Literally Not Literal!

Literally Not Literal!

From Data Over Dogma by Daniel McClellan and Daniel Beecher

March 2, 2026 · 1h 2m · Episode 152

About this episode

The episode explores biblical literalism and the significance of Hebrew letters in the Bible, challenging the notion of coded messages pointing to Jesus.

This week we're diving in to some deep controversy, and we gotta say: come on in, the water's fine. First, we're looking at biblical literalism. There are a lot of Christians out there these days who claim that they believe that the Bible is to be taken exactly at face value. It's literally true exactly as it is, no interpretation needed. Well, if you've been with us for any amount of time, you already know that's a position that's not going to work around here. But what is biblical literalism really? When you boil it down, what are the literalists really saying? Is literalism a dogma that goes back to beginning of Christianity, or is it relatively new? Then, we're going crazy with orthography! Or maybe scriptology? Or maybe even grammatology? Whatever it is, we're looking at Hebrew letters. What could be so interesting about letters, you might ask? Well, according to an onslaught of online Christian influencers, the Hebrew letters in the Bible have coded messages that all point to (brace for the shock): Jesus! Does the Hebrew Bible have a whole second level of meaning to decode when you look not at the words, but at the letters? Well, no. But the topic of how Hebrew (and…

People in this episode

Hosts: Daniel McClellan, Daniel Beecher

Topics covered

  • biblical literalism
  • Christianity
  • Hebrew letters
  • orthography
  • scriptology
  • grammatology

Keywords

  • literalism
  • Christian influencers
  • Hebrew letters
  • coded messages
  • Bible interpretation

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Christian

Books & works: Bible, Hebrew Bible

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