November 18, 2025 • 57 mins
Some ideas belong in the theological recycle bin—this episode takes on one of them. We unpack the “serpent seed” doctrine, where it came from, why it keeps resurfacing, and how it collapses under Hebrew, history, and the church fathers. We trace its Gnostic fingerprints, show how it fuels bad fruit (including racist distortions), and contrast it with the biblical “seed” theme fulfilled in Christ. We also sort out why people confuse Genesis 3 with Genesis 6 and how presentism, isogesis, and click-driven sensationalism muddy the waters. Along the way: Irenaeus, Heiser, Zohar, Ophites, Branham/Murray, and why sound doctrine must marry reason and the supernatural. We wrap with practical tests for spotting heresy and a call back to creedal foundations that love the real Jesus. Today we welcome back Dr. Judd Burton.
https://www.burtonbeyond.net/
https://www.burtonbeyond.net/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi, everybody, it's me Cinderella Acts. You are listening to
the Fringe Radio Network. I know I was gonna tell them, Hey,
do you have the app? It's the best way to
listen to the Fringe Radio Network. It's safe and you
don't have to log in to use it, and it
doesn't track you or trace you, and it sounds beautiful.
(00:27):
I know I was gonna tell him, how do you
get the app? Just go to Fringe radionetwork dot com
right at the top of the page. I know, Slippers,
we got to keep cleaning these chimneys.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
If we have the right credle, like you said, foundation,
we will love the real Jesus.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Yeah, not some artificials.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Thank you for joining me on the Unrefined Podcast. I'm
your host, Brandon Spain along with Lindsay Waters, where each
week we delve into the mysteries that shape our world,
from the tangible to the supernatural, with the foundation rooted
in Biblical truth. For more content and exclusive resources, visit
us at Unrefined podcast dot com. Now let's dive into
(01:34):
this week's episode.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Hey, hey, hey, you guys.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Some guests crack open dusty tombs, others live in them.
Today's guest is one of the few scholars who can
navigate both ancient texts and modern heresies without losing the
plot or the gospel. Whether he's breaking down biblical giants,
unmasking old guides, or schooling us on first century world views,
this man always brings the receipts. He's no stranger to
(02:04):
the Unrefined Podcast, and he's back to help us dismount
a particularly persistent distortion, one that slithers to the Martins
of theology with gnostic whispers and racialized lies. So let's
call it what it is and bring in the expert.
Welcome back to the show, doctor Burdon, glad.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
To have you here.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Thank you, glad to be back.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, we're definitely glad for you to be back. And
this is kind of a little background of why we
want to have you on the show. About this is
I kind of ask you questions about stuff if I
get a chance, if you're not busying, you know, here
and there, And this is just something I'm seeing everywhere
in our I like, I like liminal better than fringe,
(02:45):
but fringe works in our fringe circles of liminality.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
How about that?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
And there's this this doctrine that we're about to talk about,
and then there's several others I have a theory of
while that happens, but I'm not here to talk.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
We're here to listen to you.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Let's just start with what I wanted to talk to
you about, and then we can if we want to
dive into anything else, we can go there too, and
just you see where the spirit wants to go.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
So thattly, sound all right with you?
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Sounds good?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Okay, cool.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
So let's just basic question for those who might not
have heard of it, or have heard of it not
know what it's called. What exactly is the quote serpent
seed doctrine and where did it originate?
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Well, the and you're right to point out that the
stuff just keeps popping up in this space all over
the place. When I think that it's maybe finally died
down in its popularity or notoriety, whichever you want to use,
it just seems to pop right back up. But the
serpent seed doctrine in that essence is an interpretation, a
(03:45):
flawed hermeneutic on the Genesis three point fifteen prophecy about
and again, most students of the Bible will be familiar
with that passage where it talks about the seed of
the serpent and the seed of the woman.
Speaker 5 (03:59):
The three fifteen, right, that's right, just is three fifteen, well,
before we get into some of the deep waters.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
It's just a prophecy that lays out the war, the
very real war that goes on between the followers of
the serpent or the devil and the followers of Christ
the seed of the woman, and there's the phrase about
the crushing of the head of the serpent will bruise
the heel of the seed of the woman, and the
(04:33):
seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. Thuse,
of course the reference to the Messiah to Jesus and
by proxy is his followers. But the serpency doctrine basically
takes this entire passage, particularly the a couple of verses
before in verse thirteen, or it talks about the serpent
(04:58):
deceiving the Again, this is a story that all of
us know from Sunday school, right, the temptation of Eve,
the eating of the fruit from the tree that was forbidden,
and the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, and the begalment. There the deception as we'll
see as we go through our discussion today is a
(05:22):
moral philosophical conundrum. It has nothing to do with what
serpency doctrine. Proponents would say that the act here, the begalment,
was a sexual seduction, and that there was an actual
sexual act between the serpent, the Nakash and Eve, and
the production of that. The result of that was Cain,
(05:45):
and it would be Caine's physical descendants that were the
wicked progeny, if you will, that would war against the
seed of the woman, and that being Adam and Seth.
What you're looking at here is basically the linguistic equivalent
of paradilia. Oh interesting, Yeah, the word there for begalmunded
(06:10):
Hebrew is is in the Shah and it again, the
whole precedent there is set up very well by the
author that it's a question of knowledge, it's a question
of awareness, it's not a question of cardinal activity. And again,
(06:33):
I am one scholar in a long line of scholars
who have written and talked about this. I myself have
not written about it, but I became acquainted with the
serpency doctrine when I got into this liminal space, as
you call it. I think quite quite accurately, but the
bottom line is that it's a and if people don't
(06:54):
know what paradoila is. This is when when you look
at a pattern in it doesn't have to be in nature,
but it's very often in nature, and then you construct
a false interpretation based on weak philosophical premises. And so
an example of this would be simply because the human
mind is designed really to look for patterns. But an
(07:15):
example of this would be like Devil's Tower. There's a
lot of discussion about about this being an ancient petrified
tree stump based on an erroneous interpretation of the Book
of Enoch that if people want to look more into that,
they can look at the work of a George Nicholsberg,
who's basically solved a lot of those those misinterpretations. At
(07:38):
any rate, there are a lot of people who say
that Devil's Tower is one of these, you know, primeval
tree stumps from before the flood, just because simply because
it looks like it could be a tree stump, but
it's a magma extrusion. This is this has been thoroughly
druned out by the extensive geological work that's been done
(08:00):
on that particular feature. So that's an example of a paradoia,
and you're looking at a kind of a linguistic version
of that when people either subscribe to and certainly in
the developmental stages of the Servian seed doctrine, you're looking
at a case of what I would call linguistic paradilia.
Speaker 6 (08:18):
Jud Is this kind of related to the whole idea
of knowing versus I forget the two Spanish terms I
learned in school, but you know, what I'm talking about
is knowing and with your mind as a both to
like an intimate knowing. Are they playing on the kind
of the subtlety between of that word there a little bit.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Or well, the Spanish word for for to know is well,
there are two words, and most of the words for
knowledge stemmed from the Latin roots and Greek roots by proxy.
There's a Spanish word conisco, but there's also you know,
coprinda and in tinendo. There are a number of words
(09:02):
that you could use for I know in Spanish, but
they largely again the Romance language words for for knowledge
you're going to or I know, you're going to find
some variation on the Greek g and osco, which is
where we yeah, So and the the knowledge again, the
(09:24):
knowledge from the passage in Genesis. Of course we're talking
we're talking about Hebrew here, not not Romance languages. But
it's very clear from the passage and even though the
word there beguilement, the show that's used is again it
just nuts. In Bold's philosophical terms, it's just it's a
moral issue. It's a it's a knowledge based deception. It's
(09:48):
not a it's not a it's not a fleshly chronal
sort of thing. And that's again, you know, if you
if you torture the words enough, they'll admit to any thing.
But most of that stems from either no language training,
or bad language training, or insufficient language training. And that's
(10:08):
where you get a lot, a lot of I mean clearly,
clearly people that espouse this are interested in the Bible.
But this doctrine in particular illustrates one of the things
that I talk about routinely, and that is the difference
between interest and authority. You'll find that in you know,
(10:31):
ninety nine point nine percent of the cases, the people
that espouse this doctrine have no training in Hebrew or
Aramaic or Greek, or theology or or linguistics or history
or any of the humanities. They've got no training, and
so it becomes abad. They haven't put in the you know,
the hours and months and years in many cases that
(10:53):
it takes to develop conversency in these subjects and in
the language. Yeah, and that that's dangerous. I mean, it's
you know, it's of course I want to promote interests.
Of course, we as disciples of Christ want to promote interests,
because that's part of the discipleship process, right. But at
(11:16):
the same time, it's dangerous that this idea has been
the spouse so widely by a lot of people who
claim to have done research on this, but they they
have not again put in the work of the time
to understand the nuance and the mechanics of the passages
and languages that they're studying.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, well, I would think correct if I'm wrong, doctor
jud that someone who's put it time into Hebrew is
a lot different than somebody like say me, who has
a cursory knowledge of Hebrew. I took Greek and seminary,
but I didn't take Hebrew, so I have a cursory
knowledge in Hebrew. I know how to use the Lexicans
and stuff like that that you know, that's that's good.
(12:01):
But but for what you're talking about to really draw
out nuance, that would take someone who has been for
fluent in Hebrew for decades to be well nuance.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
But here's here's the thing, though, that even with the
tools at hand, and they are expansive in this day
and age, we've got all kinds of yeah, free online
really good in some cases, you know, to the point
of being scholastically critical, critically good resources that can be
(12:34):
applied to these, uh, these problematic passages.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
So in that respect, if those resources are engaged enough,
if you know, the commentaries and words, studies and things
like that, utilizing those, a person should be able to
reason what the passage is talking about that it's not
talking about. You know, this fabricated sexual li is on
that takes place supposedly takes place between the serpent and
(13:04):
Eve and the product mean Cain. I find it interesting
as a historian that that really this this issue was
put to rest by the church fathers. Yeah, and in
particular I'm thinking of RNAs writing in the second century,
(13:25):
wrote a work called Against Heresies in which she basically
dispels this idea that had been circulating in the early Church.
Interestingly enough, Gnostic influences.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Yeah, the o.
Speaker 6 (13:43):
Fights, I think were one of the ones that held
them their name.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
Right, Yeah, from from opio, the Greek word for serpents.
