# Immaculate Apologetics?  ## Episode metadata - Episode title: Immaculate Apologetics? - Show: Data Over Dogma - Owner / Host: Daniel McClellan and Daniel Beecher - Episode publish date: 2025-12-08 - Episode AI description: The hosts dive into the controversial claim that Jesus' crucifixion is better attested than events involving Julius Caesar, challenging historical narratives. They scrutinize manuscript evidence, exposing the limitations in proving the New Testament's historicity. The conversation shifts to the Immaculate Conception, clarifying common misconceptions about its meaning and exploring its historical development. They also discuss Mary's significant cultural impact and veneration through the ages, making for a thought-provoking blend of theology and history. - Mentioned books: [Harry Potter](https://share.snipd.com/book/3836112c-3d89-4636-93fd-7fe9fb7827a5) by [J.K. Rowling](https://share.snipd.com/person/c3e0dcd9-4dab-4a59-bd5b-d655110f9402), [The Bible Says So](https://share.snipd.com/book/a0b9a249-0904-4ce3-b0d7-6000458cd9b3) by [Dan McClellan](https://share.snipd.com/person/25209d25-3415-4657-89e2-eb3b0f8104cb), [Josephus and Jesus](https://share.snipd.com/book/92c88862-e265-4a29-9acb-48018d58186b) by [Tom C. Schmidt](https://share.snipd.com/person/40d665f5-630a-411b-b9ab-3b242d2a0e3c) - Duration: 01:01:51 - Episode URL: [Open in Snipd](https://share.snipd.com/episode/11489e1f-6e06-4d56-afdc-056ffda64446) - Show URL: [Open in Snipd](https://share.snipd.com/show/8153b1cc-d781-49fd-92d5-a4bef70d1be5) - Export date: 2026-02-17T23:21:48 ## Snips ### [Quantity ≠ Historical Certainty](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ef0b618c-9ced-4b0e-b893-03abc960e3b2) 🎧 08:28 - 14:15 (05:47) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/6f7ca099-df72-4cef-87bb-5f878ae40f74" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Manuscript quantity doesn't prove the New Testament's historical accuracy or supernatural claims. - High copy counts mainly let scholars trace transmission, not validate events. #### 💬 Quote > The number of copies has zero relevance to historicity of the stories within the copies. > — Dan McClellan Dan McClellan on why many New Testament manuscripts don't equal proof of events #### 📚 Transcript **Dan McClellan:** Yeah, yeah, I'm happy with it. And some people may have seen this claim going around. There will be a list of ancient writers, Pliny, Plato, Demosthenes, Herodotus, Caesar, Tacitus, Aristotle, whatever. People say, oh, they have, you know, there are only 12 copies of their writings, or there might be 100 copies of their writings. And the approximate gap between the composition of their writings and the earliest manuscript is, you know, 500 years, 1,000 years, 1,300 years, something like that. And then they'll say, but the New Testament has 5,700 or 5,800 ancient Greek manuscripts. And then if you take translations, it has over 24,000 ancient manuscripts. with the earliest coming less than 100 years after original composition. And so what this is supposed to be is evidence that there is something unique, something almost supernatural or otherworldly about the preservation and the transmission of the text of the New Testament as historical witnesses to the life of Jesus Christ. Well, I mean, okay, I will say this. Taking it on **Dan Beecher:** its face, if I believe, and I don't know whether I'm meant to believe this or not, but let's just say that there are 5,800 manuscripts of the New Testament or 20,000 or whatever it is by their reckoning. That's impressive. That's a lot. And if you compare that to a few hundred of the other things, that sounds like a big deal. Yeah. But number of copies doesn't sound like the same thing as historical attestation for something. **Dan McClellan:** Yes, that's the biggest problem with this argument, is the number of copies has zero relevance to historicity of the stories within the copies. So there are literally hundreds of millions of copies of Harry Potter in circulation. Right, right. That means nothing about the historicity of the stories within those copies of Harry Potter. **Dan Beecher:** Because we all know that Dumbledore existed, but Hagrid did not. Hagrid was a wholly made-up person. Yes, that's a late interpolation. **Dan McClellan:** And additionally, the length of time between the original composition and the earliest surviving manuscript. Also, it has something to do with our ability to reconstruct the transmission of the manuscript and its state at a period closer to its original composition. And so having 5,800 Greek New Testament manuscripts that range from the early 2nd century CE all the way down to the invention of the printing press. That gives us a lot of data to be able to track the transmission and the growth and change of these manuscripts. And that's very, very helpful, but also has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the historicity of the narratives within those manuscripts. It's a completely separate issue. And so the notion that this makes Jesus the best attested figure from ancient history is profoundly silly. And another thing to consider is that when we look at the 5,800 Greek New Testament manuscripts, the second century, people say, oh yeah, the earliest copy comes from less than 100 years after its composition. And that would be a little piece of papyrus called P52, Papyrus 52. It's a fragment, kind of triangular in shape, about the size of a credit card. It's got about 36-ish words total on it, written on the front and on the back. It preserves a piece of the Gospel of John. It may date to 125-ish CE. It may date to 175 or even 200 CE, but most scholars would say it's probably in the 2nd century CE. But if we look in the entire second century CE, you can count the total number of fragmentary manuscripts on one hand. There are four. It's