Before One God: How Ancient Israel Evolved from Canaanite Polytheism to Biblical Monotheism w/ Dr. John Day

Johnny Ova: Welcome everybody to the Dig In Podcast. I am your host, Pastor Johnny Ova, and today I have the privilege of having Dr. John Day join us. Dr. Day, thank you so much for your time. I'm looking forward to this very interesting topic.

Dr. John Day: It's a pleasure.

Johnny Ova: Before we get into Yahweh specifically, can you paint us a picture of the religious landscape of ancient Canaan? What gods and goddesses dominated the world the Israelites emerged from?

Dr. John Day: Yes. Canaan, and in fact all the other nations of the ancient Near East, were polytheistic, worshipping many gods and goddesses. But very often these nations would have a supreme or national god. For example, in Moab the chief god was called Chemosh, in Ammon Milkom, and in Edom Qaus. And in Phoenicia, which is really the northern part of Canaan, the part the Israelites didn't possess, Baal was very much the chief god. It's too simplistic to say, as people often did years ago, that Yahweh was a god of history and the other gods were simply nature or fertility gods. That's quite wrong. A Swedish scholar, Bertil Albrektson, wrote a book called History and the Gods, in which he showed that the gods of the surrounding nations were also thought to act in history. And of course Yahweh was also thought of as a nature god and creator, thought to bring fertility to the land.

Dr. John Day: Egypt also had a large number of gods and goddesses. It was only the Pharaoh Akhenaten in the 14th century BC, husband of the beautiful Nefertiti, who tried to abolish all the gods and establish monotheism, but it only lasted a few years. When he died, all the old gods came back. Similarly Mesopotamia, modern Iraq, ancient Babylonia, and Syria were polytheistic. Now, if you're asking about Canaan specifically, forgive the irreverent comparison, it's a bit like God the Father and God the Son. El was the supreme God, but sort of Baal was where all the action was, the son of El, and also a dying and rising god like Christ. El was thought of as supreme and creator and wise, and that's why the Israelites were quite happy to equate Yahweh with El. When the people came into the land, they equated Yahweh with El. Even though Baal was abominated, El was thought to be a good fellow and was equated with Yahweh.

Dr. John Day: So El is the supreme god, and we learn a lot about El from the Ugaritic texts. Ugarit is a site on the coast of northern Syria, now called Ras Shamra, and from 1929 onwards many mythological texts were found there that tell us a lot about the religion of Canaan, far more than the Old Testament does. We learn that El was the supreme god, but Baal was the most active god, a dying and rising fertility god. He was thought to be dead during the summer months, when it was all dry and not a drop of rain. The weather forecast in Israel and Syria every day from April to October is no change, no change, no change. I know because I spent a year and a quarter of my life in Israel and Palestine 50 years ago, which shows how old I am, when I was a fellow of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Baal was thought of as rising from the dead around September or October. That's when the rain comes for about six months, on and off. The Bible talks about the former rains and the latter rains. That's why many Israelites were tempted to worship Baal. Bringing rain and fertility to the land was thought to be his special area of expertise.

Dr. John Day: But there were other deities. El had a wife called Asherah, Athirat in Ugaritic, but Asherah in the Old Testament. Baal had various wives. One was called Astarte, whom you will have heard of, and another was Anat. There was Mot, the god of the underworld and death, who swallowed Baal up when it was time for the dry season to come. There was a god Resheph, another underworld deity, who is mentioned in the Old Testament as a rather demonic kind of figure in the book of Job and in Habakkuk 3. And there's Molech, a rather grisly god to whom human sacrifice was offered. The Ugaritic texts don't mention human sacrifice, but they mention a god MLK. They didn't write the vowels, you see. He seems to be equivalent to Molech, whose worship was centered in the Valley of Hinnom, by Jerusalem. It's now in Jerusalem, but in ancient times it was outside the city. Well, that's something about the religion of Canaan.

Johnny Ova: It's fascinating, because I'm trying to get into the mindset of the ancient Jews of the Old Testament, to feel where they were at, and speaking as a Christian, how much we really don't know about their mindset from what's taught in the church. That's why having you on as an expert in this field is always going to be enlightening. One of the passages that popped out to me is Deuteronomy 32:8 to 9, in the Song of Moses. It seems those two verses describe Yahweh receiving Israel as his portion from the Most High. What are we actually witnessing in terms of an ancient divine hierarchy? I know you touched on that a little, but it seems there was some type of hierarchy back in that day.

Dr. John Day: Yes. That's a very interesting text, which I was intending to discuss anyway. It states that the Most High divided the nations according to the number of the sons of God. Now, would you believe it, the Jews thought there were 70 nations on earth, and El, the supreme Canaanite god, had 70 sons. So when Deuteronomy 32:8 says the Most High divided the nations according to the number of the sons of God, it's quite clear the sons of El in Canaanite religion have been appropriated by Yahweh. They're now his sons, the sons of God. They're mentioned various times in the Old Testament, like a pantheon of gods under Yahweh. Yahweh is supreme, but they're underneath him. As monotheism became absolute, eventually these gods came to be thought of as angels. That's where the angels came from. The late book of 1 Enoch talks about the 70 guardian angels of the nations, not the 70 gods.

