Ezekiel Chapters 36 - 40 Q&A: Bible Study by Atheists

[00:00:00] Welcome to Sacrilegious Discourse. For this is what the sovereign Lord says, Why do you need prophets to tell people who you are and what you want? If you can justify everything that the God of the Bible

[00:00:11] has done, then you can justify any of your behavior. A lot of this mentality is trickling into what is now mainstream right wing Christianity. I am capable of empathy greater than this God of the Bible.

[00:00:26] This is a Bible that they tell kids. This is the good Lord. This is the good book. This is He is fantasizing about murder, mass murder. And over to Sacrilegious Discourse.com right now

[00:00:40] I got a little sort of you or some Buddhist on Patreon. Wife, do you know what today is? Well today is Saturday which means that we're doing our Q&A Saturday. That's right and what are

[00:00:58] we Q&A and A in today? We are covering a Zeekeel chapter 36 through 40 and we will learn about sticks and Mormons and zombies and Gog. Wow. Wow. Gog my Gog. Gog my Gog. Gog, Gog, Gog, Gog, Gog, Gog, Gog,

[00:01:15] Gogg, Gog, Gog, Gog. Sorry I just said that name, I love that name. Gog. God, I get the Gog. I don't know why that is just like it. So anyway so we got some good questions. We got some good answers

[00:01:27] because we got some stuff. We got some stuff. All right well let's do this. Okay, don't keep. All right we are hopping into our Q&A Saturday covering sticks and Mormons and zombies and Gog.

[00:01:46] Sticks in white. Mormons. Mormons. We have a fuck that we get a Mormons. I'll tell you. I missed that intro. Did I skip right out of the class over there? You did. Shit. I didn't know. Yep. Okay. Mormons. Mormons. I'm kind of intrigued now. Right? So do you

[00:02:02] remember in Zeekeel chapter 37 when God was like yo yo yo take two sticks? Yes and rub them together. Yeah. Rub them sticks together into one. Yeah. So okay I'm just going to read the verses

[00:02:16] and then tell you how that relates to Mormonism. Okay because it's big in the Mormon world. Got it. Yeah. So verse 16 and 17. Son of man take a stick of wood and write on it,

[00:02:29] belonging to Judah and the Israelites associated with him. Then take another stick of wood and write on it, belonging to Joseph that is to Ephraim and all the Israelites associated with him.

[00:02:39] Join them together into one stick so that they will become one in your hand. And we all understand that to mean that at some point in the future the two nations will be united again. Right?

[00:02:52] So okay the Mormons they think that parts of the Bible have the story right but that Greeks and other translators fucked up large blocks of the Bible. Okay. And so

[00:03:13] that the Bible has a lot wrong. Sure. But I mean I guess you know I didn't and this is I don't want to be fair to Mormons. Right. But like I suppose if if Christians already are like well

[00:03:27] we're attributing this from the Old Testament to Jesus, right? Who's just top the Mormons from being like, well we're going to attribute this to whatever the fuck we want. And they do. Yeah.

[00:03:37] So but they think that the Book of Mormon and the Bible and other extra biblical sources are all different pieces of one great document from God. God's word. Okay. And so this particular these particular verses right here in Ezekiel are parts that they take very seriously

[00:04:07] as proof that that they're what they're saying about the Mormon is Mormons and the Bible. Speaking from a little bit of a literacy with regard to Mormonism here. Yes apologies and all that. Right. So the Mormon teaching is that the sticks refer to two scrolls they've decided

[00:04:30] that those words mean scrolls. They don't in Hebrew but the Mormons have just decided that. Okay. And according to the convoluted interpretation of this deraise cult, Ezekiel was prophesying that one day the Book of Mormon, which is the stick or scroll of E from,

[00:04:52] would be joined to the Bible, the stick or scroll of Judah, to form the complete revelation of God. Okay. So where does I am curious? I think the New Testament is sort of part of their religion too,

[00:05:07] right? I honestly have no idea. I did not want to get more into it because I know we plan to look into Mormon stuff and their Book of Latter-day Saints. Yeah, well I mean that would be fun I think.