And for people who are even passively knowledgeable about the
history of gnoscissism, you know, the serpent represent that's the
sort of knowledge dichotomy that existed in Gnostic theology, where
everything in the Old Testament was demonized. The theology in
(14:10):
the Old Testament was basically demonized, and the God of
the Old Testament that they called y Aldabaoth was was
actually an evil, insane god, and that it was the
serpent that was bringing wisdom nine times out of ten.
These theological issues that still crop up today. A lot
of the literature, the patristic literature that the Church Father
(14:30):
turned out, solves a lot of these problems. Why because
they were dealing with it almost on a day to
day basis, Because it was such an ensconced part of
the late Antique Greco Roman culture and the early Church
that there was. These were things that had to be
addressed quickly or they became problematic for a church communities.
They and they did in the varieties of Christianity that
(14:54):
we found throughout the Mediterranean basin, and so I would
just like to, you know, write off the bat, just
reiterate that you really have to look no further than
iron as to solve whether this is balderdash or not.
On my platforms, I've started almost every week I give
out a little award that I call the Flaming Bull
(15:14):
Feather Awards, and the serpent Seed was I think was
maybe my first or second.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
I was it.
Speaker 7 (15:22):
I didn't say that one. Yeah, if I hadn't following them,
well I've got it. I've either put it out or
I got it in the queue. But it certainly deserves
a Flaming Bull Feather Award if I have not given
it one yet, because it's just it's such an unsound idea,
although you find these kernels of early Gnostic ideology laying
(15:45):
the groundwork for it. Another thing that's interesting to me
that I would observe is that people that espouse and
propound the serpent seed doctrine are relying in many cases
on literature that was produced after the writing of certainly
the Old Testament, but the Gospels too. And I've already referenced.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
The Gnostic influence a lot of a lot of the
the early serpency doctrine was sort of distilled in one
of the Nastic gospels, the Gospel of Philip, that again
circulated in parts of the mendietranean basin during the early
Christian periods. But again we're talking about literature that's you know,
in in in the Gnastic literature, in the context of
(16:29):
Nastic literature certainly at least a century or two after.
And then there's there's also Jewish literature that's that's consulted
and I'm thinking of Targum in Midrash material than in
in all cases are you know, we're talking about this
(16:50):
is medieval literature that's written after eight hundred or nine
hundred a d. And the probably the most notorious one
is the zo r which is an extremely obtuse in
some cases I suppose it might be the right word,
but certainly peripheral mystical document, uh that that sort of
(17:14):
props up the serpent seed doctrine. But again, you know,
this is a people that use use this literature justification
for interpreting judesis three as as giving us the serpent
seed doctrine, are doing so on pretty dubious, shaky ground
by using literature that's written so much after the fact.
(17:39):
You know, it used in in some cases a ritual magic.
You know, the zo r is a central text for
the Kabbalah.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Well, yeah, ask.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
Yeah, so you know there. That's why I say that
it's it's a dangerous heretical idea to be a spouse.
But but it gets lots of cliques on you know,
your social media platforms. You don't have to go very
far into the YouTube world or or Instagram or TikTok
or what have you, and you're going to run into
(18:11):
people with spousing the serpency doctor.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
I think one of the where I first heard it briefly,
one of the first times was through a pretty famous pastor,
Arnold Murray out of y Arkansas Shippers. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's and I'm sure obviously came before him, but I
think he was one of the more modern espousers of it.
And what's so to me dangerous, like you say, because
(18:37):
it is about it is. I think he had a
lot of other avarrant doctrines as well, But but he
had a lot of things correct and he seemed like
just an old Bible preacher from Arkansas and had a trust.
There's people that still follow now and he's dead, and yeah,
and I think about there's just I read a biography
(18:58):
about a Pentecostal guy, William Random. I think he where
he is, he established or taught that doctrine towards the
end of his life as well.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
Yeah, both Mury Murray and and uh Brandabism, which were
espoused in certain Pentecostal and even Primitive Baptists and a
few other few other denominations, not not universally, but in niches.
They were espoused.
Speaker 6 (19:24):
Daniel Parker for the Primitive Baptists, I believe, right.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Yeah, and even even the colt figures like Sudden Moon
also espoused the serpency doctrine. And just disturbingly there were
I mean, if it's not disturbing enough, if it's not
rattling your cages already. It was an idea that was
espoused by what several white supremacist movements in America in
(19:49):
the twentieth century MONTELUSA of which were the American Nazi
Party and the ku Kloaks Klan. Because it became just
like it had been used by people, you know, spousing
slavery and became an easy tool. That is, the the
Serpencied interpretation became an easy tool to demonize certain groups,
(20:10):
and it had been used for that purpose in centuries before,
but you know, in just justifying chattel slavery and the
supremacy of one ethnic group over another.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Despite the doctrine itself being irrodious, it has a very
checkered path in terms of its its utilization by certain
groups for brother unseemly and unethical things.
Speaker 6 (20:42):
Sadly, it seems like Brennam was the least wacky person
who believed it.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
I would yeah, yeah, that's bizarre.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Well, doctor Jedd, I think it's interesting too that that
you know, we talk about and this is something else
that really bothers me too. On the other end, word
heretic and heresy throw around like candy, and everybody's a
hero atic if few different groups, so different denominations will
throw heresy at the other one, you know, stuff like that.
So that's a thing nowadays too, the whole dialectic. But
(21:13):
it's interesting to me that this, according to what you
just said, it not only was a doctrine, that was
just a doctrine, which I would think all doctrines lead
this way, but this doctrine actually led to a change
of lifestyle and life. I mean, it actually led to
a fruit that was destructive and rotten.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Mm hm.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
And most of it does. But it's really blatantly obvious
with this one.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
To me.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
Yeah, and that's a good That's a good litmus test
for sound doctrine is what fruits is it producing?
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
If there are fruits of of you know, the expansion
of knowledge, and discipleship and charity and forbearance. Those are
the kind of hallmarks that I thought that the writers
of the New Testament are constantly drum all about, right,
the fruits of the faith. Yeah, So that right there,
(22:06):
you know, that should be the first and the last
tests for sound dry sound doctor, and we can. I mean,
the epiphenomenon of discussion of doctrine is why we have
denominations in the first place. And I'm here to tell
you that none of us have the complete picture at
the end of the day. I like what my buddy
Doug me Indoors says. You know, at the end of
the day, we all have bad theology of.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Yes, we.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Should celebrate that, but I think I should celebrate that
we're all imperfect.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
Well, and one thing I was telling a fellow recently is, hey,
you know, look, well, when we come face to face
with Jesus, you know he's not going to be checking
our denomination card. Yeah, He's going to be asking did
you know me? And what were those? What were those
fruits of your faith? So, but this becomes the kind
(22:55):
of laboratory for testing theoretical thought, and it should be
implicit even even in our discipleship training that this is,
you know, this is how you go about testing what
what is heretical and what is not? What is what
is christ like and what is not? And the service
doctrine just fills the test horrendously. And again I'm one
(23:15):
in a little line of people who have brought criticism
and indeed dismissal in a lot of cases. I defer to,
you know, the late doctor Mike Kiser, who was a
good friend of mine, and he wrote on this subject
a number of times. In fact, you can still go
to his websites and find articles that outline the mechanics
(23:37):
of of why this is such a bad piece of doctrine,
only hermeneutics. But again, you know, it gets that it's flashy,
it gets it gets those clicks, and and that's sort
of the temptation of social media, not that it's it's
inherently a bad thing, but that's one of the one
(23:58):
of the trends that I've notice is that it does
for people that espouse that it does generate, you know,
a lot of views on content.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah, I mean there are there are sensational shows and
things and stuff out there, YouTube channels, all kinds of stuff,
and and that's what they're there to do. I think
they could do it probably like some of the ones
that are more fiction and get the same response. However,
but yeah, I kind of want to, if it's all
right with you, just circle.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Back around and and Lindsay.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Had suggested this earlier before you on the show, that
he thought this would be a good place to really
clear up some area.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Mm hm.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
So why why do you think fringe or liminal will
just do with fringe? Why why do you think fringe
circles confuse the whole Nephilin narrative of the seed war
with the serpent seed doctrine? Do you see that a lot?
I see it a lot. I just didn't know if
you saw it you know.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
But yeah, it's it's prolific. It's prolific again because it's convenient.
There's some more of that linguistic paradi or contextual paradolia
that's that's going on. It makes sense to me ergo
it must be true. That's faulty reasoning, and you know, hey,
I get it. I mean we're in this space where
(25:21):
we're you know, we we espouse the supernatural and the
strange because it's in the Bible. I mean, the Bible
presents a supernatural worldview. We're not denying any of that.
We embrace it. But just as again, if I can
defer to the writers of the New Testament, you know
they not one of them encourages us to abandon our
(25:42):
reason while embracing the supernatural. Not one of them. I
challenge anybody to find you a passage where that is
the case. You're not going to find it.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
No, it's a both, and it's a both and exactly No.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
That's cliche, but it's still true.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
It's yeah, it makes nonetheless true.
Speaker 8 (26:01):
Mm hm.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
So that's that's one thing that I'm always trying to
instill on my students and and on you know, the
interviews and podcasts things like that that I do is that, yeah,
I embrace the supernatural, but it doesn't doesn't mean that
you obey in reason and logic, because that's something that
that's taught to us in the New test and certainly
(26:23):
in the the Patristic literature. You know a lot of
these guys were before they came to the faith. They
were they were products of the same academies that there
their philosopher counterparts were, and so they they understood the
value of logic and reason. Yeah, and so it's it's
(26:46):
an easy leap to go from the serpency doctrine to
the the creation and the sustaining of the nephil line
because it seemed like, well, in my estimation, because of
what happens in Genesis six and it was what's you know,
(27:08):
explicated and further expanded on in the apocryphal stuff like
Enoch and Jubilees and the Genesis apocrypha and in the
Dead Sea Scroll material in general. Is it's easy to
project what happened there, which actually was cardinal. In other words,
(27:28):
you have angels mating with humans, right, and project that
onto the Serpent Sea Doctor. And I've also seen influencers
and social media gurus talk about when Jesus in the
New Testament is addressing the Pharisees, you know, a couple
of times he calls them a brood of vipers, that
(27:49):
this is the end all, be all evidence that these
Pharisees were the part of this wicked line that began
with Kin. But there's there's no justification in that. In fact, well,
again it amazes the trend amazes me of how much
it's used to lure people in to watch videos and
(28:11):
listen to content and stuff like that, and that that
to me seems very demonic. It seems very satanic. Yeah,
there's clear demonic influence there, and that that illustrates again
another danger here is that you're not just people that
espouse this are not in propounding it or not just
espousing erroneous doctrine, but they're disseminating it at the behest
(28:36):
of this demonic influence.