the third century, you get like, I think 50, 49 or 50 additional manuscripts. Again, mostly, if not entirely, fragmentary manuscripts. And then I think it's in the 4th century that we eclipse. I think we get another like 48 or 49 manuscripts in the 4th century. And now we're getting our codices like Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, which contain the full Septuagint as it was understood by whoever was copying it. The big spike, when you look at a graph that shows the number of manuscripts, the spike starts in the 800s, and then in the 900s, and then in the 1000s, it shoots way up. So the overwhelming majority of those 5,800 Greek New Testament manuscripts come from 800 years or more after the death of Jesus and the composition of these texts. So those inflated numbers are significantly less relevant when you actually look at when they come from. --- ### [Manuscript Dating Matters More Than Count](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c1c2df3a-690c-4900-9e36-6f25b74d8e42) 🎧 11:10 - 14:06 (02:55) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/f6839a89-f02a-4bdf-837d-4a8725340295" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Most early New Testament Greek manuscripts are fragmentary and few pre-300 CE. - The bulk of manuscripts date many centuries later, reducing proximity to originals. #### 💬 Quote > The overwhelming majority of those 5,800 Greek New Testament manuscripts come from 800 years or more after the death of Jesus. > — Dan McClellan Dan McClellan explaining the temporal distribution of New Testament manuscripts #### 📚 Transcript **Dan McClellan:** And additionally, the length of time between the original composition and the earliest surviving manuscript. Also, it has something to do with our ability to reconstruct the transmission of the manuscript and its state at a period closer to its original composition. And so having 5,800 Greek New Testament manuscripts that range from the early 2nd century CE all the way down to the invention of the printing press. That gives us a lot of data to be able to track the transmission and the growth and change of these manuscripts. And that's very, very helpful, but also has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the historicity of the narratives within those manuscripts. It's a completely separate issue. And so the notion that this makes Jesus the best attested figure from ancient history is profoundly silly. And another thing to consider is that when we look at the 5,800 Greek New Testament manuscripts, the second century, people say, oh yeah, the earliest copy comes from less than 100 years after its composition. And that would be a little piece of papyrus called P52, Papyrus 52. It's a fragment, kind of triangular in shape, about the size of a credit card. It's got about 36-ish words total on it, written on the front and on the back. It preserves a piece of the Gospel of John. It may date to 125-ish CE. It may date to 175 or even 200 CE, but most scholars would say it's probably in the 2nd century CE. But if we look in the entire second century CE, you can count the total number of fragmentary manuscripts on one hand. There are four. It's the third century, you get like, I think 50, 49 or 50 additional manuscripts. Again, mostly, if not entirely, fragmentary manuscripts. And then I think it's in the 4th century that we eclipse. I think we get another like 48 or 49 manuscripts in the 4th century. And now we're getting our codices like Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, which contain the full Septuagint as it was understood by whoever was copying it. The big spike, when you look at a graph that shows the number of manuscripts, the spike starts in the 800s, and then in the 900s, and then in the 1000s, it shoots way up. So the overwhelming majority of those 5,800 Greek New Testament manuscripts come from 800 years or more after the death of Jesus and the composition of these texts. --- ### [More Copies, More Variants](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ec9ccbc9-1a0b-4540-8c67-40dae3de184b) 🎧 14:39 - 18:26 (03:47) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/3413650c-e016-4563-ad82-9f8cc3320826" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - More manuscript copies create more opportunities for scribal error and interpolation. - Early divergent manuscripts can overturn readings that appear universal later. #### 💬 Quote > The more something is copied the more chances there are for scribal errors and interpolations and stuff. > — Dan Beecher Dan Beecher on how extensive copying increases textual variation #### 📚 Transcript **Dan Beecher:** So it occurs to me that having a lot more manuscripts is actually a problem for attestation more than it is a confirmation. And for **Dan McClellan:** instance, if we go and look at the story of the woman taken in adultery, all but like maybe three or four of those manuscripts has... Actually, no, that's not true for the story of the woman taken in adultery. There are a handful of passages that are omitted from translations of the Bible these days. Story of the woman taken in adultery, it comes from, it's absent from a number of manuscripts. But still, if we go, what about the 5,800? Yeah, well over 5,000 of them. Like 5,750 of them are going to have it. Right. But luckily, we have some very early ones that show it's not there. **Dan Beecher:** That was a later edition. **Dan McClellan:** Yeah. When you line them all up and you say, well, we got the earliest one, two, or three don't have this reading. And this could be Matthew 17, 21. It could be John 5, 4. It could be any one of a number of passages that we now omit from modern translations of the Bible. When you look at all the manuscripts, out of the 5,800, like 5,799 of them have it. One doesn't. So if we didn't have that one, then yeah, that