[00:05:20] But I guess what I'm struggling with here is that I guess you know, at the time that this prophecy was done, the Old Testament wasn't really fully rendered yet first of all. Right. And moreover Mormonism was not created into the 1800s. Right. There's that but then like even

[00:05:41] with regard to the Old Testament, like there's the New Testament still. And then if you're a Mormon there's the Mormon stuff, right? She have three documents that you have to men together and you're saying that these sticks are scrolls to men two things together where you're seeing three

[00:05:59] and you're trying to pretend it's two. Yes. I don't get it. They see the Old Testament and New Testament as one text. Oh, yeah. Well that's one text. Definitely not the Bible. That's definitely not the case.

[00:06:13] Right. So I mean there's just so much wrong with the Mormon tradition. I can't even. Over a run. Right. Yeah. I mean it's very problematic and founder and we can go on.

[00:06:27] Just on what I do know I can go on for probably the next hour. Yes. Yes. But they do believe that that is saying that the Bible is validating the Book of Mormon because one day the two will be

[00:06:43] joined and Zeekeels proving it by saying join these two scroll sticks together. Again, they're the word translates to sticks. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know why this you know with regard to

[00:07:00] how this is tripping me up. It is tripping me up a little bit more than what normal Bible stuff does but at the same time the Bible trips itself up just fine. Sure. It doesn't need help. Right.

[00:07:12] Honestly. Yeah. So Mormons believe that in the latter days, which means towards the end, similar to what the Jewish tradition might call the world to come, the two have been joined together. The Bible and the Book of Mormon will as one form the

[00:07:29] bulk of Mormon scripture. So that's that. Got it. Okay. So there you go. There's sticks and Mormons out of the way. Okay. Yeah. So I was there was a shame that I'm glad to know it.

[00:07:41] Yeah. It wasn't a question but when I came upon it, I was like, hang on what? When and if we ever dig into the Mormon side of things, you know, that'll be something worth knowing. So what's interesting is that that seems to be only a very small thing.

[00:07:58] Like, it's not even one of their main facets of their belief system. Well, I'm sure that there are many places in the Bible where they're like, well we have to figure out a way to tie this

[00:08:09] into here and make it look like we're relevant over here. So let's let's use this to make like it they probably have a whole list of things to tie their religion into what Christianity is

[00:08:21] so that it makes sense to someone in so far, they consider themselves Christians. All the Christians do not consider Mormons to be Christians. Right. Right. Because of obvious reasons, their belief systems are just so not the same. They're two different kinds of cults.

[00:08:43] Yeah. Yeah. That's where I struggle except for the, you know, I think the reason that Mormonism has a worse connotation is that they kind of act like a cult, like they basically

[00:08:56] took over a fucking state and you are not allowed to leave them. Like if you leave them, your family banishes you, you're I mean, like it's a whole horrible situation for a lot of people.

[00:09:06] It is. For those not in the US, we're referring to the state of Utah. Yes, sorry. And Brigham Young University because Brigham Young was one of the early leaders of the movement. Right. And again, this religion was created in the 1800s and by 1800s, I'm not saying BCE,

[00:09:27] I'm saying like the 1800s, like only a couple hundred years ago. Right. Right. Right. Like those 1800s. Yeah. Yeah. So very interesting. And oh, they also were big on polygamy. And whereas I think that, um, I think that they've outlawed it or banded or something.

[00:09:49] They still do polygamy, um, non-sanctioned through legal means. Mm-hmm. But they still refer to themselves as like wives and sister wives and, you know, man gets to marry lots of women's and they have lots of babies. Yeah. Yeah. I just think that there's like there's a

[00:10:11] whole other thing where like, um, if he was Joseph Smith that was the founder, he had these uh, things called like sear stones and like he literally, I think he had to put his base into them or

[00:10:22] into it into something. And so he couldn't write. So we had people, he was dictating these words to somebody and they were writing it down. And these sear stones were like made of gold or something

[00:10:32] there were some sort of like, there's this whole thing. It's very weird. It's really crazy. It's really weird. But like these golden thing, the golden tablet things or whatever they, they

[00:10:43] are nowhere to be found from what I understand. Of course. So much like the arc of the heaven and earth. Yeah. I mean, every cult has its flaws. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well let's move on to

