But What If the Bible Doesn’t Say That? (Dan McClellan, PhD)

Pulling The Thread with Elise Loehnen

Elise Loehnen

Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality, Self-improvement, Education

4.8 • 900 Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2025

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“It’s a shame that we lose so much of that history and we silence so many of those voices when we just try to flatten the whole Bible,” says scholar, TikTok hero, and author Dan McClellan. Today we talk about why McClellan has chosen to attend to questions about the Bible, and challenge people who want to translate it, or negotiate with it, to the benefit of their own dogma. We also talk about how he squares this with his own faith (McClellan became a Mormon at the age of 20). And we explore past and present understandings of God, sex, and the law. McClellan’s perspective is an antidote to so much that is unnecessarily harsh about our current culture—and his work serves as a map for how we can approach many of life’s bigger questions and debates. For the show notes, head over to my Substack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Elise Lunan host of Pulling the Thread.
0:03.3	Today I'm talking to a really brilliant scholar who, as you have it, has become something of a TikTok star.
0:09.3	His name is Dan McClellan and his new book is out this week.
0:16.1	Whoa, there.
0:17.5	Victoria's had a Friday night to remember.
0:20.1	But now she's outside in the pouring rain and...
0:22.8	Oh, what? You are joking. I've got no data. How are we going to get home?
0:27.4	But then she remembers she's with EE.
0:29.9	Yes, Uber still works.
0:31.7	So then she...
0:33.4	Uber's on me, guys. Should we get a kebab?
0:35.7	Use essential apps like Uber and WhatsApp even when you run out of data.
0:39.8	Search EE Mobile.
0:41.4	Stay connected at 0.5 megabits per second.
0:43.7	Terms apply. Hi, it's Elise Lunan, host of Pulling the Thread.
0:57.9	On this show, we pull apart the web in which we all live to understand who we are and why we're here.
1:04.3	My hope is that these conversations spark moments of resonance and plant tiny seeds of awareness
1:09.4	so that we might all collectively learn and grow.
1:14.7	Here is today's guest, Dan McClellan, on why it's more fun to explore the complexity inherent
1:21.0	in the Bible and in history.
1:23.4	And I think that being able to look at this critically and not bring these dogmas to the text and say, I refuse to believe that because I would never believe in a God that could lose in battle.
1:34.4	Without those dogmas, I think the stories become so much more fascinating and so much more interesting and so much more exciting, fun.
	...

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