would be a liability. We would be misled well and it seems the 5 799 manuscripts **Dan Beecher:** and it seems obvious that that what that means is that there are passages in all of our manuscripts that were interpolations later editions yeah that just we don't have a manuscript early enough to catch it almost i i think it is beyond doubt that **Dan McClellan:** there are readings in the New Testament that we do not have any manuscript that lacks them, but these readings have been altered or added at some point between the composition of the text and our earliest surviving manuscript witness to that passage. And that gap is different depending on the text, because if we're talking about P52, for those 36 words, that gap may be as small as 25 or 50 years. Right. But for the rest of the Gospel of John, the other 99.99% of the Gospel of John, that gap is going to be, you know, add another 100 years on to it for some of those passages. Like the gap can be fairly large for a number of passages from the New Testament. And that's a black hole. We don't know what's going on in there. There could be lots of things added, and we just do not have the evidence. Right. we did not have one of these early witnesses to the absence of this statement about this kind doesn't come out except through much fasting and prayer in Matthew 17, 21, if we didn't have an early manuscript that omits that, we might think it was there all along, and that one manuscript changes the whole story. And who knows how many readings were not there in the original text that were added somewhere in that gap that we don't have witness to. So there are scholars out there who say, no, we can assume that based on all of the manuscripts that we have available to us now, we can reconstruct every word of the New Testament exactly as it fell from the pens of the authors. I think that assumption is profoundly misguided. --- ### [There Are Black Holes In Early Transmission](https://share.snipd.com/snip/77eba78b-a20e-464b-87e6-aacf15bad81d) 🎧 16:40 - 18:22 (01:42) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/96753fe1-fbd5-4f6b-bc36-f3cc2ce5e90c" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Some New Testament readings likely entered the text before our earliest surviving witnesses. - We cannot assume we can reconstruct every original word with certainty. #### 💬 Quote > There are readings in the New Testament that we do not have any manuscript that lacks them, but these readings have been altered or added at some point... > — Dan McClellan Dan McClellan discussing gaps in manuscript evidence and possible additions #### 📚 Transcript **Dan McClellan:** there are readings in the New Testament that we do not have any manuscript that lacks them, but these readings have been altered or added at some point between the composition of the text and our earliest surviving manuscript witness to that passage. And that gap is different depending on the text, because if we're talking about P52, for those 36 words, that gap may be as small as 25 or 50 years. Right. But for the rest of the Gospel of John, the other 99.99% of the Gospel of John, that gap is going to be, you know, add another 100 years on to it for some of those passages. Like the gap can be fairly large for a number of passages from the New Testament. And that's a black hole. We don't know what's going on in there. There could be lots of things added, and we just do not have the evidence. Right. we did not have one of these early witnesses to the absence of this statement about this kind doesn't come out except through much fasting and prayer in Matthew 17, 21, if we didn't have an early manuscript that omits that, we might think it was there all along, and that one manuscript changes the whole story. And who knows how many readings were not there in the original text that were added somewhere in that gap that we don't have witness to. So there are scholars out there who say, no, we can assume that based on all of the manuscripts that we have available to us now, we can reconstruct every word of the New Testament exactly as it fell from the pens of the authors. --- ### [Crucifixion Attestation Is Overstated](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1a758b61-5616-4cb0-8d47-836a0e8c0bc6) 🎧 21:06 - 25:37 (04:31) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/afd3844b-2e0f-4e4e-b50a-4c3e2988b610" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Claims that Jesus' crucifixion is the best-attested ancient fact are exaggerated and misleading. - Non-Christian sources give limited, often terse attestations rather than detailed contemporary accounts. #### 💬 Quote > If we can't know that Jesus died by Roman crucifixion based on the historical record, we shouldn't believe anything in history at all. > — Jeremiah J. Johnston (quoted by Dan Beecher) Jeremiah J. Johnston quoted on Tucker Carlson; hosts critique the claim's boldness #### 📚 Transcript **Dan McClellan:** Which brings us to Dr. Jeremiah J. Johnston, who made the claim on Tucker Carlson, that the best attested fact from ancient history. I don't know if you picked up on this. This is something that irks me only because I have a graduate degree from the University of Oxford. Yes. But Dr. Johnston likes to bring up Oxford an awful lot. Okay. Did you notice this in any of the stuff you looked up? I didn't catch it. Okay. So you will see him spoken of as an I catch him saying that he was a scholar **Dan Beecher:** and using the phrase critical scholars, but like I like to do what critical scholars do, which I thought was kind of funny. He didn't say I'm **Dan McClellan:** a critical scholar. Right. I like to simulate what a critical scholar does. He has his PhD from a university called Middlesex University in England, and part of that included residency at what's called the Oxford Center for Mission