The Dawn of Everything: Introduction to Season Two

A Christian and an Atheist Walk into a Bar

Season 2, Episode 1 is finally here! And y’nz are not gonna believe it, but we have…A PLAN! This season we will use the amazing book by the late David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: a New History of Humanity to frame many of our discussions about the Bible. We love this book — enough to shamelessly crib from the title for the name of Episode 1. We spend a good bit of time discussing the book and why it’s important, and we give particular attention to what Graeber and Wengrow describe as three freedoms that are a common pursuit across human history and prehistory. They are:

• freedom to move away or relocate from one’s surroundings
• freedom to ignore or disobey commands issued by others
• freedom to shape entirely new social realities, or shift back and forth between different ones.

But the big question is: what does this possibly have to do with the Bible or religion or Christianity? After some general examples of where we see these freedoms expressed in the Bible, we dig into a truly wacky and wonderful passage from Genesis 30 in some detail. We think it turns out to be a fairly fruitful approach and we hope you’ll agree.

What we’re drinking

• Neil: Xingu
• Phil: Dragon’s Milk White

Kapitel

1. The Dawn of Everything: Introduction to Season Two (00:00:00)

2. What we're drinking today (00:01:08)

3. Introduction to Season 2 (00:03:40)

4. Three Freedoms (00:10:12)

5. Freedom to relocate (00:12:06)

6. Freedom to disobey (00:14:45)

7. Freedom to shape new social realities (00:16:15)

8. Influence of the Indigenous Critique on European thought (00:20:02)

9. Reading the Bible in light of the Three Freedoms (00:26:33)

10. Why this is a valid way to approach scripture (00:35:20)

11. Genesis 30:14-24 (00:45:12)