Sacrilegious Discourse - Bible Study for Atheists

This week on Sacrilegious Discourse, we crack open 1 Maccabees 9 and immediately get hit with seasonal chaos (“Jingle bell, jingle bell…”), plus a refresher rant about the book’s absolute felony-level pronoun abuse. Husband and Wife are begging the text to pick a “they” and stay there—because it keeps swapping who the subject is mid-sentence like it’s trying to start a fight.

Chapter-wise, the big headline is: Judas goes full ma...

1 Maccabees 8 is basically ancient geopolitics with the world’s worst pronoun problem. We spend half the episode doing live “pronoun triage” just to figure out who’s conquering whom (again). At one point, the text produces a sentence so cursed you both stop to verbally stare at it in disgust.

Then the chapter swerves into full Roman propaganda: “Rome is so valiant… and also valiant… and did we mention valiant?”—plus a highlight...

If you thought 1 Maccabees was confusing the first time through, welcome to the Q&A episode where we prove it wasn’t just you, it’s the text. The hosts dive into chapters 1–7 and immediately tackle the big brain question: is Eupator related to Jupiter? Short answer: nope. Longer answer: his name basically means “son of awesome dad,” because Antiochus IV Epiphanes was so full of himself he named his kid after his own greatness.....

Judas Maccabeus is back on his murder tour, and this time 1 Maccabees 7 serves up beheaded generals, and one extremely “arrogant” right hand that ends up hanging "beside" Jerusalem like a bloody lawn ornament. The crew kicks off by trying (and failing) to untangle which Antiochus is which, who Demetrius is replacing, and whether anyone in this book has ever heard of clear pronouns. War elephants from the last chapter get a recap, J...

In this episode, the Maccabees aren’t the only drama queens — King Antiochus IV basically has a full-on meltdown because he didn’t get to steal enough gold, then decides he’s dying of feelings instead of, you know, old age. The hosts walk through 1 Maccabees 6, dragging the idea that this genocidal tyrant suddenly grew a conscience about Jerusalem while he’s still out looting temples and throwing imperial tantrums. We also get into...

Judas Maccabeus is back, and this time he’s on full genocidal tour mode. In 1 Maccabees 5, our hosts walk through a chapter that reads less like “faith heroism” and more like “war crime highlight reel” — burning people alive in towers, slaughtering “all the males,” torching temples, and then calling it holy victory. They dig into how the text frames this as righteous defense while clearly crossing the line into mass murder, drawing...

In this chaotic tour through 1 Kings and 2 Kings, your favorite godless duo wraps up the Deuteronomistic history by time-lining Israel’s slow-motion trainwreck into exile. We’re talking Solomon’s “wisest man alive” era that still somehow ends in idolatry, dick-led decision-making, and a kingdom split because his son Rehoboam is a petty little tyrant. From Jerusalem to Samaria, golden calves to pop-up worship centers, they drag ever...

Judas Maccabeus is back on his murder tour, and 1 Maccabees 4 turns him into the ancient Near Eastern John Wick with a Bible plug. The hosts walk through Judas outsmarting “Gorgeous” Gorgias and his chosen cavalry (which obviously implies there’s a sad pile of very unchosen horse guys somewhere), dunk on the propaganda-level casualty reports, and side-eye a story where thousands of enemies die and somehow not a single Israelite stu...

In this episode, the heathen duo dive into 1 Maccabees 3, where Judas Maccabeus rolls up in his giant breastplate, steals a fancy sword, and proceeds to “defend God’s law” by killing a lot of people—aka, the Bible’s favorite hobby. They recap how Antiochus IV Epiphanes tried to erase Jewish identity, desecrate the temple, and outlaw all the “penis-chopping things” (circumcision), then follow the narrative as Judas is framed as a he...