Studies. Okay. an arm of the University of Oxford. But it is located in the city of Oxford, and it has relationships with the Bodleian Library, and there are some scholars that will offer to tutor and give help to students there. They're basically there to train non-Western students to go out and be pastors and preachers and stuff like that. But when Dr. Johnston talks about his education, he will frequently talk about when he was at Oxford. Or no, no, no, no, no, no, no. In Oxford. He'll talk about being in Oxford, not at Oxford. Very carefully skirting around an explicit claim to have been enrolled at the University of Oxford, but loves to make a big deal out of... I too have that level of **Dan Beecher:** Oxfordian education. I toured the campus. I went to several places within oxford uh it's a lovely place but i the only reason i bring **Dan McClellan:** this up is because it is so on the nose yeah that like even his uh his doctoral dissertation was then published as a book and in the acknowledgements he never makes it clear that he was not enrolled at the university of oxford so so's always, it's always like, were you enrolled there or not? And the other, no, he was not enrolled there. **Dan Beecher:** But what we're saying is that he's a very reliable guy. Uh, you can, you can, you can trust what he has to say. You can, yeah, you can, you can take his **Dan McClellan:** statements to the bank. Uh, he's a big defender of the shroud of Turin. Right. And that's what he was talking about mainly on this episode **Dan Beecher:** of Tucker Carlson. Yeah. **Dan McClellan:** Now there's other stuff that he brings up, but the Shroud of Turin is his golden goose. This is what he thinks seals the deal on the historicity of Jesus's crucifixion at the hands of the romans but just to kind of address the claim it is not the best attested event in ancient world what not not by a long shot like we have we can go and find the archaeological remains of battles that are discussed in texts written by Julius Caesar or written by people who accompanied Alexander the Great and stuff like that. We have far better attested events from the ancient world. And so the notion that the crucifixion is the best attested event is just laughable on the very face of it. And I would say even if the Shroud of Turin were somehow authentic, which it is not. Yeah, we've talked about the Shroud of Turin. Okay, so we don't have to get into all of that stuff again. But I do want to bring up the fact that I find it hilarious that the first time the Shroud of Turin explicitly shows up in any historical documentation is from the bishop who says some people conjured up this fake shroud and tried to pass it off as authentic, but we caught the guy. Right, right. So I just find that so hilarious. --- ### [Non-Christian Sources Support, But Don't Prove, Details](https://share.snipd.com/snip/90161309-2971-464c-99f4-7b793a0aac55) 🎧 30:16 - 36:35 (06:18) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/02cad0c0-172a-466b-8704-6ddcddea303a" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Josephus and Roman authors likely referenced a crucified figure but offer brief, secondhand notes. - Their mentions support historicity but don't make the event uniquely or best attested. #### 💬 Quote > Josephus probably had a historical core... but it's very clearly it has been doctored by Christian writers. > — Dan McClellan Dan McClellan on Josephus' Testimonium Flavianum and its interpolation history #### 📚 Transcript **Dan McClellan:** Josephus is the earliest writing in the mid-90s CE. We have two references in his works, and one of them is longer than the other. The longer one is known as the Testimonium Flavianum, which is where Josephus is like, oh, he was more than a man. And it's very clearly it has been doctored by Christian writers probably in the fourth or late third centuries CE. Some people think Eusebius, who talks about Josephus' text, might have been the one to doctor it. I think the majority of scholars still would suggest that there was a historical core to that that was actually in Josephus's writings, but that they just expanded on it. Some people argue that it was entirely made up, that there was no reference to Jesus whatsoever. There's another reference to James being put to death, and it refers to James as the brother of Jesus who was called Christ. Right. That one's a lot more secure, but there are some folks who still try to argue that that is an interpolation also. And then we get to Tackett. I want to **Dan Beecher:** stay with Josephus just long enough to mention that in that interview, Johnston did say that Josephus was so close to it that he would have, quote, this is a quote, Josephus, he said he would have had friends who were at the trial of Jesus, and he writes about that. Now, when he says he writes about that, and also he seems to be claiming, and I don't know where this comes from, maybe you can enlighten me. He seems to be claiming that there's some really exciting stuff happening with Josephus right now, which how would that work? **Dan McClellan:** How would there be new exciting stuff happening with Josephus? There's a scholar named Schmidt, and I think the T.C. Schmidt the scholar's name, just published a book called Josephus and Jesus, New Evidence for the One Called Christ, where he makes the claim that the testimony in Flavianum is entirely authentic. Now, he does a little, he does a little how's your father with the text to try to soften how of a testimony of Jesus it is. But I think he might be talking about that book, which just came out two or three months ago, I think. And it's just making the case, hey, what if this is all authentic? And it has not convinced the majority of scholars, and it's not going to convince the majority of scholars. And there's a wonderful group out of University of Iowa, run