Sacrilegious Discourse - Bible Study for Atheists

Jerusalem’s supposedly vibing in “unbroken peace” until one petty bureaucratic snitch decides the temple treasury looks a little too stacked—and runs to the Seleucid power structure like a hall monitor on a sugar high. Enter Heliodorus: the king’s errand boy with a “just asking questions” vibe… who is absolutely there to confiscate money that explicitly belongs to widows and orphans. Because nothing screams righteous governance lik...

Snowpocalypse hit Ohio, the schedule got wobbly, and somehow that still wasn’t the most chaotic thing in this episode. We kick off 2 Maccabees Chapter 2 with a very real moment, our hearts are with Minneapolis, and we’re not pretending “Bible time” happens in a vacuum when the world is actively on fire. The vibe is: we’re here, we’re rattled, and we’re still reading this book because we’re trying to understand why people keep weapo...

A peaceful 20-minute protest walks into a Southern Baptist church in St. Paul, Minnesota… and somehow the church reacts like it got hit with the Book of Revelation and a Yelp review. The target? A pastor with ties to ICE, because nothing screams “Jesus loves you” like deportation logistics and van-based kidnapping cosplay.

From there, the episode spirals (beautifully) into the modern American classic: Christians claiming persecu...

Welcome to Second Maccabees, Chapter 1, aka “First Maccabees, but make it churchy.” The crew kicks off with the Jews in Jerusalem sending a very official “hey fam” letter to the Jews in Egypt… and immediately cranks the God-meter to 11. Covenants! Statutes! Prayers! Calendar reminders! It’s like the writers looked at 1 Maccabees and said, “Cool story, needs more Yahweh.”

Then we get the kind of holy-history flex that only ancie...

America claims separation of church and state, then turns Christianity into a loud, sweaty political identity, complete with church “startups,” worship bands, and a whole personality built around telling strangers they’re going to hell unless they buy the premium “personal relationship with Jesus” package. Meanwhile, across the pond, England technically has a state church… and yet religion mostly shows up as background noise, like ...

So… we accidentally finished 1 Maccabees. Like, fully. The last chapter. The end. Nobody noticed. Because we are professionals (derogatory). This episode is the frantic, hilarious cleanup where we admit we didn’t plan ahead, then immediately pretend it was all part of the bit, welcome to “What the Macaroni”, aka “what the hell happens between the Old Testament ending and the New Testament showing up like it owns the place.”

We ...

Simon “I’m too old for this shit” Maccabee finally taps out and hands the family blood-feud business to his sons, because nothing says “healthy succession plan” like immediate warfare and a leadership hand-off sponsored by help from heaven (sure, Jan). John (a.k.a. “Johnny Boy,” because this book refuses to give anyone a unique name) marches out with 20,000 troops to deal with Kendabias, and somehow the most dramatic obstacle is… a...

Pronouns? Useless. Names? Recycled like a church bulletin. In this 1 Maccabees 11–15 Q&A, we finally stop the “he said to him who said to him” madness long enough to make a damn Seleucid cheat sheet, because this book is basically Mike and Bob: Hellenistic Edition. Demetrius I is dead (yes, dead), Demetrius II is the current problem, Antiochus VI is a puppet kid, and Antiochus VII rolls in like “I’d like Judea back, please.”

Today on Sacrilegious Discourse, we slog through 1 Maccabees 15, aka “Everyone Writes Letters and Nobody Explains Anything.” It opens with yet another Antiochus (because apparently they’re naming babies like they’re recycling passwords), who sends Simon a “friendly” note that’s basically: I’m totally not here to start drama… except I brought warships. The hosts immediately spiral into righteous confusion as the chapter cranks the “...

If you’ve ever wondered why the Bible tells the same story twice, once like a gritty crime documentary and once like a motivational church brochure, this one’s for you. We pit 1–2 Samuel + 1–2 Kings (the Deuteronomistic “everything is awful and here’s why we deserved it” edition) against 1–2 Chronicles (the post-exile “we can rebuild, babes” rewrite), and the contrast is chef’s kiss for anyone who enjoys theological side-eye.