In this episode, the hosts dive into 1 Maccabees 2, where we finally meet Matthias and his five sons— including the soon-to-be-brand-name rebel, Judas Maccabeus. Antiochus Epiphanes is still out here doing fascism with extra steps, trying to scrub out Jewish identity and force Greek culture down everyone’s throat. Matthias responds by going full zealot: he refuses the king’s offer of wealth and status, then immediately murders a fe...

Forget cozy Sunday school—this episode yanks you straight into the Deuteronomistic history, where obedience allegedly brings “blessing” and disobedience gets you earthquakes, exile, and the occasional mass slaughter… all lovingly curated by Yahweh’s PR team. The hosts trace the arc from Deuteronomy through Joshua, Judges, and 1–2 Samuel, showing how Israel’s “history” is really a theologically rigged scorecard: obey and prosper, sc...

In this episode, we crack open First Maccabees, Chapter 1 and immediately get dropped into the chaos left behind by Alexander the Great and his idiot successor fanboys. The hosts walk through how Alexander’s fractured empire births Antiochus Epiphanes, a power-drunk tyrant with elephants, daddy issues, and a raging hate boner for the Jews. We watch him steamroll Egypt, swagger into Jerusalem, loot the Temple like a divine Dollar Tr...

Forget talking snakes and magical arks—First Maccabees is an actual history book, and the hosts are weirdly excited about that. In this episode, they crack open the world between the Old and New Testaments: Greek rule over Judea, Antiochus IV Epiphanes nicknaming himself “God made visible,” bans on circumcision, Torah, and Sabbath, and the brutal attempt to erase Jewish identity. Out of that mess comes a priestly family—the Hasmone...

The Pentadouche has left the building. In this episode, Husband and Wife finally wrap up the Pentateuch recap with a snark-fueled episode of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—aka: laws, body fluids, desert whining, and Moses talking forever and then dying offstage. They walk through the supposed timelines, from a one-month law-dump at Sinai to 40 years of sand-filled tantrums, to Moses’ final “please don’t screw this up” speeches...

Moses gets a glow-up, Pharaoh gets the ick, and we get pedantic about timelines. In this one, we blitz from the patriarchs (Abraham → Isaac → Jacob → Joseph) to the start of Exodus—with a detour through Job (aka “God took a dare and your kids paid for it”) and two juicy side texts: Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Book of Jubilees. We drag the “430 vs. 400 years in Egypt” math fight, list out the Ten Plagues (gnats that ...

We zoom straight into the messy middle: the hosts map the Old Testament’s timeline, drag the canon-adjacent weirdness, and keep asking the only sane question—why do Christians never study the parts that break their doctrine? Cue First Enoch: angels sneak down for some pre-Flood “romance,” producing the giant Nephilim—yes, really—and setting the stage before Noah ever builds a boat. From there, Second Enoch one-ups the cosmic fanfic...

We’re pre-gaming Enoch—the apocryphal fever dream Christians can’t stop half-quoting when angels get horny and giants show up. Consider this your atheist field guide to the Watchers, their disastrous “heavenly HR violations,” and how this book helped turbocharge demon lore, apocalyptic fanfic, and every YouTuber who thinks fallen angels invented metallurgy just to ruin your day.

We also get into why Enoch didn’t make the Protest...

Adam’s on his deathbed, Seth’s asking angels for a dab of “oil of mercy,” and somehow we end up with a medieval fan-theory where a magic tree grows out of Adam’s grave and later becomes the Cross. Yes, really. In this irreverent romp through the final chapters of the Life of Adam and Eve (aka Vita Adae et Evae / Apocalypse of Moses), we pick apart apocryphal add-ons that try way too hard to stitch Genesis to Golgotha—complete with ...

Adam is 930, everything hurts, and Seth wants a definition of “pain.” (Spoiler: nobody has one.) While the angels step out for a worship break, the Adversary clocks in and Eve gets blamed for…well, everything, again. The hosts roast the logic of angelic babysitters who take a coffee break right when the talking snake shows up, and we head down a rabbit hole of “divine consequences” that read more like management malpractice than co...