by my friend Bob Cargill, called Bible and Archaeology, and Jordan Jones is a recent PhD from that program who is running that program. But I think they just interviewed Schmidt on there and talked about what his argument is. So that's probably what's going on there. But no, Josephus wasn't born until well after Jesus was dead. So no, he wouldn't have had... and he's from the area, he's from Galilee area, and he was involved in the Jewish revolts that took place in the 60s, but no, the notion that he had friends that would have been at the trial is pretty silly. **Dan Beecher:** And then to say that he writes about that, it seems like, I mean, I've read the clip, you the little, what, three, two sentences or whatever it is that Josephus writes in the Flavianum, whatever, the Testimonium Flavianum. Yeah. And it's not much. And it's definitely not like, hey, my buddy Sam was there, and here's how the trial looked or whatever. It's just like a quick tossed-off thing. **Dan McClellan:** Yeah, and it just says, yeah, there was this dude in Pilate. Like, if there is an original core, it probably would have said just that there was this guy, Jesus, some called him the Christ, and Pilate crucified him. And I think it ends by saying their tribe or their group has not ceased to exist down to today or something like that. So it's the kind of report that you would expect from somebody who lived toward the end of the first century CE and just knew about this movement that sprung up after some guy got crucified. And Josephus talks about multiple different wannabe messiahs who got cut down by Rome. So it's not unusual at all. But yeah, the notion that Josephus went and had his buddies filling in on how the trial went is not supported by anything and anything that Josephus ever wrote. So yeah, I find that kind of silly as well. But the other Roman authors, they're basically saying, hey, there are these weirdos all over the place, and their movement started after this guy got executed. Like, it's little more than that. So as historical attestation, I mean, certainly it suggests that these writers had access to some kind of reporting that was probably independent of what the gospel authors relied on. It was probably something that was in circulation in the non-Jesus follower literary circles and historical circles. So there is evidentiary value as attestation of the historical event of Jesus's crucifixion. --- ### [Sparse Evidence Is Typical For Ancient Individuals](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3682d3f2-94b0-4bc2-ad46-a441a37220aa) 🎧 37:40 - 40:34 (02:53) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/37be8ec8-756c-4ea3-a2fe-d4f674e4e172" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Lack of archaeological traces for most first-century individuals is normal, not exceptional for Jesus. - The available scattered references and later traditions are exactly what historians would expect. #### 💬 Quote > For 99.9999% of the people who lived in Judea or the Galilee in the first century CE, absolutely nothing survives about them. > — Dan McClellan Dan McClellan on typical preservation gaps for ordinary ancient people #### 📚 Transcript **Dan McClellan:** don't want anybody to mistake me or or us for suggesting that that there is good reason to doubt the existence of a historical Jesus. No, no, no. Because we're saying that. No. Because when it comes to archaeological data, there was no direct archaeological attestation of Pontius Pilate discovered until 1967, I believe. Wow. When an inscription was uncovered, a fragmentary inscription that mentions Pilate. Prior to that, we had some mentions in Philo and some mentions in Josephus. Because those are the only two people who were writing about this part of the world in the middle of the first century CE. And they did not write about everybody. And so for 99.9999% of the people who lived in Judea or the Galilee in the first century CE, absolutely nothing survives about them. Even wealthy people, even powerful people, even important people. And most likely the historical Jesus lived and died without having become phenomenally popular. And the stories that are recorded in the Gospels are probably traditions that grew and developed after his death. **Dan Beecher:** Well, his ministry was only a few years long. Probably one year long. It's not enough time to get popular. It's enough time to say a bunch of stuff, and then if you have devoted followers, then they can start transmitting things. **Dan McClellan:** Yeah, so people say, well, we don't have anything from a contemporary. Yeah, we don't have anything from pretty much any contemporary of anybody who lived back then. That's not surprising. Well, what about all the stuff he did? Most of the stuff that we think about is probably later posthumous traditions that were based on stories that were being passed around. The historical Jesus probably never did anything that noteworthy apart from causing a riot in the temple around Passover, and that's probably what caused the Romans to execute him. So even in the New Testament, you know, his following ebbs and flows, like he gains some and he loses a bunch, and a lot of people abandoned him, even in the New Testament's telling of his life. It says he did all these miracles, but that's not supported by anything. And so we should not expect there to be a ton of material evidence for his life and for his exploits. I think we have precisely what we would expect to have, a few scattered references to this thing that happened many years ago, and then the traditions that get accumulated in the Gospels and in other texts that were that didn't end up in the New Testament. --- ### [Prioritize Honest Inquiry Over Cheerleading](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2e762527-8d93-4d12-8b86-ade35feaf29a) 🎧 41:16 - 44:14 (02:57) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/0502f936-8dbe-4a38-a57d-d27d4b8169d3" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Engage the Bible and history on their own terms instead of defending inerrancy at all costs. - Allow for messiness; loosening literalist claims protects long-term faith resilience. #### 💬 Quote > If the foundation is that rickety, then I think it frequently does need to be reduced to that zero-sum game. > — Dan McClellan Dan McClellan urging critics to avoid fragile inerrantist defenses and embrace critical inquiry #### 📚 Transcript **Dan Beecher:** Yeah. And it's just so much easier if you just encounter the Bible itself and the history on its own terms and just acknowledge that, like, you know, it's messy. It's not perfect. and that's okay. That doesn't have to shake, that doesn't have to bring the temple down. Well, I think if the **Dan McClellan:** temple is constructed on as rickety and as fragile a foundation as something like inerrancy and inspiration and vocality and all that, If the foundation is that rickety, then I think it frequently does need to be reduced to that zero-sum game. It's 100% or it's 0%. And I think that's why we see people retreating to these ridiculous claims that he's the best attested figure in ancient history and his crucifixion is the best attested event in ancient history. And we have so many more thousands of copies of these texts than any other ancient text. And it has nothing to do with the fact that the movement that circulated those texts took over the Roman Empire and then didn't really care about those other texts. So there are a bunch of details of this that explain why the data are the they are. But yeah, you kind of have to loosen your grip on things like inerrancy and inspiration and univocality if you want to be able to engage with that. But because so much of this discourse doesn't go on at the level of critical interrogation and reasoning because so much of it is really about vibes and is really about just **Dan Beecher:** uh cheerleading and faith promotion yeah rather than rather than actual inquiry inquiry Like **Dan McClellan:** in that interview between Tucker and Jeremiah, Jeremiah speaks with a lot of conviction and a lot of authority, even though the Oxford part of that authority is illegitimate. He speaks with a lot of authority. And for folks out there who don't have the time, the expertise, the resources or the interest to actually go and drill down to the bedrock of the argument, that's good enough. Yeah. And so that's really all that matters. And even though Tucker was like, really? Even Tucker was a little skeptical. Like, what does that mean? What? But, you know, that interview gets the job done for so many people. And so if you're an apologist, time to clock out. We did our job. Yeah. That's that's your job. Whether whether it actually does any justice to the data or whether it actually engages with it at all. Your job is to make people feel better about believing. And if that works, then works. --- ### [Common Confusion About Immaculate Conception](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b93f5a91-0c0b-4540-86a2-2cdbaa3f0fed) 🎧 53:24 - 01:00:01 (06:36) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/13cfe496-28e9-4580-845a-71db36e79e0e" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Dan Beecher admits he confused Immaculate Conception with Jesus' conception for most of his life. - Dan McClellan reveals the doctrine actually concerns Mary's sinless conception, not Jesus'. #### 💬 Quote > The Immaculate Conception is not about the conception of Jesus. It is about the conception of Mary. > — Dan McClellan Dan McClellan correcting the common misunderstanding about the Immaculate Conception #### 📚 Transcript **Dan Beecher:** But no, what we're talking about is the immaculate Conception. Conception, yes. And for the longest, for the most of my life, now I wasn't raised Catholic. My understanding is this is a primarily Catholic belief. Yes, yes. But I wasn't raised Catholic. had heard of it, and I knew that it was to do with Jesus, and I just assumed, as so many people do, that the conception in question was of him. But it isn't. It isn't. **Dan McClellan:** Dun-dun Dun-dun Yes. The Immaculate Conception is not about the conception of Jesus. It is about the conception of Mary. So that is nuts. Go on, talk to us. What do we got? People, they'll be like, oh, well, what are we doing on Christmas? We're celebrating the Immaculate Conception. No, you're not. No, you're not. It's a very widespread misunderstanding. And some of it has to do with the fact that, yes, it is a uniquely Catholic doctrine. Some of it has to do with the fact that people just don't pay an awful lot of attention to the details of of doctrines like this but the doctrine of the immaculate conception is the notion that at the instant of mary's conception there was a special uh exemption that made her conceived without the stain of original sin. So original sin is supposed to be something that is passed on from parents to child, **Dan Beecher:** unavoidable. I think it's a thing. That's a segment we need to do. Original **Dan McClellan:** sin. **Dan Beecher:** We need to do original sin and dive in on that. So look for that in the future, you guys, if you want to know a deep dive on that. But yes, okay, original sin, ever since Adam, you're born tainted in some way. Yes. **Dan McClellan:** And it's a way to kind of say that Jesus' atonement is necessary for all humans who are ever born, because we are all born with this original sin. In the early periods of the church, there were some authors who suggested that children were born innocent and pure, that they had no sin. Fools! The lot of you. Yes. There were some passages that suggested that, no, children are also born sinful. I want to pause and say