Speaker 6 (28:40):
Jud what would you how would you respond to this?
I'd appeal to hidden knowledge. This was this was hidden
and when we discovered it, kind of.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Thank you you.
Speaker 6 (28:52):
Often, not just with this doctrine, but similar doctrines are
idious sort of gnostic tinged doctor and like this how
would how would you respond to that?
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Well, the the allure of the power inherent and knowledge
is as old as time m and the I mean
that that's the whole mo for the occult at general.
Is this secret knowledge. You know that that will give
you some sort of spiritual age over over everybody else,
(29:24):
or or you know, fill in the blank, whatever aspirations
person has that they're trying to attain. But but it's
a lie, just like it was a lie from the
mouth of the serpent to Eve. But what what are
the things that that the nakash offered you had him
in the eve. You know, surely you won't die you
(29:50):
eat this, You're going to be like God's You'll have
you'll have ultimate knowledge. Well, they already had all that
at that stage. They have all that they commune directly
with God. They they had the ultimate source of knowledge,
the ultimate search engine. It went went beyond anything any
(30:10):
ai that man could drum up to answer our questions astronomically,
beyond that, they had everything that the serpent was supposedly
offering to them.
Speaker 6 (30:23):
They had access to the source of knowledge.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
Yeah, yeah, wisdom, that's right, knowledge tempered with wisdom.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Well, uh, you know, I was when we were going
over this stuff, I was hit with a thought and
and and this might be you have to check my
logic here, doctor Jed. But would if the serpent seed
of Kine is true, why would the.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Enemy have a need to do Genesis six mm?
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Hm.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Is that is that flawed logic?
Speaker 6 (30:55):
Or no?
Speaker 4 (30:55):
No, no, no, that that's not flawed logic because ultimately
the denizens that the followers of Christ have to go
up against our demonic and demonically influenced individuals.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
So it seems like to me it would be like, well,
I can affect the whole human race, or I can
wait several years later and just affect the partial part
of the race, you know, I mean, I know God's
sovereignty is involved in all this. It just seems like,
even from a satanic or occultic purpose of his plan,
if if he had Adam create Cain and Caine permeated
(31:31):
the earth, then his plan was achieved. And I don't
even know sometimes, and you have to correct me about this,
I don't even know if it was like a plan
of one being for this whole. I mean, is there
really one angel that is like the head Godfather that
plans all this or is it? Do they operate kind
of as a committee maybe too, as the false divine
(31:52):
counsel and they.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
Well, yeah, I mean, and that's the thing is that
it seems to be that on on some some things
they're they're of an accord, and on others they're not,
because they're they're all self serving and self interested, and
they're all they're all playing this this game against the well,
really against the fulfillment of the fullness of the gentiles.
(32:15):
You know, whenever that clock runs out whatever that looks
like to God, is how much time they have. And
they're sort of playing this, they're trying to play towards
towards a stillmate game if I could use a chess analogy,
but that's not going to be possible. But that's that's
really the only victory that that you know, that they
can have is you basically take as many people away
(32:39):
as they possibly can't.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Yeah, kind of like a like a I mean, this
is maybe a bad comparison, but like a suicide bomber.
You know, their goal is not to win, their goal
is to take out And.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
Yeah, further, very yeah, very similar, very similar. But again
we're you know, we're talking about the I mean, these
are are largely spiritual, philosophical and moral issues that a
lot of Serpencied espousers seemed to And I'll be the
first one to admit that Genesis three fifteen is a
(33:13):
it's a multi layered prophecy, you know, most prophecy is.
You know, it's fulfilled and hits not just in a
single point in space and time, but has ramifications for past,
present and future. By way of example, the portion of
the Genesis three point fifteen prophecy that talks about Jesus
(33:36):
crushing the head of the serpent, Well, one way that
that's fulfilled is that he literally does that with almost
every step of his ministry. Much of it is in
Galilee and Upper Galilee, the eastern portions of which were
ancient Bashawan, which was quite literally in Phoenician the land
(33:57):
of the serpent. And so with every step that he's taking,
he's literally crushing the serpent, and even more so when
he's in Ces of Philippi, because that's smack daub in
ancient Bashan. And there's a valley that runs on the
western side of Mount Hermon called the Bethra Hobb Valley,
(34:18):
which is the old probably the oldest name for Peneus,
bethro hobb Rahab in Hebrew can mean cursed. It can
also mean It's also a name for another name for
Leviathan in the Old Testament, which of course is the
great ringing serpent. So again, Jesus is quite literally crushing
(34:42):
the head of the serpent, you know, at ces Philippi
at Peneus during that episode in Matthew sixteen, in Mark
chapter eight. Those are directions that you could take when
looking at the verse in a verse like Genesis three fifteen,
and then applying it to its fulfillment and prophecy by
using historical context. Which again not to say that people
(35:07):
that espouse these these kinds of erroneous ideas aren't familiar
with concepts like historiography and contexts, but they're clearly not
done the work to properly use them, or or else
they would not come to a conclusion like the serpent
seed doctrine.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Yeah, and and two.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
I think there's it's like like you talked about at
the beginning, there's this this textual paradoilia, like the word seed.
They read the seed if you if you don't read
it in its context. In Abraham seed. We are Abraham seed,
but I am not of Semitic line or air Man
or whatever he was. So from his seed though, because
(35:47):
of Christ, and so that same I guess poetic or
metaphor would work for this seed, will stamp this seed.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
It doesn't have to necessarily be DNA.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
But you know, we live in a society where we
want to we want to make it literal. And I
get that because they're finding a lot of really cool
stuff about DNA and in science, so we don't want
to read into that text with Isa Jesus, that seed
is always sexual or biological or that. And that's what
jumps out at me at is that three pot fifteen,
(36:21):
Like you just said, it has multiple layers of me.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Yeah, yeah, you've hit on one of the basic problems,
and that's oogetical They is to Jesus rather than exegetical listeners.
Isa Jesus is the projection of a more cases than not,
a biased hermeneutic onto the text, rather than letting the
text speak for itself and reading it in the ancient
(36:46):
context and in terms of author and audience.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Which was if I'm correct, me if I'm wrong, which
was also a big hermeneutical method of gnostics, right, that's right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
Thinking back to my own training as a historian, you know,
one of the first, one of the first upper division
classes that I took was a medieval history class, and
I think that same semester I took historiography, and historiography
is for your listeners, historiography is twofold. It's one it's
the process of doing history, the research and the writing
(37:23):
of history. And secondly, it's the history of the field itself,
how it progressed.
Speaker 6 (37:31):
Why they wrote it the way they do Why.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
Yeah, exactly. And so what what I'm getting at is
sort of the first historiographical rule that I learned was
to avoid something called presidentism. Presentism is the is like
it's you can think of it as historical aside Jesus.
It's the projection of your your cultural norms onto a
(37:57):
past narrative automatically, know, really out of context. And so
this was this is one of those cardinal rules in
his historiography that you you weren't supposed to break. And
of course when I took theology classes, you know, in
church history and stuff like that, and the seminary that
was on campus slur This is basically the same thing
as oxy Jesus in a historical context, and that's what's
(38:21):
had you know, you point out accurately, that's what's happening
with the tics for people who espouse the serpentcy of
doctrine bi big no.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
No, yeah. And I think a lot of people.
Speaker 4 (38:33):
It's easy to it's easy to do. I mean, it's yeah.
I mean just just it's our natural reaction to look
at and things that happened in the past and say, oh, well,
that's I can't believe they did that. Why in the
world did.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
They do that?
Speaker 4 (38:46):
If somebody dropped us off into you know, England a
thousand years ago, it might as well be dropping us
alw F on another planet exactly. Our customs and manners
would be different. We would not be able to communicate
with them. May maybe maybe five percent of what we
say might filter through. But people in I mean people
(39:09):
in England at the time, we're speaking Anglo Saxon. So
that's that's an example of what we're talking about here,
is that we approaching past narratives and evidence from the past,
and in this case, you know, biblical text and doctrine.
We always need to approach it cautiously and with as
(39:29):
much much of an I towards it's historical context as
cultural context as we possibly can.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Yeah, one of my pet peeves about that, if this
is what historiography is, is what I call chronological snobbery.
Held we we think that we're smarter, we have more
technology and more blah blah blah, when we we don't
even realize probably what was in the library of Alexandria
they got burned up or whatever.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
Certainly, well, and even even with when I used to
give when I gave historiography seminars to undergraduates, even with
the well in particular with ancient documents and ancient history
and inscriptions in archaeological evidence, you know, the farther back
you go typically the less you have to work with.
(40:13):
You know, you've got a lot of fragmentary stuff. We're
blessed in the case of the Bible that we have
we actually have more evidence, more copies of that that
we do of Homeric literature in the ancient world, which
you get to me again speaks to God's God's providence
and letting us have all of this stuff. But as
(40:34):
a rule of thumb, we typically have fragmentary evidence that
you're working with in the past, and so your interpretation
needs to be very measured, very cautious, and that, you know,
I think to a degree that should be true of
us when we read the Bible, or rather when we
study the Bible. Yeah, so that that we're less apt
(40:57):
to stumble like that. Again, not to say that the
Holy Spirit, the peraclet isn't isn't our best source of commentary.
But but again there's that faith married to reason.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
You know.
Speaker 4 (41:08):
Let's let's take you into a context. Let's take into account
what the author was saying. Let's take into account what
the audience knew that we might not know today that
might cause an author to not mention something because it
was implicit, it was widely known. All of these are
and many more factors that should should register, you know,
(41:29):
when approaching in this case of biblical text, but really
any any ancient, ancient text or ancient source of knowledge
or piece of piece of evidence. Again to intone, Paul,
we're looking through a glass darkly. This stuff is all
going to be revealed to us totally ultimately one day,
but but for now, we see through a glass darkly.
(41:49):
And that's why people like Doug van Dorn very wisely
say that at the end of the day, we have
bad theology, we have an incomplete picture, and so we
need to we need to remember that when we're developing
and using hermeneuticts, we needed to take a very measured
approach to scripture because that, ultimately, combined with our prayer
full hopes, is the best way to deliver sound doctrine.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Yeah, well, let me let me go. We're about to
run a time wrap it over time. But there's one
other question. I kind of want to go rabbit trail.
It relates to this, and we can bring back to
this is what other areas in our fringe are limital space?