[00:10:56] verse 24 of the same chapter. Yeah. My servant David will be king over them and they will all have one shepherd. So we were like, hang on what? David? Yeah. So there is controversy among Christians

[00:11:12] as to whether or not this is David or Jesus or some other dude named David. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. They're like, there is no consensus. I think that you can't have consensus because that's very uncut. Right. But I just assumed that like most Christians kind of believe XYZ. Like

[00:11:37] I just assumed that the church, the church, whatever that means put forth this is what it is and that the majority of them believe it except for maybe a few who actually read the Bible

[00:11:48] and studied it a little bit and were like, hang on, hang on, hang on. Yeah. I just assumed that there was an answer but it's just interesting. There's not. Most commentators believe that

[00:11:59] the many references in Ezekiel to David is really a reference to the Messiah, the Son of David fulfilled in Jesus Christ. So many of them, most of them even do believe I guess that it's

[00:12:14] Jesus. Yeah. But that would be my guess. Right. So what most you'll believe so. But there are still several who say we can simply observe that if God did not intend David, he wouldn't have said it.

[00:12:27] So there is nothing in these texts themselves that demand that it is the Messiah and not David himself. So there are Christian apologists who actually read it and say, you know, hey,

[00:12:41] it doesn't say Jesus and it doesn't say line of David. It says David. Right. Clearly more than once. Yeah. So which which is I appreciate if you're going to be bringing people back to dead in

[00:12:54] some later time in the future, wouldn't it make just as much sense to bring back David as it would to bring back Jesus? Sure. Right. Like I mean, how do I why does it have to be why couldn't

[00:13:04] it be both? Why couldn't it be him and or and what I'm there are some who say it's going to be David and Jesus in Elijah. Sure. And I think there's another one that they've talked about but I

[00:13:17] can't remember. Right. Right. Because I don't care a lot. Because I mean, come on, how many Savior's can you have in one religion? Sure. Come on. Right. So anyway, I just thought it was interesting

[00:13:28] that whereas yes, many of them even maybe most of them do believe that it's Jesus, that there is a controversy like it's not just all decided. Yeah. So that that was cool to me. Well and

[00:13:41] again, I think that you know when you get right down to it the reason that there are so many denominations and arguments when it comes to religion is not so much because of people like us,

[00:13:52] the atheist is because in traditionally it's because religious groups have argued over what these things mean in the Bible. And for centuries and you know millennia and that's just how these differences of cause splits and churches for years and that's how we end up with all these

[00:14:11] different groups. Right. So it makes sense to me that there is not like people want to say that the general idea that Christians all agree on this general idea of what the story entails.

[00:14:25] Fine, but you all disagree on a lot of it too. Right. You might have like the Jesus was born in Bethlehem to a virgin and Joseph was his carpenterry earth daddy. Yeah. Like okay, you guys all have

[00:14:42] that part down, but like all the other stuff, the history and the non-main story. Right. And I don't know what you're talking about. And I find that that that inability just to

[00:14:57] letify on a single message is what allows for like I think this was what allows for a lot of people in the in the world and especially in the US to call themselves just kind of blanket

[00:15:09] Christians. Right. We don't give a fuck what denomination you're talking about. We just believe in God and Christ and whatever this generalized story because they don't really give a fuck which one is correct.

[00:15:20] They're just like, yeah, Christ. Sure. I mean Christ was born to a virgin. He is the magical son of God and he died and was resurrected. You're supposed to believe those main tenets

[00:15:36] to be considered a Christian. Well, I think the reason that a lot of people just call themselves a Christian and don't describe to a specific philosophy is because that idea that there are all

[00:15:46] these denominations and are all these different ideas kind of takes away from the the ability to view Christianity as correct. Right. It can't be correct if all these different Christians view it differently and then and think that other ones are wrong. Yeah. You know that that doesn't

[00:16:06] I I wish that they would be like, well, this is what we think but only because of x, y, and z. But it's just as plausible for the people over there who think blah, blah, blah, blah, like that would be cool

[00:16:18] if they could like acknowledge that we don't think that we necessarily have it right, you know? Like discussions like, yeah, like you should have, yeah, round tables where you were discussing why and how and that would be an interesting community to be a part of. Right.