that there are some apologists out there who will say things like, none of us deserve anything but hell. Right. Which is just so stupid. I've seen that a lot. It's just an abominable notion that even a one-day baby deserves eternal conscious torment. Right. Because of their depraved nature that they had absolutely zero choice in. I just find that the most abominable and stupid attempt to just kind of jerry-rig the need for Jesus' atonement. Anyway, there's a passage in the Psalm, Psalm 51.5, that says, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Uh-oh. And so people suggest that means, oh, there's sin involved in that whole process. And then you also have Romans 5. Paul says just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin and way death came to all people because all sinned and these are the Lego bricks that are used to construct the doctrine of original sin which then leads to well wait a minute how did Jesus avoid getting it? Well, and this is the question I always had. If we can just arbitrarily exempt somebody from it, why didn't we just arbitrarily exempt Jesus from it? Why did it have to be all the way back at Mary's conception? **Dan Beecher:** Well, you said it yourself. The Psalm said that it was the mother. So you got to clean out the **Dan McClellan:** mother, **Dan Beecher:** and then you got a pure vessel. **Dan McClellan:** Yes. And that's actually a big part of the rationale. There were theologians who were like, look, can we really imagine that the one sinless, pure Savior gestated inside of a sinful environment? Even if there was this moment of exemption from the transmission or the imputation of original sin, can we imagine that Jesus was swimming around in ambiotic fluid of sin. So there was a desire to kind of push it back a ways. And it's really in the medieval period that we have folks kind of pushing in this direction. And there was one dude I had never heard of, John Dunn Scottis, who lived in the late 13th century CE. In fact, I think died around like 1305 or something like that, 1308 CE. the idea of an immaculate conception is coherent within the grand network of doctrines of the Catholic faith. I'm **Dan Beecher:** just going to stop you right there and clarify something. What you just said is that this is like a medieval or sort of Middle Ages idea. So that's pretty far from being a concept that was actually **Dan McClellan:** laid out in the Bible. not even the half of it. That's not even the half of it. It was not formally articulated until 1854. What? **Dan Beecher:** Yes. **Dan McClellan:** No. Are you serious? I am dead serious. **Dan Beecher:** So in terms of it being a canonized uh uh uh sort of blessed by the church doctrine yep 1800s **Dan McClellan:** 1854 yeah holy crap i **Dan Beecher:** did not see that coming yes see --- ### [Theological Motives Behind The Doctrine](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e221de7d-3e66-4bfb-9bc5-0cb2a3d48387) 🎧 57:18 - 01:00:40 (03:22) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/255f5859-b5f9-4293-9d74-8d9351c8195f" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - The doctrine responds to theological concerns about Mary as a pure vessel for Christ. - Medieval theologians debated timing and necessity of exempting Mary from original sin. #### 💬 Quote > Can we really imagine that the one sinless, pure Savior gestated inside of a sinful environment? > — Dan McClellan Dan McClellan explaining why theologians pushed for Mary's exemption from original sin #### 📚 Transcript **Dan McClellan:** bricks that are used to construct the doctrine of original sin which then leads to well wait a minute how did Jesus avoid getting it? Well, and this is the question I always had. If we can just arbitrarily exempt somebody from it, why didn't we just arbitrarily exempt Jesus from it? Why did it have to be all the way back at Mary's conception? **Dan Beecher:** Well, you said it yourself. The Psalm said that it was the mother. So you got to clean out the **Dan McClellan:** mother, **Dan Beecher:** and then you got a pure vessel. **Dan McClellan:** Yes. And that's actually a big part of the rationale. There were theologians who were like, look, can we really imagine that the one sinless, pure Savior gestated inside of a sinful environment? Even if there was this moment of exemption from the transmission or the imputation of original sin, can we imagine that Jesus was swimming around in ambiotic fluid of sin. So there was a desire to kind of push it back a ways. And it's really in the medieval period that we have folks kind of pushing in this direction. And there was one dude I had never heard of, John Dunn Scottis, who lived in the late 13th century CE. In fact, I think died around like 1305 or something like that, 1308 CE. the idea of an immaculate conception is coherent within the grand network of doctrines of the Catholic faith. I'm **Dan Beecher:** just going to stop you right there and clarify something. What you just said is that this is like a medieval or sort of Middle Ages idea. So that's pretty far from being a concept that was actually **Dan McClellan:** laid out in the Bible. not even the half of it. That's not even the half of it. It was not formally articulated until 1854. What? **Dan Beecher:** Yes. **Dan McClellan:** No. Are you serious? I am dead serious. **Dan Beecher:** So in terms of it being a canonized uh uh uh sort of blessed by the church doctrine yep 1800s **Dan McClellan:** 1854 yeah holy crap i **Dan Beecher:** did not see that coming yes see **Dan McClellan:** they there was all there was this notion that we got to figure this out there's something going on here and we're not sure exactly how to articulate this. And some people thought, eh, we don't really need this. Because, you know, if Mary was sinless, was born sinless, never sinned throughout her