Do you see that are gnostic or do you see
(42:33):
a gnostic trend in even evangelicalism and all that nowadays?
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Do you see that?
Speaker 4 (42:38):
Yes? I mean in certain circles. I don't know how
familiar you guys are with the emergent church movement.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
Yeah, Brian McLaren and yeah, all those Yeah you remember that.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, that's one of the things that occurs
to me now. I sort of saw the the seedling
of this movement up close and personal. I did my
undergraduate work at hard and Simmons University in Abilene, Texas.
(43:11):
And there were a number of people that would become
prominent in the Emergent Church movement that that I was
literally taking classes with. In fact, I won't I won't
name names. I won't need to, but one of them
actually took Greek with me for a while. He washed out,
(43:35):
but that that may have been part of his problem.
The the individual and thinking of was involved in a
praising It was labeled a kind of praise and worship service,
and I mean every everybody was telling me about it.
This would have been about ninety eight, seven ninety eight,
(43:57):
and I went once and it, I mean, it's it
sounded like woo woo to me before I went. But
when I went and saw that this fellow that I'm
thinking about was involved in it, it just completely turned
me off. There was something, you know, in my discernment
barometer that went off, like something odd, elevating of the
(44:22):
spirit of you know, over sound doctrine was a seemed
to me to be a current in the very initial
stages of what became known as the Emergent Church movement.
Speaker 6 (44:31):
Yeah, and progressive Trojan Horse.
Speaker 4 (44:34):
Yes, that's exactly what occurred to me is that it
was postmodernized Christianity, and I on an intellectual level, postmodernism
turned me off because of its its jettisoning of objective
truth and when I saw it, and certain the emergent
church movement was not the only one to embrace embraces.
(44:54):
But that's what it seems like on the surface, is
that they were pursuing the sort of knowledge beyond on
what was already presented in the Gospel, and that all
our interpretation, you know, are our Southern Baptist interpretation of
the Gospel or whatever, it was not sound enough. So
many red flags that were going up about it.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Yeah, well it's it's just been it's been rebranded now
it's called deconstruction. Yeah, and let me let me, let
me caveat it. Not all deconstruction is bad, because I've
been through some and certainly, you know, I mean, believing
in the Divine Council worldview was a act of deconstruction
for me a lot of ways, you know, it really did.
So I don't want to paint with that too broad
of a brush, but it always it's like Lindsay say,
(45:37):
it's that progressive trojan horse you know. I mean McLaren
now is a liberal episcopal priest. He married his son
to another guy. I mean, that's that's facts. I'm not
be smirching his reputation. That's just the read, right, And
that's where that ended up. And that's where I think
Gnosticism always tends to end up for some reason.
Speaker 4 (45:59):
No, I tend to, Yeah, because these guys are were
pursuing again knowledge outside of the bounds of described in scripture.
That's always that's always a bad recipe. And that's that's
at the heart of not just ancient gnocissism, but modern narcissism. Yeah,
it's how things like the the Sophia doctrine may crept
(46:20):
its way into into certain Christian denominations. When I make
reference to denominations. Again, Jesus is not gonna be checking
our denomination card. There are certain things that that all
of us, regardless of of our whether we're Charismatic or Baptists,
or or Pentecostal, or Orthodox or Roman Catholic, and just
(46:45):
you know, there's certain things that we have to come
to the table and agree with that we're creedal about. Uh,
that that go far beyond that, you know, denominational ties.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
I like how Bart said it, Jesus loves me this,
I know, for the Bible tells me. So he was
kind of tongue in cheek with that. But if if
we have the right credle, like you said, foundation, then
well we will love the real Jesus, not some artificial one.
Speaker 4 (47:14):
Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, any of you you're not, Yeah,
you're not accidentally pagan. But you know, there's a difference
between that sort of acumenicism and embracing bad doctrine. Yes,
the former is what we want. The latter is what
we want to dispel and pull people away from. Yeah,
(47:41):
and again, we're on your podcast right now, we're talking
about this. It's interesting stuff to talk about because it
does venture into this liminal phase, but it circles back
to the tow also the centrality and the importance of
sound doctrine. Yes, I think we can unequivocally say that
the serpent seed is bad doctor on not just theological grounds,
(48:03):
but linguistic grounds and historical grounds.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
Yeah. Well, but let me ask you this.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
I wouldn't go as far, and I have a hard
time even dealing this out like the early Church did anyway,
But I wouldn't go so far as to say if
somebody held this certain belief, maybe justice belief, that they're
anathema or a full blown heretic or anything like that.
But usually with this doctrine comes anti trinitarianism and a
(48:33):
lot of other problems with your Christology, you know, and
all that.
Speaker 4 (48:37):
Yeah, but somebody doesn't. It doesn't lead to a deconstruction.
That can be a good thing, but it leads to
a complete unraveling in some cases.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
Good word, it's a really good word, yep.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
And that's what we don't want. And if if your
faith unravels, I've watched it happen. I mean, you know,
he had a big guy in in that, Tony Kompalo,
his son, Like I said, this is this is just facts.
I'm not naming names, but this is just a fact.
You know, his his son is now a full blown atheist.
That's a fruit of that unraveling, so to speak, because
he was he I think he was on the tail
(49:13):
end of that whole emergent church. And then I think
they tried to distinguish between the two, calling one emerging
and then the other emergent and anyway, semantics and stuff.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
But.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
Yeah, I was actually attracted to that, like at first
because of the whole Hey, yeah, let's look at how
to do church different, you know. I mean it's obvious
that we're not doing church probably the best way we can,
so let's let's look at it, you know. But it
was it went far, like you said, it went far
beyond just practice it. It went into doctrinal do it
(49:48):
was yeah, it was. It was not it was incorrect.
Doctrine is not good. And I'm I'm like this, I
believe in the wideness of God's mercy. I don't want
to hard and all this stuff came out about Ozzy
and I was like, you know, Mark's safe from not
judging Ozzy's heart today.
Speaker 4 (50:08):
And yeah, exactly. But God's grace, God's grace is broad,
and it's broad in ways that we can't completely fathom.
And that's even evident in the Old Testament under the law,
because even the law wasn't enough. That's another trend today
is you know, well you in addition to being a Christian,
(50:28):
you have to hold up the Torah. Yeah, and the
Torah is instructed to us of course, is instructive to
us today. But you know, go Regalatians Hebrews or Hebrew. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
The what I what I was pointing towards was that
God's grace was necessary in the Old Testament too, because
(50:51):
the law was just as it is today, was instructive,
but it was not enough because nobody could keep it.
You look at the Old Testament, it's the story of
what screw up after.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
Screw up, after screw up.
Speaker 4 (51:07):
You're right after screw up after screw up?
Speaker 3 (51:08):
And why do it?
Speaker 4 (51:09):
And that that that that is the trajectory of salvation
is we can't do it on our own boom.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
That's the Gospels. That's the good news.
Speaker 4 (51:20):
That's the good news, right, is that you can be
you can be part of Abraham's family. Yeah, and you,
I mean you.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
Why do people want to go back to that?
Speaker 4 (51:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (51:30):
You know, is it a novelty thing? I think it.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
I mean liking it to this. And I'm an Anglican priest,
but I'm retired. I went through this, this spell of
of and it wasn't all this. It was some theological
stuff too, but this this whole like smells and bells
and stoles and candles and and all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (51:47):
Which which I love, is beautiful. It's great, it's part
of the church history, it's part of tradition and all
that stuff.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
But but I think sometimes people are attracted to the
exterior of it. I'm really looking in to the interior
of of of.
Speaker 3 (52:03):
What we're talking about it, and a lot most of
it's the same.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
That's what crackspent When I get on Facebook and people
are bickering over some of the stupidest stuff.
Speaker 3 (52:13):
There's a lot of this is semantics.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
And anyway, So I don't know what made me chase
that rabbit feel that one, but.
Speaker 4 (52:20):
Well, I mean it's you know, my Keiser used to
used to say, the New Testament should point Christians to
the Old Testament, and the Old Testament ship point Jews
to the New Testament something on, something along those lines,
and so yeah, of course it's it's still relevant. Of course,
it's fulfillment. It's it's a biblical prophecy. It's almost impossible
(52:42):
to understand the return of Christ if you don't understand
the biblical.
Speaker 3 (52:47):
Feast, yeah yeah, and the yeah yeah.
Speaker 4 (52:52):
So you know, and that's just one of many examples. So,
of course, but to be to be tied to it
beyond grace is just not part it's not part of
the New covenment.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
Well, and correct me if I'm wrong here.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
The Hebrew connotation of the word to rah we used law,
and it was a law, but it was more than
a law. It was more of an instruction, right, I mean,
wouldn't that be a better word for it. It's to
implicit in the definition of law, you know. And I
(53:25):
think this is part of our it's part of a
Western tradition, because that's where it begins, and the ancient
levant is the law. Laws are not just you know,
they're not just a structure that they're meant to be
living and breathing, and that that's that's why I say
that implicit in the use of the word.
Speaker 4 (53:44):
The translation of the word law is that, of course
it's instructive, you know, and you know, in an analogous
way in the ways that that are our own laws
and in the United States are supposed to be in
strog Well, they're they're supposed to be instructive. I don't
know that they all as are.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
But well, on one side says it's supposed to be
new and living, they mean completely abolished the Constitution.
Speaker 4 (54:06):
And yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (54:08):
Well, but but liberals do that with the Bible as well. Yeah,
it doesn't. It's not the word. It contains the word
when we get to tell you where the word is
or where it's not.
Speaker 4 (54:20):
Yeah, this is a whole other podcast episode.
Speaker 3 (54:23):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
But well, doctor Judd, is there anything else? This has
been brilliant. I love just talking to you about this
kind of stuff. And I still want to ask somebody
that leaves in the Serpent seed why Genesis six happened.
If it happened now, I'm I'm going to find somebody
and very nicely, if that's possible, ask somebody that I'm
just curious to me. It was just like it al
(54:44):
It's like it almost appeared out of thin air.
Speaker 3 (54:48):
Very much.
Speaker 4 (54:48):
So.
Speaker 2 (54:49):
Yeah, but thank you so much for coming on our
show and.
Speaker 3 (54:54):
Dropping the knowledge.
Speaker 2 (54:55):
Just what other boys say so I love them too,
so dropping us some knowledge so we have shid my please.
