32

Episode 93: Banning the Bible?

Data Over Dogma ·

2025/01/13

Better get a lawyer, because Data Over Dogma is getting all kinds of legalistic! There are many who claim that all modern law has a direct lineage back to biblical law. This week, we're going to show several reasons why that probably isn't the case, not the least of which being that biblical law... it's really bad.We'll start by talking about the covenant code. This is the set of laws laid out in Exodus that were meant to govern how the ancient Hebrew people interacted with each other (it's all

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63:06

Episode 92: The Curses of Cain and Ham

Data Over Dogma ·

2025/01/06

Genesis has no shortage of confusing, misleading, and bizarre stories, but this week we're tackling two separate stories that share a particularly ugly history. First, we tell a story in third person. Or rather, a story about the third person. It's Adam and Eve's firstborn, Cain, who killed his brother and was cursed by God. But God also gave him a mark of protection- something on his person that everyone could see, and would ensure nobody would hurt him. But what was that mark, and could the idea

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64:54

Episode 91: Star Spangled Christian Nationalism With...

Data Over Dogma ·

2024/12/30

When you hear the phrase "Christian Nationalism," what do you think of? A harmful set of ideologies that threaten democracy? A buzzword phrase used by bad people to demonize good Christians?April Ajoy has had a journey of conscience from being a full-throated Christian Nationalist to someone fighting against the damage she now sees in that set of dogmas. The real trick of it was that at the time, she didn't know that phrase, or why it would have applied to her. She just thought she was being a

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66:58

Episode 90: With Counter-Apologies

Data Over Dogma ·

2024/12/23

Did NASA confirm the date of the birth of Christ? Are most translations of the Bible wrong about the order of the creation? Will Dan M ever be able to say the word smorgasbord? This week on the Data Over Dogma show, we're honoring the Bible by shredding some bad apologetics! As we say every week on the show, one of our goals is to combat misinformation. Sometimes that means that we combat bad attempts to refute the Bible, and sometimes that means we go up against bad attempts to make the Bible seem

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56:48

Episode 89: Spare the Rod... Please!

Data Over Dogma ·

2024/12/16

Does the Bible really say that parents should beat their children? Yes. Yes it does. AH! But couldn't that verse in Proverbs mean something else? Something a little less abuse-y? Something about a shepherd guiding their sheep? On this week's episode, we'll look at what the author of Proverbs REALLY meant when they said that a parent who spares the rod hates their child. Then, what is Satan's job? Is it to enact the eternal torment of sinners? Or is it possible that Satan's lake of fire has a far

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60:12

Episode 88: Josiah the Cult Killer

Data Over Dogma ·

2024/12/09

When you think cults, chances are you're imagining a documentary series you streamed recently where a shockingly non-dynamic person has somehow managed to convince a group of reasonably intelligent followers that they are the smartest person in the world, and now controls their lives in terrifying ways. So when we talk about "cult centralization," you could be forgiven for not immediately understanding what we're talking about. But stick with us: this one gets really interesting!On this week's

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65:49

Episode 87: The Dans Ruin Christmas

Data Over Dogma ·

2024/12/02

Haul out the holly, 'cause it's Christmas time! And what could be more appropriate for Christmas than to recount the nativity story? Or is it stories?That's right, this week we're looking at the Bible's two competing narratives of the birth of Jesus and asking "hey- what gives?" Because when you read the account in Matthew and the account in Luke, you can't help but notice that they have almost nothing to do with each other. Like... they're two totally different and unrelated tales. How is that

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67:46

Episode 86: Debunking Jesus?

Data Over Dogma ·

2024/11/25

Ooooh! It's de-bunking time! But with a twist: this time we're debunking the debunkers! That’s right, we’re coming after an idea that certain nonbelievers love to throw at Christians to put them in their place. Well, you can stay safely out of place, Christians, because it's the nonbelievers' turn to eat some humble pie.This week's show, we're looking at the theory that Jesus was just one figure in history among many others that share exactly the same story. This idea purports to show that the

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73:20

Episode 85: Purify This! With Logan Williams

Data Over Dogma ·

2024/11/18

The battle has begun! For a long time, scholars have said that Jesus nullified all the former Jewish laws about which foods were okay to eat and which were impure, and therefore not fit for consumption. The main passage that they used to justify this idea comes from Mark 7. Well this week our guest is going to blow your mind. Hint: your stomach might be more powerful than you knew! Logan Williams has just written a paper [you can find it here] that could totally change how scholars view this

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65:07

Episode 84: The Demon Haunted Bible

Data Over Dogma ·

2024/11/11

DEMONS! We're at an interesting crossroads in history. As science is able to explain more and more about how the universe works, and more specifically how we humans work, we find ourselves using supernatural explanations less and less. When, for example, we understand the erratic behavior of a friend as being part of their mental health journey, we're far less likely to turn to hurtful and dangerous religious tropes for our understanding. But that doesn't stop some people from continuing to turn to

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