[00:16:37] If you're all like you shouldn't really, I don't think you should split apart. You should you should fucking hash it out, you know? Like talk about it. Like the way the Jewish tradition is to question

[00:16:49] and to write these extra not extra biblical but you know the outside like the mission I in the I forget what the other ones are but the writings that support and ask questions and

[00:17:04] explain and get thoughts. Yeah. You know, I think that would be cool like I admire that. Right. And just a little bit of fucking humbleness. Well, most of most of what I hear from people is that

[00:17:15] you know, their their pastures and their their churches are not open to being questioned about things that are that they if they don't know the answer, they don't want to talk about it. Right.

[00:17:25] You know, like that that's pretty much what it works. And you're the devil for asking and the devil put himself in your mouth. And again, I think that takes away from the ability to believe in

[00:17:35] this religion because anybody who is that defensive over being wrong is probably not very solid and their belief of being right. Exactly. All right. So now we're going to skip to

[00:17:49] a Zeekeel chapter 38. We're going to talk more about Gog. Okay. Yeah. So I'm going to read a few verses two, five and six. All right. Some of the man set your face against Gog of the land of Magog,

[00:18:03] the chief prince of Mishek and Tubal and then skip ahead to verse five. Pursa, Kush and Putt will be with them all with shields and helmets. Also, Goma with all its troops and Beth Tuggerma

[00:18:17] from the north, from the far north with all its troops. The many nations with you. And that's why we were talking we were thinking like it sounds more like Babylon because they're talking about

[00:18:25] the north and what have you there? Right. But I'm going to take that back because here's something that we forgot to take into account. Sure. This is a future. Yes. This is a prophecy of things

[00:18:39] to come way far to come. Yeah. And the way that they phrased it was very much, the words that they used in the original Hebrew was not like in the near future. It was in the very far future. Okay.

[00:18:55] And it is supposed to be after God has reunited all of Israel and Judah together as a nation and they are one. So, some of those ideas of the reunification of Israel were depending on who

[00:19:13] you're reading and what book you're in. But like even Ezekiel and Jeremiah, some of that those ideas of reunification were happening in the return from exile from Babylon. This is this is far after that though. Okay. Because I'm just saying that, you know, if we're talking about

[00:19:34] that, no. I hear what you're saying but it's not the same because at this point, the northern tribe of Israel has been gone for hundreds of years at this point. Okay. So, they're gone. They're scattered, smothered, covered, wherever swallowed up. Sure. Okay. So, when they talk about the

[00:19:59] Babylonian exile ending and the people of Judah coming back to the land of Israel or wherever, they're talking just about Judah and whatever else they can find. This is different. That is after the Babylonian exile and in the near future. But some of the wording though with regard

[00:20:27] to the Babylonian exile ending does indicate that he's going to pull his people from all the different areas to bring them all back to Israel. So, I mean, it could be read to to think of it

[00:20:43] as him bringing back all the tribes of Israel after the Babylonian exile because he's going to change their hearts and bring them back to Israel. So, I mean, I see what you're saying. It didn't

[00:20:53] actually happen. So, we have to look at it from a far off perspective basically. Right. But I feel like there is some room to interpret it as it could have been. It could be returned from the

[00:21:04] Babylonian exile. It could accept for the word choices in the original Hebrew. Okay. Pointed to a far distant future. Got it. Not the near future of the end of our Babylonian exile. Okay. Okay.

[00:21:22] And I don't know Hebrew. I'm pulling this from what I read. This is what scholars are saying. Okay. All right. So, let me read you some of my notes. Okay. Yeah. Magog the land's not

[00:21:35] God and magog which is a different thing just as God of magog. Okay. So, magog the land is identified by early historians as the land of the Sytheians, which I think I mentioned when we were reading this chapter.

