We're gonna talk next about some high tech findings and some forgeries from some ancient documents. So we're gonna talk about this really cool guy named Mike Langlois. I'm sure I said that wrong, Mike, and I'm terribly sorry about that. But this guy, Okay, so it's worth pointing out. This guy has like, I don't know, what was it, like seven degrees, you guys, in all kinds of different stuff.
I mean, this man has been studying the Dead Sea scrolls. Now, I'm sure a lot of our audience is familiar, but for those that aren't familiar, I'll give just a quick little rundown, which is a while ago, there was this cave and it had all these like really old documents in it that had to do with like the Bible and stuff, and we didn't know about those for a really really long time, and then we found them, and then we've been searching through them and there's been a
lot of really interesting information in there. Obviously, there is a probably more technical way to say all that, but that gets us up to speed for the most part. But one of the really really cool things that he is doing is he is using some high tech stuff to kind of scan over these documents and that has
given us a lot of really really cool information. So I'm not going to go through all of that, but before I pass it off to Richard, I just want to point out that when I started reading this, I thought it was really cool because very early on I noticed that one of the things that Michael had published on also one of those publishers is a man by the name of doctor Kip Davis aka doctor Kill. And if you don't know who this guy is, he is
a dead Sea Scroll scholar. He's been hanging out, you know, with all kinds of incredible people, just debunking all kinds of things, and I just thought that was really cool because I've seen a lot of his stuff that I enjoyed the crap out of it. And anyway, I will stop talking so that we can have some more technical discussion on this from our resident professor, Richard. What do you got for it?
Well, I was going to say, an active and still professional musician, a PhD in obscure history reaches corpus linguistics and programming and language analysis, good looking, talented, sharp dressed. Enough about me, this guy's pretty cool. I really like him. I suspect we get on quite well, should we meet. I've the technology that's coming into the field of things
like textual analysis. I was back in the day. I was doing very very very simple corpus linguistics, where I put a Python three program together that was kind of shoddy, and it will pick out certain words from certain texts from about twenty three thousand books, which was great because once upon a time you do a history degree by sitting in a cellar for three years reading things very slowly. But that amazed me at the time that I could do that. But this, this isn't a whole of the level.
This is the satellites that are mapping Egypt and the Amazon and finding cities level of stuff. And it's important, I think, to know which historical documents are real which ones aren't, because there are lots and lots of arguments out there amongst historians and archeologists this is real and that isn't. And it's usually based on stuff that is more subjective than they would admit, like certain forms of paleography. Oh that little curly r means it's from the first century,
And you're like, yeah, but does it though? And someone else comes along to say no, no, no, no, it's from the second century, whereas this what he's doing, the kind of analysis is no, no, that curly ar is definitely from the first center. I can prove it. Look at the readout on my system, and I just find that brilliant. It's going to make my life easier because I don't have to whenever I'm doing anything all that, don't have to look at a text and go, Okay,
who actually wrote this? And it's going to make other peoples easier in the field. And it's so important to studying religious texts because so often you get the latest this is the real Bible? Well is it again? You need to go and see this guy's work and see if you're looking at the right thing. It's ground it's groundbreaking stuff. And I think not just religious text but all texts need this kind of tech and it's only
going to get better. But you also needs someone like him who is fluent in all these areas to pull it together. And there's another area that I'm interested in, which is sort of not just focusing on one subject. Because I'm a bit of a neglector. I can't focus on one thing at a time. I can't focus on you know, I'm just far too fidgety. And I think he sounds like he's the same. He's like, yeah, I've done that. I need to bring this into it. And I've done that. I need to bring this into it,
so let's study it. And without that, I don't think you can have this kind of innovation. You need people weirdos like us who are multidisciplinary and so what what subject do you do? And like him like me or go ah, you need to sit down and it's he's great. I think he's fantastic and I think his results are fantastic, and I think it's bodes so well for this kind of research. I you can tell I'm a little excited about this kind of It's kind of in my wheelhouse just a bit.
It is pretty cool stuff. Yeah it is, Helen. What did you think about this, this all around awesome guy.
I have feelings because, as a woman that is married to an intelligent, well read basis, part of my brain was like this part this is Megan Helen A little oh sorry, sorry, I mean, you know, happy, happy and smart.
I love happy and smart man. Sorry, so, but this is the type of shit I love where someone starts on because he was a person of faith, the person of faith, and he just started following the evidence and he was was and he, like many of us that were in that been in person of faith, had tooken the Dead Sea scrolls for gospel. You know that they were legitimate, and then by using all the vaiable scientific technologies,
bam so many forgeries. And this is helping people that have certain documents and their private collections and they're finding out that they were frauded. They're re examining the pieces that are in museums to go is this actually authentic?