life, then she had no need of Jesus's redemption. Okay, that's an interesting problem. That's what Thomas Aquinas said. Others raised other issues with why we need to come up with an idea that Mary was conceived free from original sin. And if we're doing that, how are we doing it? --- ### [Immaculate Conception Is A Late Doctrinal Development](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e878fefd-ed96-4ef7-89da-db8dec6cbb21) 🎧 58:35 - 01:01:25 (02:49) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/fd4ac1b9-24f0-4751-8995-268e0eb1a3cb" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - The Immaculate Conception developed in medieval theology and only became formal Catholic dogma in 1854. - It arose to reconcile Mary’s purity with doctrines of original sin and Christ's redemption. #### 💬 Quote > It was not formally articulated until 1854. > — Dan McClellan Dan McClellan on the late formalization of the Immaculate Conception doctrine #### 📚 Transcript **Dan McClellan:** And it's really in the medieval period that we have folks kind of pushing in this direction. And there was one dude I had never heard of, John Dunn Scottis, who lived in the late 13th century CE. In fact, I think died around like 1305 or something like that, 1308 CE. the idea of an immaculate conception is coherent within the grand network of doctrines of the Catholic faith. I'm **Dan Beecher:** just going to stop you right there and clarify something. What you just said is that this is like a medieval or sort of Middle Ages idea. So that's pretty far from being a concept that was actually **Dan McClellan:** laid out in the Bible. not even the half of it. That's not even the half of it. It was not formally articulated until 1854. What? **Dan Beecher:** Yes. **Dan McClellan:** No. Are you serious? I am dead serious. **Dan Beecher:** So in terms of it being a canonized uh uh uh sort of blessed by the church doctrine yep 1800s **Dan McClellan:** 1854 yeah holy crap i **Dan Beecher:** did not see that coming yes see **Dan McClellan:** they there was all there was this notion that we got to figure this out there's something going on here and we're not sure exactly how to articulate this. And some people thought, eh, we don't really need this. Because, you know, if Mary was sinless, was born sinless, never sinned throughout her life, then she had no need of Jesus's redemption. Okay, that's an interesting problem. That's what Thomas Aquinas said. Others raised other issues with why we need to come up with an idea that Mary was conceived free from original sin. And if we're doing that, how are we doing it? And then you have this guy, and every time I see his name, I want to say Scotus. Because he's a member of the Supreme Court of the United States. The first time I read an article with that in it, I was like, was this written by AI? This is really, this is just a hallucination, isn't it? But yeah, it becomes gradually more and more accepted between the 14th and 18th centuries. And then it's 1854, the, I'm going to pronounce this wrong because my Latin's terrible, was the 1854 pronunciation that declared the universal veneration of Mary's purity and all this. --- ### [Culture Shaped Marian Doctrine](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e94602b8-8853-44bd-b50d-3f3b3ae2c637) 🎧 01:04:01 - 01:06:32 (02:30) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/89e69f02-7453-4464-a0a5-3fc15411ad7d" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Marian veneration grew across centuries through art, architecture, relics, and theology. - That cultural reverence helped make doctrines like the Immaculate Conception influential. #### 💬 Quote > From the 5th century CE on, she was understood to be holy... by the 11 and 1200s, now you start to see a lot of veneration of Mary through architecture and churches. > — Dan McClellan Dan McClellan on historical growth of Marian veneration and its influence on doctrine #### 📚 Transcript **Dan McClellan:** And so, yeah, it is not something that... You don't read the Bible and be like, well, we have to have the Immaculate Conception. You've got to go through a number of other things that you establish as a theological, a philosophical, a dogmatic foundation, and you're just accumulating all of this stuff, and it becomes necessary only at the end of all of that accumulation. It also seems to me that **Dan Beecher:** one of the things that would have had an influence on the development of this idea is just, and I only know this from sort of the artistic world, but it's very clear that at some point Mary becomes almost as venerated, if not more, at some points, than Jesus himself. Like Mary is the beloved figure of, at very least, the art world, which I have to believe has to be a reflection of the sort of theological reality of those times. **Dan McClellan:** Yeah, and there were a lot of different streams of tradition that are coming together for that. notion that Mary was the mother of God, theotokos is the Greek word, and I can't remember the last time I saw the accent on that word, so I probably accentuated it incorrectly. But yeah, from the 5th century CE on, she was understood to be holy. And you get to the 11 and 1200s, and now you start to see a lot of veneration of Mary through architecture and churches, because relics became a big deal. And Mary becomes a part of that. And Mary becomes somebody who's venerated and somebody who starts appearing to people all over the place as this virgin, as the mother of God, as this supremely holy figure, who in some way, shape, or form seems to have been without sin. Yeah, and in a tradition where you have a bunch of intermediaries between you and God, and between you and Jesus, Mary is one of the main ones. And so there's veneration of Mary. --- Created with [Snipd](https://www.snipd.com) | Highlight & Take Notes from Podcasts