[00:21:49] Mountainous region around the black and caspy and seas. Okay. And this position is generally accepted by most historians and scholars at this point. Okay. The data, those sparse could imply that the cities of Mishesh and Tupel refer to geographical areas or countries in eastern modern Turkey,

[00:22:11] southwest of Russia and northwest of Iran. Got it. Okay. Yeah. Now, unlike the Egyptians, the Syrians and Babylonians with whom Judah had frequent contact over the centuries. Right? The peoples in the distant north were shrouded in history. Okay. And by distant north,

[00:22:32] I don't mean like Babylonian north. I mean north of those guys, north. Got it. Got it. Yeah. So, as the stories about them kind of trickle down, they became like the boogie man. Like the

[00:22:46] giants from afar kind of thing. Right? Yeah. So, the reports of these mysterious groups that filter down spoke of wild people's brutal and barbaric. And this combination of mystery and brutality made gog and his confederates perfect symbols of the archetypal enemy rising against

[00:23:06] God and his people. Okay. So, there was some like folklore into it that one day we're going to be together again. Yay! But then we'll have this one final battle and this final battle is supposed

[00:23:20] to be gog leading all of these various nations and that is supposed to occur around the end of days. So, it's still very interesting to me because this is a very localized version of end of days.

[00:23:37] Right? They're taking this tribe that is not really that far away. It's not a tribe. Okay. That's another thing. Okay. I'll get there in a minute, but as several nations who all fall

[00:23:49] under God. Okay. All right. So, several nations are up there who are not really, they no one interacts with them. They're kind of a mythological place out there because they're not well-known by

[00:24:04] the Israelites or the people in these areas. Right? They're off the flat earth if you will. Right. But in the grand scheme of history, they aren't that far removed from where the Israelites are

[00:24:16] and they're pretty near to this whole, you know, God thing that's happening down there in Israel. And various other places. But Israel. Right? So, this whole end of world theme is based still on this very localized area. Well, and there's another reason for that too.

[00:24:42] There is another term that refers to, and I forget which chapter this was out of, I kind of glossed over it, but now that we're talking about it, it's relevant. Yeah. So I wish I'd written it down. Don't they do this like everything? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:56] There's a word that in one of these chapters refers to Israel as the center of the earth. And we were like, what? You mean the center of like that little area? Right. They refer to it as the naval

[00:25:16] Yeah. Of the world. Sure. And so they've turned it into, this is all we know of the planet right here. So this is the world to, oh no, no, no, no, no. This is not just what all we know.

[00:25:31] It's important because it's because that's what we knew at first and everything else is extraneous because kind of like how Earth is the most important planet in the whole universe. Right. Because until we discovered more that we thought that the Earth was all, we were the center of

[00:25:53] exactly exactly. And this is how these people viewed their area of the world at that time. And they still kind of look at it that way though as Israel is the naval, the center from which all things

[00:26:07] sure. But we are attributing, you know, the power, where we're attributing things that this God who created all of the world, all of the universe, all of the stars were attributing things to

[00:26:22] end of days and none of it goes outside of this small circleish area where we're talking about. And it doesn't, it just doesn't mean a whole lot to anybody if you actually take in the information that they're giving us, right? They're giving us the information and letting

[00:26:39] us know that this whole thing is meaningless at this point because they didn't, they couldn't see any further than this. And if God is really giving them the message, he's giving them the message and they're either not writing it down correctly which it's still questionable or they're not

[00:26:56] getting any message. And they're just making up stories and that's more likely in the case because it just is like this is there that all the stories are very localized and very not, they

[00:27:08] cannot account beyond what they know exactly. And if you were talking to a God, your God would be able to tell you to write down something that would be able to account. He could prove with one or two

[00:27:18] words that he knew about the Native Americans or he could prove with one or two words that he was aware of people in Japan or you know like whatever. Like evolution. Yeah, any number of things,

[00:27:31] any number of things could have just like it could have been a spoiler, right? Like just like a fucking little side note for somebody a thousand years later to be like, oh dude knew what he was

[00:27:41] talking about. Man, like look, yeah, he could have said at some point Yalgunni some vaccination get on like that would be cool, right? Yeah, and then the Christians would be like, oh we're supposed to get vaccinated. Hey, right. Oh okay so we don't want measles reprisal.