And I just find this so fascinating the way that modern technology and these scientific discoveries are reconstructing not only how we look at nature, but how our faiths and mythologies have developed over time and giving this reconstruction of how things are, which I think is really fascinating because the thing is, though it's kind of my feeling on it, the people that lived in those ancient times and followed certain myths and part of the culture and the religion,
it shaped them who they were for that culture. And if someone comes around and wants to rewrite their history and we're looking back on on them our time to where we got. Now we have to adjust with that new information and if we and I can't help but think that there's gonna be some people, just like with a Shot of Turn when that was proved to be a fake, that they're going to bury their heads in the sand and they're gonna put their fears in.
Their ears, and like.
I'm hearing you, I want to believe what I want to believe, and that's the thing we're going to see again, even as this comes out where he's saying, like, I'm not saying that some of the texts is for our forgeries. There is some legitimate history here, but we have to separate it all from what it's authentic versus what people kind of threw in over time. If you especially if you're a believer, because as a believer, wouldn't you want to know the exact truth of your faith?
Just saying yep, And I think that that brings me to one of the quotes that I really loved from him. It says, but with forgeries, if you don't pay attention and you think they are authentic, then they become part of the data set you use to reconstruct the history of the Bible. The entire theory is then based on data that is false. And I just I love that because I think I think that's so powerful. Again, like you pointed out, Helen, he this is a man who who is a believer. This is a guy that does
have faith. He's not an atheist, He's not you know, an anti theist, none of that. This is somebody that truly believes and is wanting the most accurate information because, like we always say around here, the more true information you have, the better you can understand things, and the better decisions you can make and stuff. And like both of you pointed out, I think this is just amazing because even as somebody who is not religious, it is
so fascinating to understand the nuances of these cultures better. Right, And just just because I thought this was funny, I I thought there was a list at one point. And by the way, folks, this article is amazing. I mean it comes from the Smithsonian magazine. It is It is super duper in depth. And every single time we have an episode of nonprofits, we always encourage you to read stuff. I want to double triple down on this article because
you will learn quite a lot. But at one point, there's there's one section where it talks about a handful of the different places that had to admit that they had forgeries. Okay, so we've got a Zuza Pacific University in southern California, We've got a Southwestern Baptist Theological seminary, We've got the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC had to announce that its entire collection, entire collection was forgeries.
That's amazing and we only really have that information because of this scholarship, right, I mean, it is so freaking cool to me that we were able to discover so much and on I'm just I'm excited. I want more information to come out on this, you know it. I don't know what next cool discoveries will be made, but I am I am going to say there are probably going to be a heck of a lot still to come. Richard, your thoughts, I think, yeah.
And what I also like is when you find the forgery like this, sometimes there'll be a modern, fairly modern forgery, but sometimes they won't be. There'll be an addition or a change, or a forgery that was done five hundred, one thousand, and fifteen hundred years ago. And that's a whole new area of study. Who forged you? Why did they forward? Where did they come from? How did that map onto their culture?
Later on?
Are they doing it to map it onto their culture? What's going on there? This whole PhDs to be written in just that before you get to the new reading of the text themselves. And so that's why I love this kind of thing. I love extra textural analysis is a wonderful thing. I remember once buckered my university days.
I remember going to Trinity College and finding a book and open in it and there was a page folded though it was a very very old book, and I know that the person who folded that page was a young lad called Isaac Newton. And I remember going, oh, and suddenly the guy who read the book was as important as the book. So that kind of stuff, it really fascinates me, this history of this guy who used to go and fold all the pages over so he could find certain words in them, being Isaac, it's great.
It's a great way to go and having something more concrete. And yes he's a person of faith. But here's a weird thing. Not everybody who's religious is a bibiolity. Not everyone who's religious, absolutely, you know, doesn't want to know
the truth. You know, it could be argued, and this is a longer conversation, but it could be argued that the reason we have empiricism is because a bunch of religious people when you know that America continent, well, Aristotle in the Bible didn't mean it, which means we've got a problem with our brain. So we need to work out a way of seeing the truth of God in nature without using our brains and without reading that book. So do we do it? Well, we'll test things and
see if it matches a prediction. And that's kind of your Francis Baker than people did that. There are them out there. It's amazing. There's a world of religious, rational people that's kind of all weird things they but there are and he's a great example of that. Yeah, he's a person of faith, but he wants to know what the truth of these things. He wants to get to
the bottom of it. And yes there's one little area that he's kind of compartmentalizing, but he's a I don't mind that so long as he's true to the science and he doesn't try and comment to me or anything or force his beliefs and everybody else. So it's great. It's great as a person whose background is for primarily history. Yeah, as you can see, I don't care at all, not bothered.