In...

Demetrius finally gets scooped up like a sad little political Pokémon, and the text immediately slams the fast-forward button into “and then everything was chill forever” mode… allegedly. 1 Maccabees 14 is basically propaganda karaoke: Simon gets credited with “peace,” while the chapter quietly admits he took cities, removed “uncleannesses,” and ran off anyone inconvenient, because nothing says stability like “no one resisted him.”

Simon steps up after Jonathan’s betrayal-and-capture situation turns into a full-on “Greek politics but make it messy” episode. 1 Maccabees 13 opens with panic—Trifon’s marching, everyone’s terrified, then Simon does the classic leader move: pep talk, fortify Jerusalem, and start tossing people out of cities like it’s a casual hobby (“Simon says get the f*ck out” becomes the unofficial theme).

Then comes the ransom plot that sc...

Jonathan decides the Seleucid soap opera is getting way too pronoun-heavy, so he does what any ancient politician with commitment issues would do, he slides into Rome’s DMs to “renew the friendship.” Because nothing screams “holy nation” like outsourcing your survival to the Mediterranean’s biggest future empire. Then, just to keep things spicy, he also writes the Spartans like, “Hey besties, remember our totally-real brotherhood f...

Uncle Steve is back at the table armed with the usual Fox-flavored folklore: “schools are indoctrinating kids,” “it’s grooming,” “trans is a trend,” and the classic imaginary litter box story (because nothing says serious political thought like a viral hoax). We translate the subtext, fear, control, and borrowed children-as-shields, and then hand listeners a stack of boundary-setting comebacks that keep dinner from turning into a c...

It’s a Christmas Eve special, recorded on “Christmas Eve Eve” (aka “Christmas Steve Eve”), where Husband and Wife roleplay the dreaded holiday boss fight: Uncle Dude Bro (a.k.a. Steve) and Aunt Karen, armed with bumper-sticker theology, cable-news grievances, and the unstoppable urge to ruin the ham with culture-war nonsense.

The hosts roll out a grab bag of survival tactics: polite shut-downs, hard redirects (“Who made this pi...

1 Maccabees 11 is basically Game of Thrones if every character had the same three names and the narrator kept shouting “he” like it explains anything. Ptolemy rolls into Syria “with words of peace” (classic), plants garrisons everywhere (less peaceful), and then the whole Alexander–Cleopatra situation turns into a diplomatic soap opera where wives get traded like baseball cards and heads get mailed as party favors.

Meanwhile, Jo...

Pronouns in 1 Maccabees 8–10 are doing crimes against clarity, so we hit pause and run a full-on Q&A intervention. Judas hears about Rome (yes, that Rome), decides “distant empire bestie” is a solid plan, and sends envoys to lock in a treaty… which mostly functions as a symbolic “don’t make me call my big cousin” threat.

Then the story hard-swerves into “and now Judas is dead because… choices.” Demetrius I sends Bacchides t...

This week on Sacrilegious Discourse, we slog through 1 Maccabees 10, a chapter that’s basically Game of Thrones if every character was a walking pronoun problem and every plot twist was solved with a gift basket. Alexander Epiphanes shows up, grabs territory, and Demetrius responds like a petty ex—“NO, I’M the king!”—and suddenly everyone’s trying to buy Jonathan’s loyalty like he’s the swing state of Judea.

The highlight: polit...

Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission (created by executive order on May 1, 2025) gets the Sacrilegious Discourse treatment: suspicious side-eye, gallows humor, and a full roll-call of the “God Club” lineup, starting with chair Dan Patrick and vice-chair Ben Carson.

The hosts tear into what “religious liberty” actually means when it’s being pitched by Christian power brokers: not freedom from religion, but freedom to be religious...