Speaker 4 (55:01):
Thanks jud absolutely, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 8 (55:11):
Thanks for listening and supporting us, and remember stay naturally supernaturally.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
Hi, everybody, it's me Cinderella Acts. You are listening to
(56:32):
the Fringe Radio Network. I know I was gonna tell him, Hey,
do you have the app? It's the best way to
listen to the Fringe Radio Network. It's safe and you
don't have to log in to use it, and it
doesn't track you or trace you, and it sounds beautiful.
I know I was gonna tell him, how do you
(56:53):
get the app? Just go to Fringe radionetwork dot com
right at the top of the page. BI know, slippers,
We gotta keep cleaning these chimneys.
Hi, everybody, it's me Cinderella Acts. You are listening to
the Fringe Radio Network. I know I was gonna tell them, Hey,
do you have the app? It's the best way to
listen to the Fringe Radio Network. It's safe and you
don't have to log in to use it, and it
doesn't track you or trace you, and it sounds beautiful.
(00:27):
I know I was gonna tell him, how do you
get the app? Just go to Fringe radionetwork dot com
right at the top of the page. I know, Slippers,
we got to keep cleaning these chimneys.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
If we have the right credle, like you said, foundation,
we will love the real Jesus.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Yeah, not some artificials.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Thank you for joining me on the Unrefined Podcast. I'm
your host, Brandon Spain along with Lindsay Waters, where each
week we delve into the mysteries that shape our world,
from the tangible to the supernatural, with the foundation rooted
in Biblical truth. For more content and exclusive resources, visit
us at Unrefined podcast dot com. Now let's dive into
(01:34):
this week's episode.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Hey, hey, hey, you guys.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Some guests crack open dusty tombs, others live in them.
Today's guest is one of the few scholars who can
navigate both ancient texts and modern heresies without losing the
plot or the gospel. Whether he's breaking down biblical giants,
unmasking old guides, or schooling us on first century world views,
this man always brings the receipts. He's no stranger to
(02:04):
the Unrefined Podcast, and he's back to help us dismount
a particularly persistent distortion, one that slithers to the Martins
of theology with gnostic whispers and racialized lies. So let's
call it what it is and bring in the expert.
Welcome back to the show, doctor Burdon, glad.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
To have you here.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Thank you, glad to be back.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, we're definitely glad for you to be back. And
this is kind of a little background of why we
want to have you on the show. About this is
I kind of ask you questions about stuff if I
get a chance, if you're not busying, you know, here
and there, And this is just something I'm seeing everywhere
in our I like, I like liminal better than fringe,
(02:45):
but fringe works in our fringe circles of liminality.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
How about that?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
And there's this this doctrine that we're about to talk about,
and then there's several others I have a theory of
while that happens, but I'm not here to talk.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
We're here to listen to you.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Let's just start with what I wanted to talk to
you about, and then we can if we want to
dive into anything else, we can go there too, and
just you see where the spirit wants to go.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
So thattly, sound all right with you?
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Sounds good?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Okay, cool.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
So let's just basic question for those who might not
have heard of it, or have heard of it not
know what it's called. What exactly is the quote serpent
seed doctrine and where did it originate?
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Well, the and you're right to point out that the
stuff just keeps popping up in this space all over
the place. When I think that it's maybe finally died
down in its popularity or notoriety, whichever you want to use,
it just seems to pop right back up. But the
serpent seed doctrine in that essence is an interpretation, a
(03:45):
flawed hermeneutic on the Genesis three point fifteen prophecy about
and again, most students of the Bible will be familiar
with that passage where it talks about the seed of
the serpent and the seed of the woman.
Speaker 5 (03:59):
The three fifteen, right, that's right, just is three fifteen, well,
before we get into some of the deep waters.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
It's just a prophecy that lays out the war, the
very real war that goes on between the followers of
the serpent or the devil and the followers of Christ
the seed of the woman, and there's the phrase about
the crushing of the head of the serpent will bruise
the heel of the seed of the woman, and the
(04:33):
seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. Thuse,
of course the reference to the Messiah to Jesus and
by proxy is his followers. But the serpency doctrine basically
takes this entire passage, particularly the a couple of verses
before in verse thirteen, or it talks about the serpent
(04:58):
deceiving the Again, this is a story that all of
us know from Sunday school, right, the temptation of Eve,
the eating of the fruit from the tree that was forbidden,
and the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, and the begalment. There the deception as we'll
see as we go through our discussion today is a
(05:22):
moral philosophical conundrum. It has nothing to do with what
serpency doctrine. Proponents would say that the act here, the begalment,
was a sexual seduction, and that there was an actual
sexual act between the serpent, the Nakash and Eve, and
the production of that. The result of that was Cain,
(05:45):
and it would be Caine's physical descendants that were the
wicked progeny, if you will, that would war against the
seed of the woman, and that being Adam and Seth.
What you're looking at here is basically the linguistic equivalent
of paradilia. Oh interesting, Yeah, the word there for begalmunded
(06:10):
Hebrew is is in the Shah and it again, the
whole precedent there is set up very well by the
author that it's a question of knowledge, it's a question
of awareness, it's not a question of cardinal activity. And again,
(06:33):
I am one scholar in a long line of scholars
who have written and talked about this. I myself have
not written about it, but I became acquainted with the
serpency doctrine when I got into this liminal space, as
you call it. I think quite quite accurately, but the
bottom line is that it's a and if people don't
(06:54):
know what paradoila is. This is when when you look
at a pattern in it doesn't have to be in nature,
but it's very often in nature, and then you construct
a false interpretation based on weak philosophical premises. And so
an example of this would be simply because the human
mind is designed really to look for patterns. But an
(07:15):
example of this would be like Devil's Tower. There's a
lot of discussion about about this being an ancient petrified
tree stump based on an erroneous interpretation of the Book
of Enoch that if people want to look more into that,
they can look at the work of a George Nicholsberg,
who's basically solved a lot of those those misinterpretations. At
(07:38):
any rate, there are a lot of people who say
that Devil's Tower is one of these, you know, primeval
tree stumps from before the flood, just because simply because
it looks like it could be a tree stump, but
it's a magma extrusion. This is this has been thoroughly
druned out by the extensive geological work that's been done
(08:00):
on that particular feature. So that's an example of a paradoia,
and you're looking at a kind of a linguistic version
of that when people either subscribe to and certainly in
the developmental stages of the Servian seed doctrine, you're looking
at a case of what I would call linguistic paradilia.
Speaker 6 (08:18):
Jud Is this kind of related to the whole idea
of knowing versus I forget the two Spanish terms I
learned in school, but you know, what I'm talking about
is knowing and with your mind as a both to
like an intimate knowing. Are they playing on the kind
of the subtlety between of that word there a little bit.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Or well, the Spanish word for for to know is well,
there are two words, and most of the words for
knowledge stemmed from the Latin roots and Greek roots by proxy.
There's a Spanish word conisco, but there's also you know,
coprinda and in tinendo. There are a number of words
(09:02):
that you could use for I know in Spanish, but
they largely again the Romance language words for for knowledge
you're going to or I know, you're going to find
some variation on the Greek g and osco, which is
where we yeah, So and the the knowledge again, the
(09:24):
knowledge from the passage in Genesis. Of course we're talking
we're talking about Hebrew here, not not Romance languages. But
it's very clear from the passage and even though the
word there beguilement, the show that's used is again it
just nuts. In Bold's philosophical terms, it's just it's a
moral issue. It's a it's a knowledge based deception. It's
(09:48):
not a it's not a it's not a fleshly chronal
sort of thing. And that's again, you know, if you
if you torture the words enough, they'll admit to any thing.
But most of that stems from either no language training,
or bad language training, or insufficient language training. And that's
(10:08):
where you get a lot, a lot of I mean clearly,
clearly people that espouse this are interested in the Bible.
But this doctrine in particular illustrates one of the things
that I talk about routinely, and that is the difference
between interest and authority. You'll find that in you know,
(10:31):
ninety nine point nine percent of the cases, the people
that espouse this doctrine have no training in Hebrew or
Aramaic or Greek, or theology or or linguistics or history
or any of the humanities. They've got no training, and
so it becomes abad. They haven't put in the you know,
the hours and months and years in many cases that
(10:53):
it takes to develop conversency in these subjects and in
the language. Yeah, and that that's dangerous. I mean, it's
you know, it's of course I want to promote interests.
Of course, we as disciples of Christ want to promote interests,
because that's part of the discipleship process, right. But at
(11:16):
the same time, it's dangerous that this idea has been
the spouse so widely by a lot of people who
claim to have done research on this, but they they
have not again put in the work of the time
to understand the nuance and the mechanics of the passages
and languages that they're studying.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, well, I would think correct if I'm wrong, doctor
jud that someone who's put it time into Hebrew is
a lot different than somebody like say me, who has
a cursory knowledge of Hebrew. I took Greek and seminary,
but I didn't take Hebrew, so I have a cursory
knowledge in Hebrew. I know how to use the Lexicans
and stuff like that that you know, that's that's good.
(12:01):
But but for what you're talking about to really draw
out nuance, that would take someone who has been for
fluent in Hebrew for decades to be well nuance.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
But here's here's the thing, though, that even with the
tools at hand, and they are expansive in this day
and age, we've got all kinds of yeah, free online
really good in some cases, you know, to the point
of being scholastically critical, critically good resources that can be
(12:34):
applied to these, uh, these problematic passages.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
So in that respect, if those resources are engaged enough,
if you know, the commentaries and words, studies and things
like that, utilizing those, a person should be able to
reason what the passage is talking about that it's not
talking about. You know, this fabricated sexual li is on
that takes place supposedly takes place between the serpent and
(13:04):
Eve and the product mean Cain. I find it interesting
as a historian that that really this this issue was
put to rest by the church fathers. Yeah, and in
particular I'm thinking of RNAs writing in the second century,
(13:25):
wrote a work called Against Heresies in which she basically
dispels this idea that had been circulating in the early Church.
Interestingly enough, Gnostic influences.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Yeah, the o.
Speaker 6 (13:43):
Fights, I think were one of the ones that held
them their name.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
Right, Yeah, from from opio, the Greek word for serpents.
And for people who are even passively knowledgeable about the
history of gnoscissism, you know, the serpent represent that's the
sort of knowledge dichotomy that existed in Gnostic theology, where
everything in the Old Testament was demonized. The theology in
(14:10):
the Old Testament was basically demonized, and the God of
the Old Testament that they called y Aldabaoth was was
actually an evil, insane god, and that it was the
serpent that was bringing wisdom nine times out of ten.