I just love what you said though about like the Isaac Unon thing, like knowing he had full Like there's something very like I don't I'm using this term, but I mean like magical, but I don't mean magical, but there's just something about that idea that like generations before us had these really incredible ideas, uh, and that brought
us into modern society. Like it gives me chills, Like that's like, that's like my jammy jam jams because because I think as secularists and atheist, because we know life
is finite, we somehow get a little cynical. Yeah, and I think it we need to take a moment as as as human beings to kind of take a step back and go, you know what, we got here because of people before us that had good ideas and they wanted to push humans forward and society forward and culture forward, and let let like Okay, I'm gonna call him leglass because it has the one I keep saying in my head.
Fuck tolkn okay, it's just embedded in there. But he is one of these people as a scholar and someone that was going to follow the evidence that what he did, And I think that's I think that's really cool. Like I just even like, you know, we will have we can have a discussion about faith. But like if I could be in his lab and watch his work like I might, I would have like a big brain orgasm, Like I get really impressed. So, yeah, this type of stuff that I love.
Yeah, honestly, there's there's just so many cool things. Like seriously, like a third of the a third of this whole article I think is just talking about how cool of a duty is, which is like true.
It's like true.
It's like every single time I read the next thing, I'm like, damn, Mike, like chill, like save something for the rest of us, you know, like calm down, man, Yeah.
But I'm on the steak. You mount and jam with him.
Right, It's like you have a ten minute jam session and then just be like yeah, so what do you think about the mesha stele A, Like what are your thoughts on that? Where where did you go with the Yeah? I mean honestly, this is this is some incredible, incredible stuff to me, and this is where I love to direct my attention. You know, I don't, I don't. I don't care so much for what the internet, you know, the apologist, the the shit they say, just kind of
teasing where we're going next from here. But these are the type of people that I love listening to, right, Somebody like Dale C. Allison, you know, just a true scholar, a believer, yes, but somebody that that does the work and looks at it critically and is willing to provide their sources, you know, give you the evidence so that you can see it too, And isn't just coming up with these wild fanciful conclusions and so forth just because
they want to. Like Richard said, yeah, you're gonna notice that there seems to be kind of a piece of it where they just kind of compartmentalize the stuff. And that's fine.
I don't.
I don't think that that destroys the scholarship in any way, shape or form. Because of the fact that we are going about this in a rigorous method and we do have that data to back it up, right, we can make the predictions, we can find those freaking things when we go look for them. That's huge. And just the more that we do on that, the more we are
gonna understand this. And I really do believe that as we present more and more of this information to the average believer, I think they're going to start shifting a little in their world. I think this stuff really takes
hold for a lot of people. I can't tell you how many friends of mine right that are that are atheist or agnostic now, And and they would say to me things like, yeah, it's because I thought all of this history stuff was true, that I was such a big believer, and then as I started looking into it and I found out, hey, some of this doesn't really match up with a historical timeline that really that really
was the first crack. I love it, honestly, and and again, even if even if it doesn't cause a mass amount of people to step away from their faith, I just love the fact that we do have, you know, critical scholarship on something that for so long we we really didn't have, especially not at this level. So again, just hardcore, hardcore want to suggest to everybody out there, read this.
It is so fascinating. Yeah, it's it's so good.
Yeah, yeah, truly, it's it's and again it's like really it's kind of just worth it just to hear about Michael, like just hear all the cool stuff that he does, like not even the not even the tech stuff with the Dead Sea scrolls.
But anyway, apparently he's a snappy dresser.
Yeah, that's exciting.
He probably beats me for for the best hair award. I really I don't feel like I know. And yeah, it's like I feel bad about having to get it up, but game got a record.
I mean, you and j Mike are just competing for best hair at this point, so.
I think we're both losing in the category. That's all right, Well we'll get there one of these things. But any other thoughts y'all before before we go on and round out this with a little bit of our our old friend Helen or Richard.
The only thought to me is actually, in some way is a positive thing having someone of faith doing this kind of research, because there's one criticism that can be taken away from the theist, which is you're just an atheist. You would say that, we can't say that to him.
Yeah, good point, good point, Helen.
Anything else? Yeah, And like I'm just going to reiterate I said four, Like, I love the fact that he just followed the evidence. You know, he was and the person of faith and he wanted to know because of that more about his faith. And he didn't stop looking. And I think that's wonderful. Like I like, i I'm like, oh, humanity, yay,
good feeling. So I just think it's fantastic because this article is a trip and so and that gives me hope from humanity like people like him, like he's a person of faith, that he's doing he's doing the God's work.
That's right, That is right.
Yeah, and again, seriously, I'll read this, read this article, take the time.
It is super worth it. But you know, unfortunately, as happens, we have to eventually say goodbye, and we're getting close to that time. But before we do, let me tell all of you wonderful people out there another great way you can support us here on the nonprofits. You can become a member of the channel for as little as ninety nine cents a month. All you got to do is click the join button below the video, and this
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