[00:28:04] Right. Cool, cool, cool. But that's why I have struggled with this being the quote unquote word of God. Sure. It's not, it's not the word of God. If it was the word of God, you'd be writing it down

[00:28:14] as he's saying it and if it was actually a God, he'd be a lot smarter than this. Yes, I totally 100 percent agree with you. I'm just trying to explain, I know, I'm going off when they're talking

[00:28:26] about God it is an end of days kind of and the end of days. Yes, your right is centralized to Israel area. Sure. Okay. The verses may tell of a coming northern confederacy of nation. So

[00:28:41] confederacy of nations being more than one. Sure. About the black and cast be in seas with Persia and North Africa who will invade the promised land after Israel's restoration to it. These verses create the impression that God is an imperial power with vast military resources

[00:29:01] coming from the far north. God also had allies to the West in Persia to the south in Ethiopia and to the East in Libya. Okay. And that's interesting. The number of this is so cool to me.

[00:29:18] The number of nations if you like add up all the ones, there are seven. One might say a seven nation army. Yes, I did say that. I think that might be where they actually got that. Really? Yeah.

[00:29:36] Interesting. I'd have to look that out because I was like wait, a seven nation army, huh? Right. Okay. Okay. Now, Gomer is one of those places that I mentioned in the verse six and most regard Gomer as a people from Capadosia in modern Turkey and the house of

[00:29:58] Togurma is often regarded as the Armenian people to the north of Israel. Okay. So that's another thing is all of these nations are coming from every direction, not just north. God is coming from the north but all of these other nations are coming from every direction

[00:30:20] surrounding Israel. Got it. They're just all being led by Gog who is like, sure. We have the numbers look at us and we surround you. Yeah, we can totally loot you now. Got it. So that's why

[00:30:38] I think maybe when we were like, oh yeah they're probably talking about Babylon. That makes a sense. I think we kind of had it wrong even though none of it makes any fucking sense. Sure.

[00:30:48] I did a quick, quick search because I was curious when you mentioned it but seven nation army from Jack White when he was a child, he actually misheard the words the salvation army.

[00:31:00] It's the seven- Oh my gosh that's hilarious. I stuck with them and he just used this the song title so it was not based on this but I thought that was interesting to you. You could have been. Yeah. I put that together though. Right. Yeah.

[00:31:13] The nation army. Right. Okay. So now we are finally moving on to Ezekiel chapter 39. Okay. And this will be the last little bit. Okay. The first two verses I'm going to read. So enough man, prophecy against Gog and say this is what the sovereign Lord says. I'm against

[00:31:29] you Gog, chief prince of Mishek and Tuba. I will turn you around and drag you along. I will bring you from the far north and send you against the mountains of Israel. Sure. So and I don't

[00:31:40] know if you remember this but when we hit chapter 39 we were like dude, you already settled this in chapter 38. Like it was just like a rehash of everything. Right. Right. So in Hebrew literature

[00:31:54] it was common to give an account and then to repeat it to give emphasis and then add a few additional details. Okay. Okay. Of exaggeration or whatever. Yeah. As such the overthrow of Gog

[00:32:06] and his forces is here retold in different word choice and in fuller detail. And again this is typical of Hebrew poetry and particularly in poetic oracles such as appear in the Bible. Okay. Repetition is common and the writing often reverts to previous statements and enlarges on them.

[00:32:28] Even though the result is to destroy all sense of consecutive arrangement. I mean that pretty much describes the Bible. Yes. So yeah. That's why I included that because I was like, oh. So you did it

[00:32:42] on purpose. I guess you don't know. So I thought that would be a good place to end. Yeah. No that's that's good. I really enjoyed a lot of that information that we went over today. So that was that was a good

[00:32:54] Q and A I feel. I don't really have anything else to add. Did you have anything else to add before we get out of here? And before we get out of here, whatever the things are where they copyright things.

[00:33:12] Really you could even tell what that was. I'm sure they're there for somebody. Anyway, so that was our Q and A for this Saturday and we will be back tomorrow on Sunday with

[00:33:27] and then I will get our weekly wrap up out and we'll be back on Monday with Ziki Ilchakar 41. All right. We'll see you then. Bye.