These theological issues that still crop up today. A lot
of the literature, the patristic literature that the Church Father
(14:30):
turned out, solves a lot of these problems. Why because
they were dealing with it almost on a day to
day basis, Because it was such an ensconced part of
the late Antique Greco Roman culture and the early Church
that there was. These were things that had to be
addressed quickly or they became problematic for a church communities.
They and they did in the varieties of Christianity that
(14:54):
we found throughout the Mediterranean basin, and so I would
just like to, you know, write off the bat, just
reiterate that you really have to look no further than
iron as to solve whether this is balderdash or not.
On my platforms, I've started almost every week I give
out a little award that I call the Flaming Bull
(15:14):
Feather Awards, and the serpent Seed was I think was
maybe my first or second.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
I was it.
Speaker 7 (15:22):
I didn't say that one. Yeah, if I hadn't following them,
well I've got it. I've either put it out or
I got it in the queue. But it certainly deserves
a Flaming Bull Feather Award if I have not given
it one yet, because it's just it's such an unsound idea,
although you find these kernels of early Gnostic ideology laying
(15:45):
the groundwork for it. Another thing that's interesting to me
that I would observe is that people that espouse and
propound the serpent seed doctrine are relying in many cases
on literature that was produced after the writing of certainly
the Old Testament, but the Gospels too. And I've already referenced.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
The Gnostic influence a lot of a lot of the
the early serpency doctrine was sort of distilled in one
of the Nastic gospels, the Gospel of Philip, that again
circulated in parts of the mendietranean basin during the early
Christian periods. But again we're talking about literature that's you know,
in in in the Gnastic literature, in the context of
(16:29):
Nastic literature certainly at least a century or two after.
And then there's there's also Jewish literature that's that's consulted
and I'm thinking of Targum in Midrash material than in
in all cases are you know, we're talking about this
(16:50):
is medieval literature that's written after eight hundred or nine
hundred a d. And the probably the most notorious one
is the zo r which is an extremely obtuse in
some cases I suppose it might be the right word,
but certainly peripheral mystical document, uh that that sort of
(17:14):
props up the serpent seed doctrine. But again, you know,
this is a people that use use this literature justification
for interpreting judesis three as as giving us the serpent
seed doctrine, are doing so on pretty dubious, shaky ground
by using literature that's written so much after the fact.
(17:39):
You know, it used in in some cases a ritual magic.
You know, the zo r is a central text for
the Kabbalah.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Well, yeah, ask.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
Yeah, so you know there. That's why I say that
it's it's a dangerous heretical idea to be a spouse.
But but it gets lots of cliques on you know,
your social media platforms. You don't have to go very
far into the YouTube world or or Instagram or TikTok
or what have you, and you're going to run into
(18:11):
people with spousing the serpency doctor.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
I think one of the where I first heard it briefly,
one of the first times was through a pretty famous pastor,
Arnold Murray out of y Arkansas Shippers. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's and I'm sure obviously came before him, but I
think he was one of the more modern espousers of it.
And what's so to me dangerous, like you say, because
(18:37):
it is about it is. I think he had a
lot of other avarrant doctrines as well, But but he
had a lot of things correct and he seemed like
just an old Bible preacher from Arkansas and had a trust.
There's people that still follow now and he's dead, and yeah,
and I think about there's just I read a biography
(18:58):
about a Pentecostal guy, William Random. I think he where
he is, he established or taught that doctrine towards the
end of his life as well.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
Yeah, both Mury Murray and and uh Brandabism, which were
espoused in certain Pentecostal and even Primitive Baptists and a
few other few other denominations, not not universally, but in niches.
They were espoused.
Speaker 6 (19:24):
Daniel Parker for the Primitive Baptists, I believe, right.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Yeah, and even even the colt figures like Sudden Moon
also espoused the serpency doctrine. And just disturbingly there were
I mean, if it's not disturbing enough, if it's not
rattling your cages already. It was an idea that was
espoused by what several white supremacist movements in America in
(19:49):
the twentieth century MONTELUSA of which were the American Nazi
Party and the ku Kloaks Klan. Because it became just
like it had been used by people, you know, spousing
slavery and became an easy tool. That is, the the
Serpencied interpretation became an easy tool to demonize certain groups,
(20:10):
and it had been used for that purpose in centuries before,
but you know, in just justifying chattel slavery and the
supremacy of one ethnic group over another.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Despite the doctrine itself being irrodious, it has a very
checkered path in terms of its its utilization by certain
groups for brother unseemly and unethical things.
Speaker 6 (20:42):
Sadly, it seems like Brennam was the least wacky person
who believed it.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
I would yeah, yeah, that's bizarre.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Well, doctor Jedd, I think it's interesting too that that
you know, we talk about and this is something else
that really bothers me too. On the other end, word
heretic and heresy throw around like candy, and everybody's a
hero atic if few different groups, so different denominations will
throw heresy at the other one, you know, stuff like that.
So that's a thing nowadays too, the whole dialectic. But
(21:13):
it's interesting to me that this, according to what you
just said, it not only was a doctrine, that was
just a doctrine, which I would think all doctrines lead
this way, but this doctrine actually led to a change
of lifestyle and life. I mean, it actually led to
a fruit that was destructive and rotten.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Mm hm.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
And most of it does. But it's really blatantly obvious
with this one.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
To me.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
Yeah, and that's a good That's a good litmus test
for sound doctrine is what fruits is it producing?
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
If there are fruits of of you know, the expansion
of knowledge, and discipleship and charity and forbearance. Those are
the kind of hallmarks that I thought that the writers
of the New Testament are constantly drum all about, right,
the fruits of the faith. Yeah, So that right there,
(22:06):
you know, that should be the first and the last
tests for sound dry sound doctor, and we can. I mean,
the epiphenomenon of discussion of doctrine is why we have
denominations in the first place. And I'm here to tell
you that none of us have the complete picture at
the end of the day. I like what my buddy
Doug me Indoors says. You know, at the end of
the day, we all have bad theology of.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Yes, we.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Should celebrate that, but I think I should celebrate that
we're all imperfect.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
Well, and one thing I was telling a fellow recently is, hey,
you know, look, well, when we come face to face
with Jesus, you know he's not going to be checking
our denomination card. Yeah, He's going to be asking did
you know me? And what were those? What were those
fruits of your faith? So, but this becomes the kind
(22:55):
of laboratory for testing theoretical thought, and it should be
implicit even even in our discipleship training that this is,
you know, this is how you go about testing what
what is heretical and what is not? What is what
is christ like and what is not? And the service
doctrine just fills the test horrendously. And again I'm one
(23:15):
in a little line of people who have brought criticism
and indeed dismissal in a lot of cases. I defer to,
you know, the late doctor Mike Kiser, who was a
good friend of mine, and he wrote on this subject
a number of times. In fact, you can still go
to his websites and find articles that outline the mechanics
(23:37):
of of why this is such a bad piece of doctrine,
only hermeneutics. But again, you know, it gets that it's flashy,
it gets it gets those clicks, and and that's sort
of the temptation of social media, not that it's it's
inherently a bad thing, but that's one of the one
(23:58):
of the trends that I've notice is that it does
for people that espouse that it does generate, you know,
a lot of views on content.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah, I mean there are there are sensational shows and
things and stuff out there, YouTube channels, all kinds of stuff,
and and that's what they're there to do. I think
they could do it probably like some of the ones
that are more fiction and get the same response. However,
but yeah, I kind of want to, if it's all
right with you, just circle.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Back around and and Lindsay.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Had suggested this earlier before you on the show, that
he thought this would be a good place to really
clear up some area.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Mm hm.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
So why why do you think fringe or liminal will
just do with fringe? Why why do you think fringe
circles confuse the whole Nephilin narrative of the seed war
with the serpent seed doctrine? Do you see that a lot?
I see it a lot. I just didn't know if
you saw it you know.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
But yeah, it's it's prolific. It's prolific again because it's convenient.
There's some more of that linguistic paradi or contextual paradolia
that's that's going on. It makes sense to me ergo
it must be true. That's faulty reasoning, and you know, hey,
I get it. I mean we're in this space where
(25:21):
we're you know, we we espouse the supernatural and the
strange because it's in the Bible. I mean, the Bible
presents a supernatural worldview. We're not denying any of that.
We embrace it. But just as again, if I can
defer to the writers of the New Testament, you know
they not one of them encourages us to abandon our
(25:42):
reason while embracing the supernatural. Not one of them. I
challenge anybody to find you a passage where that is
the case. You're not going to find it.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
No, it's a both, and it's a both and exactly No.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
That's cliche, but it's still true.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
It's yeah, it makes nonetheless true.
Speaker 8 (26:01):
Mm hm.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
So that's that's one thing that I'm always trying to
instill on my students and and on you know, the
interviews and podcasts things like that that I do is that, yeah,
I embrace the supernatural, but it doesn't doesn't mean that
you obey in reason and logic, because that's something that
that's taught to us in the New test and certainly
(26:23):
in the the Patristic literature. You know a lot of
these guys were before they came to the faith. They
were they were products of the same academies that there
their philosopher counterparts were, and so they they understood the
value of logic and reason. Yeah, and so it's it's
(26:46):
an easy leap to go from the serpency doctrine to
the the creation and the sustaining of the nephil line
because it seemed like, well, in my estimation, because of
what happens in Genesis six and it was what's you know,
(27:08):
explicated and further expanded on in the apocryphal stuff like
Enoch and Jubilees and the Genesis apocrypha and in the
Dead Sea Scroll material in general. Is it's easy to
project what happened there, which actually was cardinal. In other words,
(27:28):
you have angels mating with humans, right, and project that
onto the Serpent Sea Doctor. And I've also seen influencers
and social media gurus talk about when Jesus in the
New Testament is addressing the Pharisees, you know, a couple
of times he calls them a brood of vipers, that
(27:49):
this is the end all, be all evidence that these
Pharisees were the part of this wicked line that began
with Kin. But there's there's no justification in that. In fact, well,
again it amazes the trend amazes me of how much
it's used to lure people in to watch videos and
(28:11):
listen to content and stuff like that, and that that
to me seems very demonic. It seems very satanic. Yeah,
there's clear demonic influence there, and that that illustrates again
another danger here is that you're not just people that
espouse this are not in propounding it or not just
espousing erroneous doctrine, but they're disseminating it at the behest
(28:36):
of this demonic influence.
Speaker 6 (28:40):
Jud what would you how would you respond to this?
I'd appeal to hidden knowledge. This was this was hidden
and when we discovered it, kind of.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Thank you you.
Speaker 6 (28:52):
Often, not just with this doctrine, but similar doctrines are
idious sort of gnostic tinged doctor and like this how
would how would you respond to that?
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Well, the the allure of the power inherent and knowledge
is as old as time m and the I mean
that that's the whole mo for the occult at general.
Is this secret knowledge. You know that that will give
you some sort of spiritual age over over everybody else,
(29:24):
or or you know, fill in the blank, whatever aspirations
person has that they're trying to attain. But but it's
a lie, just like it was a lie from the
mouth of the serpent to Eve. But what what are
the things that that the nakash offered you had him
in the eve. You know, surely you won't die you
(29:50):
eat this, You're going to be like God's You'll have
you'll have ultimate knowledge. Well, they already had all that
at that stage. They have all that they commune directly
with God. They they had the ultimate source of knowledge,
the ultimate search engine. It went went beyond anything any
(30:10):
ai that man could drum up to answer our questions astronomically,
beyond that, they had everything that the serpent was supposedly
offering to them.
Speaker 6 (30:23):
They had access to the source of knowledge.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
Yeah, yeah, wisdom, that's right, knowledge tempered with wisdom.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Well, uh, you know, I was when we were going
over this stuff, I was hit with a thought and
and and this might be you have to check my
logic here, doctor Jed. But would if the serpent seed
of Kine is true, why would the.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Enemy have a need to do Genesis six mm?
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Hm.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Is that is that flawed logic?
Speaker 6 (30:55):
Or no?
Speaker 4 (30:55):
No, no, no, that that's not flawed logic because ultimately
the denizens that the followers of Christ have to go
up against our demonic and demonically influenced individuals.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
So it seems like to me it would be like, well,
I can affect the whole human race, or I can
wait several years later and just affect the partial part
of the race, you know, I mean, I know God's
sovereignty is involved in all this. It just seems like,
even from a satanic or occultic purpose of his plan,
if if he had Adam create Cain and Caine permeated
(31:31):
the earth, then his plan was achieved. And I don't
even know sometimes, and you have to correct me about this,
I don't even know if it was like a plan
of one being for this whole. I mean, is there
really one angel that is like the head Godfather that
plans all this or is it? Do they operate kind
of as a committee maybe too, as the false divine
(31:52):
counsel and they.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
Well, yeah, I mean, and that's the thing is that
it seems to be that on on some some things
they're they're of an accord, and on others they're not,
because they're they're all self serving and self interested, and
they're all they're all playing this this game against the well,
really against the fulfillment of the fullness of the gentiles.
(32:15):
You know, whenever that clock runs out whatever that looks
like to God, is how much time they have. And
they're sort of playing this, they're trying to play towards
towards a stillmate game if I could use a chess analogy,
but that's not going to be possible. But that's that's
really the only victory that that you know, that they
can have is you basically take as many people away
(32:39):
as they possibly can't.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Yeah, kind of like a like a I mean, this
is maybe a bad comparison, but like a suicide bomber.
You know, their goal is not to win, their goal
is to take out And.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
Yeah, further, very yeah, very similar, very similar. But again
we're you know, we're talking about the I mean, these
are are largely spiritual, philosophical and moral issues that a
lot of Serpencied espousers seemed to And I'll be the
first one to admit that Genesis three fifteen is a
(33:13):
it's a multi layered prophecy, you know, most prophecy is.
You know, it's fulfilled and hits not just in a
single point in space and time, but has ramifications for past,
present and future. By way of example, the portion of
the Genesis three point fifteen prophecy that talks about Jesus
(33:36):
crushing the head of the serpent, Well, one way that
that's fulfilled is that he literally does that with almost
every step of his ministry. Much of it is in
Galilee and Upper Galilee, the eastern portions of which were
ancient Bashawan, which was quite literally in Phoenician the land
(33:57):
of the serpent. And so with every step that he's taking,
he's literally crushing the serpent, and even more so when
he's in Ces of Philippi, because that's smack daub in
ancient Bashan. And there's a valley that runs on the
western side of Mount Hermon called the Bethra Hobb Valley,
(34:18):
which is the old probably the oldest name for Peneus,
bethro hobb Rahab in Hebrew can mean cursed. It can
also mean It's also a name for another name for
Leviathan in the Old Testament, which of course is the
great ringing serpent. So again, Jesus is quite literally crushing
(34:42):
the head of the serpent, you know, at ces Philippi
at Peneus during that episode in Matthew sixteen, in Mark
chapter eight. Those are directions that you could take when
looking at the verse in a verse like Genesis three fifteen,
and then applying it to its fulfillment and prophecy by
using historical context. Which again not to say that people
(35:07):
that espouse these these kinds of erroneous ideas aren't familiar
with concepts like historiography and contexts, but they're clearly not
done the work to properly use them, or or else
they would not come to a conclusion like the serpent
seed doctrine.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Yeah, and and two.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
I think there's it's like like you talked about at
the beginning, there's this this textual paradoilia, like the word seed.
They read the seed if you if you don't read
it in its context. In Abraham seed. We are Abraham seed,
but I am not of Semitic line or air Man
or whatever he was. So from his seed though, because
(35:47):
of Christ, and so that same I guess poetic or
metaphor would work for this seed, will stamp this seed.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
It doesn't have to necessarily be DNA.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
But you know, we live in a society where we
want to we want to make it literal. And I
get that because they're finding a lot of really cool
stuff about DNA and in science, so we don't want
to read into that text with Isa Jesus, that seed
is always sexual or biological or that. And that's what
jumps out at me at is that three pot fifteen,
(36:21):
Like you just said, it has multiple layers of me.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Yeah, yeah, you've hit on one of the basic problems,
and that's oogetical They is to Jesus rather than exegetical listeners.
Isa Jesus is the projection of a more cases than not,
a biased hermeneutic onto the text, rather than letting the
text speak for itself and reading it in the ancient
(36:46):
context and in terms of author and audience.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Which was if I'm correct, me if I'm wrong, which
was also a big hermeneutical method of gnostics, right, that's right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
Thinking back to my own training as a historian, you know,
one of the first, one of the first upper division
classes that I took was a medieval history class, and
I think that same semester I took historiography, and historiography
is for your listeners, historiography is twofold. It's one it's
the process of doing history, the research and the writing
(37:23):
of history. And secondly, it's the history of the field itself,
how it progressed.
Speaker 6 (37:31):
Why they wrote it the way they do Why.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
Yeah, exactly. And so what what I'm getting at is
sort of the first historiographical rule that I learned was
to avoid something called presidentism. Presentism is the is like
it's you can think of it as historical aside Jesus.
It's the projection of your your cultural norms onto a
(37:57):
past narrative automatically, know, really out of context. And so
this was this is one of those cardinal rules in
his historiography that you you weren't supposed to break. And
of course when I took theology classes, you know, in
church history and stuff like that, and the seminary that
was on campus slur This is basically the same thing
as oxy Jesus in a historical context, and that's what's
(38:21):
had you know, you point out accurately, that's what's happening
with the tics for people who espouse the serpentcy of
doctrine bi big no.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
No, yeah. And I think a lot of people.
Speaker 4 (38:33):
It's easy to it's easy to do. I mean, it's yeah.
I mean just just it's our natural reaction to look
at and things that happened in the past and say, oh, well,
that's I can't believe they did that. Why in the
world did.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
They do that?
Speaker 4 (38:46):
If somebody dropped us off into you know, England a
thousand years ago, it might as well be dropping us
alw F on another planet exactly. Our customs and manners
would be different. We would not be able to communicate
with them. May maybe maybe five percent of what we
say might filter through. But people in I mean people
(39:09):
in England at the time, we're speaking Anglo Saxon. So
that's that's an example of what we're talking about here,
is that we approaching past narratives and evidence from the past,
and in this case, you know, biblical text and doctrine.
We always need to approach it cautiously and with as
(39:29):
much much of an I towards it's historical context as
cultural context as we possibly can.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Yeah, one of my pet peeves about that, if this
is what historiography is, is what I call chronological snobbery.
Held we we think that we're smarter, we have more
technology and more blah blah blah, when we we don't
even realize probably what was in the library of Alexandria
they got burned up or whatever.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
Certainly, well, and even even with when I used to
give when I gave historiography seminars to undergraduates, even with
the well in particular with ancient documents and ancient history
and inscriptions in archaeological evidence, you know, the farther back
you go typically the less you have to work with.
(40:13):
You know, you've got a lot of fragmentary stuff. We're
blessed in the case of the Bible that we have
we actually have more evidence, more copies of that that
we do of Homeric literature in the ancient world, which
you get to me again speaks to God's God's providence
and letting us have all of this stuff. But as
(40:34):
a rule of thumb, we typically have fragmentary evidence that
you're working with in the past, and so your interpretation
needs to be very measured, very cautious, and that, you know,
I think to a degree that should be true of
us when we read the Bible, or rather when we
study the Bible. Yeah, so that that we're less apt
(40:57):
to stumble like that. Again, not to say that the
Holy Spirit, the peraclet isn't isn't our best source of commentary.
But but again there's that faith married to reason.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
You know.
Speaker 4 (41:08):
Let's let's take you into a context. Let's take into account
what the author was saying. Let's take into account what
the audience knew that we might not know today that
might cause an author to not mention something because it
was implicit, it was widely known. All of these are
and many more factors that should should register, you know,
(41:29):
when approaching in this case of biblical text, but really
any any ancient, ancient text or ancient source of knowledge
or piece of piece of evidence. Again to intone, Paul,
we're looking through a glass darkly. This stuff is all
going to be revealed to us totally ultimately one day,
but but for now, we see through a glass darkly.
(41:49):
And that's why people like Doug van Dorn very wisely
say that at the end of the day, we have
bad theology, we have an incomplete picture, and so we
need to we need to remember that when we're developing
and using hermeneuticts, we needed to take a very measured
approach to scripture because that, ultimately, combined with our prayer
full hopes, is the best way to deliver sound doctrine.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Yeah, well, let me let me go. We're about to
run a time wrap it over time. But there's one
other question. I kind of want to go rabbit trail.
It relates to this, and we can bring back to
this is what other areas in our fringe are limital space?
Do you see that are gnostic or do you see
(42:33):
a gnostic trend in even evangelicalism and all that nowadays?
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Do you see that?
Speaker 4 (42:38):
Yes? I mean in certain circles. I don't know how
familiar you guys are with the emergent church movement.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
Yeah, Brian McLaren and yeah, all those Yeah you remember that.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, that's one of the things that occurs
to me now. I sort of saw the the seedling
of this movement up close and personal. I did my
undergraduate work at hard and Simmons University in Abilene, Texas.
(43:11):
And there were a number of people that would become
prominent in the Emergent Church movement that that I was
literally taking classes with. In fact, I won't I won't
name names. I won't need to, but one of them
actually took Greek with me for a while. He washed out,
(43:35):
but that that may have been part of his problem.
The the individual and thinking of was involved in a
praising It was labeled a kind of praise and worship service,
and I mean every everybody was telling me about it.
This would have been about ninety eight, seven ninety eight,
(43:57):
and I went once and it, I mean, it's it
sounded like woo woo to me before I went. But
when I went and saw that this fellow that I'm
thinking about was involved in it, it just completely turned
me off. There was something, you know, in my discernment
barometer that went off, like something odd, elevating of the
(44:22):
spirit of you know, over sound doctrine was a seemed
to me to be a current in the very initial
stages of what became known as the Emergent Church movement.
Speaker 6 (44:31):
Yeah, and progressive Trojan Horse.
Speaker 4 (44:34):
Yes, that's exactly what occurred to me is that it
was postmodernized Christianity, and I on an intellectual level, postmodernism
turned me off because of its its jettisoning of objective
truth and when I saw it, and certain the emergent
church movement was not the only one to embrace embraces.
(44:54):
But that's what it seems like on the surface, is
that they were pursuing the sort of knowledge beyond on
what was already presented in the Gospel, and that all
our interpretation, you know, are our Southern Baptist interpretation of
the Gospel or whatever, it was not sound enough. So
many red flags that were going up about it.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Yeah, well it's it's just been it's been rebranded now
it's called deconstruction. Yeah, and let me let me, let
me caveat it. Not all deconstruction is bad, because I've
been through some and certainly, you know, I mean, believing
in the Divine Council worldview was a act of deconstruction
for me a lot of ways, you know, it really did.
So I don't want to paint with that too broad
of a brush, but it always it's like Lindsay say,
(45:37):
it's that progressive trojan horse you know. I mean McLaren
now is a liberal episcopal priest. He married his son
to another guy. I mean, that's that's facts. I'm not
be smirching his reputation. That's just the read, right, And
that's where that ended up. And that's where I think
Gnosticism always tends to end up for some reason.
Speaker 4 (45:59):
No, I tend to, Yeah, because these guys are were
pursuing again knowledge outside of the bounds of described in scripture.
That's always that's always a bad recipe. And that's that's
at the heart of not just ancient gnocissism, but modern narcissism. Yeah,
it's how things like the the Sophia doctrine may crept
(46:20):
its way into into certain Christian denominations. When I make
reference to denominations. Again, Jesus is not gonna be checking
our denomination card. There are certain things that that all
of us, regardless of of our whether we're Charismatic or Baptists,
or or Pentecostal, or Orthodox or Roman Catholic, and just
(46:45):
you know, there's certain things that we have to come
to the table and agree with that we're creedal about. Uh,
that that go far beyond that, you know, denominational ties.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
I like how Bart said it, Jesus loves me this,
I know, for the Bible tells me. So he was
kind of tongue in cheek with that. But if if
we have the right credle, like you said, foundation, then
well we will love the real Jesus, not some artificial one.
Speaker 4 (47:14):
Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, any of you you're not, Yeah,
you're not accidentally pagan. But you know, there's a difference
between that sort of acumenicism and embracing bad doctrine. Yes,
the former is what we want. The latter is what
we want to dispel and pull people away from. Yeah,
(47:41):
and again, we're on your podcast right now, we're talking
about this. It's interesting stuff to talk about because it
does venture into this liminal phase, but it circles back
to the tow also the centrality and the importance of
sound doctrine. Yes, I think we can unequivocally say that
the serpent seed is bad doctor on not just theological grounds,
(48:03):
but linguistic grounds and historical grounds.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
Yeah. Well, but let me ask you this.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
I wouldn't go as far, and I have a hard
time even dealing this out like the early Church did anyway,
But I wouldn't go so far as to say if
somebody held this certain belief, maybe justice belief, that they're
anathema or a full blown heretic or anything like that.
But usually with this doctrine comes anti trinitarianism and a
(48:33):
lot of other problems with your Christology, you know, and
all that.
Speaker 4 (48:37):
Yeah, but somebody doesn't. It doesn't lead to a deconstruction.
That can be a good thing, but it leads to
a complete unraveling in some cases.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
Good word, it's a really good word, yep.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
And that's what we don't want. And if if your
faith unravels, I've watched it happen. I mean, you know,
he had a big guy in in that, Tony Kompalo,
his son, Like I said, this is this is just facts.
I'm not naming names, but this is just a fact.
You know, his his son is now a full blown atheist.
That's a fruit of that unraveling, so to speak, because
he was he I think he was on the tail
(49:13):
end of that whole emergent church. And then I think
they tried to distinguish between the two, calling one emerging
and then the other emergent and anyway, semantics and stuff.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
But.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
Yeah, I was actually attracted to that, like at first
because of the whole Hey, yeah, let's look at how
to do church different, you know. I mean it's obvious
that we're not doing church probably the best way we can,
so let's let's look at it, you know. But it
was it went far, like you said, it went far
beyond just practice it. It went into doctrinal do it
(49:48):
was yeah, it was. It was not it was incorrect.
Doctrine is not good. And I'm I'm like this, I
believe in the wideness of God's mercy. I don't want
to hard and all this stuff came out about Ozzy
and I was like, you know, Mark's safe from not
judging Ozzy's heart today.
Speaker 4 (50:08):
And yeah, exactly. But God's grace, God's grace is broad,
and it's broad in ways that we can't completely fathom.
And that's even evident in the Old Testament under the law,
because even the law wasn't enough. That's another trend today
is you know, well you in addition to being a Christian,
(50:28):
you have to hold up the Torah. Yeah, and the
Torah is instructed to us of course, is instructive to
us today. But you know, go Regalatians Hebrews or Hebrew. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
The what I what I was pointing towards was that
God's grace was necessary in the Old Testament too, because
(50:51):
the law was just as it is today, was instructive,
but it was not enough because nobody could keep it.
You look at the Old Testament, it's the story of
what screw up after.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
Screw up, after screw up.
Speaker 4 (51:07):
You're right after screw up after screw up?
Speaker 3 (51:08):
And why do it?
Speaker 4 (51:09):
And that that that that is the trajectory of salvation
is we can't do it on our own boom.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
That's the Gospels. That's the good news.
Speaker 4 (51:20):
That's the good news, right, is that you can be
you can be part of Abraham's family. Yeah, and you,
I mean you.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
Why do people want to go back to that?
Speaker 4 (51:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (51:30):
You know, is it a novelty thing? I think it.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
I mean liking it to this. And I'm an Anglican priest,
but I'm retired. I went through this, this spell of
of and it wasn't all this. It was some theological
stuff too, but this this whole like smells and bells
and stoles and candles and and all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (51:47):
Which which I love, is beautiful. It's great, it's part
of the church history, it's part of tradition and all
that stuff.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
But but I think sometimes people are attracted to the
exterior of it. I'm really looking in to the interior
of of of.
Speaker 3 (52:03):
What we're talking about it, and a lot most of
it's the same.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
That's what crackspent When I get on Facebook and people
are bickering over some of the stupidest stuff.
Speaker 3 (52:13):
There's a lot of this is semantics.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
And anyway, So I don't know what made me chase
that rabbit feel that one, but.
Speaker 4 (52:20):
Well, I mean it's you know, my Keiser used to
used to say, the New Testament should point Christians to
the Old Testament, and the Old Testament ship point Jews
to the New Testament something on, something along those lines,
and so yeah, of course it's it's still relevant. Of course,
it's fulfillment. It's it's a biblical prophecy. It's almost impossible
(52:42):
to understand the return of Christ if you don't understand
the biblical.
Speaker 3 (52:47):
Feast, yeah yeah, and the yeah yeah.
Speaker 4 (52:52):
So you know, and that's just one of many examples. So,
of course, but to be to be tied to it
beyond grace is just not part it's not part of
the New covenment.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
Well, and correct me if I'm wrong here.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
The Hebrew connotation of the word to rah we used law,
and it was a law, but it was more than
a law. It was more of an instruction, right, I mean,
wouldn't that be a better word for it. It's to
implicit in the definition of law, you know. And I
(53:25):
think this is part of our it's part of a
Western tradition, because that's where it begins, and the ancient
levant is the law. Laws are not just you know,
they're not just a structure that they're meant to be
living and breathing, and that that's that's why I say
that implicit in the use of the word.
Speaker 4 (53:44):
The translation of the word law is that, of course
it's instructive, you know, and you know, in an analogous
way in the ways that that are our own laws
and in the United States are supposed to be in
strog Well, they're they're supposed to be instructive. I don't
know that they all as are.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
But well, on one side says it's supposed to be
new and living, they mean completely abolished the Constitution.
Speaker 4 (54:06):
And yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (54:08):
Well, but but liberals do that with the Bible as well. Yeah,
it doesn't. It's not the word. It contains the word
when we get to tell you where the word is
or where it's not.
Speaker 4 (54:20):
Yeah, this is a whole other podcast episode.
Speaker 3 (54:23):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
But well, doctor Judd, is there anything else? This has
been brilliant. I love just talking to you about this
kind of stuff. And I still want to ask somebody
that leaves in the Serpent seed why Genesis six happened.
If it happened now, I'm I'm going to find somebody
and very nicely, if that's possible, ask somebody that I'm
just curious to me. It was just like it al
(54:44):
It's like it almost appeared out of thin air.
Speaker 3 (54:48):
Very much.
Speaker 4 (54:48):
So.
Speaker 2 (54:49):
Yeah, but thank you so much for coming on our
show and.
Speaker 3 (54:54):
Dropping the knowledge.
Speaker 2 (54:55):
Just what other boys say so I love them too,
so dropping us some knowledge so we have shid my please.
Speaker 4 (55:01):
Thanks jud absolutely, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 8 (55:11):
Thanks for listening and supporting us, and remember stay naturally supernaturally.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
Hi, everybody, it's me Cinderella Acts. You are listening to
(56:32):
the Fringe Radio Network. I know I was gonna tell him, Hey,
do you have the app? It's the best way to
listen to the Fringe Radio Network. It's safe and you
don't have to log in to use it, and it
doesn't track you or trace you, and it sounds beautiful.
I know I was gonna tell him, how do you
(56:53):
get the app? Just go to Fringe radionetwork dot com
right at the top of the page. BI know, slippers,
We gotta keep cleaning these chimneys.
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