Dr. John Day: You mentioned Yahweh receiving Israel as his nation, just as other gods receive their nations. Some people think the Most High is distinguished from Yahweh in this text. When you first hear it, it sounds like that might be the case. Maybe it is, but I personally think Yahweh is equated with the Most High here. Everywhere else in the Hebrew Bible, the Most High is an epithet of Yahweh. In Psalm 46, Jerusalem is the city of the Most High. I believe Yahweh in origin was a god of Mount Sinai, which was probably in northwest Arabia rather than where tradition puts it in the south, because it's associated with Midian and Edom. Or if it wasn't in northwest Arabia, it was in the far northeast of the Sinai Peninsula. Anyway, Yahweh came from there, and he was brought in, I believe, by a Moses group. I don't think all of Israel had been in Egypt, only a small number whom Moses brought out. He introduces Yahweh into Canaan, and in Canaan Yahweh becomes equated with El.

Dr. John Day: And although Yahweh takes over the sons of El, who become the sons of God, he rejects El's wife. Some Israelites worshipped the goddess Asherah alongside Yahweh. It's quite clear, because in 2 Kings 23 we know Asherah was even being worshipped in the Jerusalem temple, and King Josiah abolished her cult there in 621 BC. Why would people worship this goddess? It makes sense if Asherah was the wife of Yahweh for some Israelites. Not for the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament rejects this as an abomination, but there were Israelites who thought Yahweh had a wife. That explains Deuteronomy 16:21, which says you shouldn't plant an asherah tree next to the altar of Yahweh. Why would anyone do that? It makes sense if she was thought of as Yahweh's wife. Some years ago a Hebrew text was found at Kuntillet Ajrud in the north of the Sinai Peninsula, with someone saying, I bless you by Yahweh and his Asherah. So they're clearly connecting Yahweh and Asherah. The Old Testament rejects that, but there were many Israelites who did, for some centuries, worship Yahweh alongside Asherah.

Johnny Ova: Because it seems in the Old Testament, where Asherah worship is mentioned, it's condemned. It's not looked at as a good thing. But there's evidence of a sect of ancient Judaism that did worship Asherah.

Dr. John Day: Yes. Well, we probably shouldn't use the word Judaism. That's a term we usually use for the post-exilic religion. Say the religion of Israel, the earlier period, or the religion of the Hebrews.

Johnny Ova: Okay, interesting. Why do we see the name Israel, which contains El and not Yahweh, if Yahweh was always their God?

Dr. John Day: That's a very interesting point, isn't it? The name Israel probably means God rules, or El rules. I can't explain why they put El in the name rather than Yahweh. But because El and Yahweh became equated, to say El rules meant Yahweh. It just became another term for Yahweh. So in much of the Old Testament the name El is no longer a Canaanite god but just another name for God, like Elohim, which is the plural of El. You might wonder why a word for God would be in the plural. I don't know if you know Hebrew. Elohim is a plural word. It's thought to be a plural of excellence. In the book of Proverbs, chokmah, wisdom, is sometimes spoken of in the plural. It's a way of speaking about something being excellent. I hope I haven't gone too far from your question.

Johnny Ova: No, that's great. Is there a pinpointed time when El turned from a Canaanite god into the God of Israel?

Dr. John Day: I think a small number of Israelites came into Canaan by way of Mount Sinai. I personally would date it around 1200 BC. So from that period onwards, in my view, Yahweh and El become equated, and the sons of El are taken over as the sons of God. What's called the Yahweh alone party would obviously reject Asherah and Baal and the other gods like them. But some of the other gods would be seen as his underlings, like his heavenly court. Just as an earthly king has a court, Yahweh as a great king would have a court of gods, later understood as angels.

Johnny Ova: So back to Baal. Baal was a major competitor to Yahweh in the biblical narrative. What specific attributes and powers did Yahweh absorb from Baal, and what was consciously rejected?

Dr. John Day: Well, Yahweh is very much a storm god in the Old Testament. But maybe that was before they came into the land. In the theophany on Mount Sinai, Yahweh appears in the storm, so maybe that wasn't appropriated from Baal. I don't know that a lot was appropriated from Baal. It was mainly from El, because Baal was rejected. Baal is a dying and rising god, and Yahweh was not thought of as a dying and rising god. But there were some Israelites who equated Yahweh with Baal. We know that from the prophecy of Hosea. In chapter 2 verse 5, Yahweh, through the prophet, says, you shall no longer call me my Baal. As you know, people don't condemn things that aren't being done. So it's quite clear some people were equating Yahweh with Baal, as opposed to El, and the prophet rejects that. So everything to do with Baal has negative overtones.

Dr. John Day: We know of two wives of Baal from the Ugaritic texts: Astarte, called Ashtoreth in the Old Testament, and Anat, also mentioned in the Old Testament in a place name, Beth Anath, meaning house of Anat. It seems some Israelites did take over Baal's wife. That explains Elephantine, a site in the south of Egypt near modern Aswan where there was a Jewish colony in the 5th century BC. Although this is the post-exilic period, they didn't only worship Yahweh. They mainly worshipped Yahweh, but they worshipped a few other gods and goddesses as well. One was called Anat-Yahu. Yahu sounds funny, like Yahoo, yahoo.com. Anat-Yahu was the wife of Yahweh there. There was another goddess, Anat-Bethel, presumably another wife of Yahweh. So Anat lived on among the Jews in Egypt in the post-exilic period.

Dr. John Day: But it may be that the Jews there were really from the northern kingdom. Bethel comes in the names of two of the deities, Anat-Bethel and Herem-Bethel, and that would fit if the people came from the northern kingdom, because Bethel was in the northern kingdom. You may recall it was at Bethel that there was a golden calf, which the Old Testament abominates as a pagan symbol. But it's quite probable that those who put up the golden calf saw it as a symbol of Yahweh. From Samaria in the northern kingdom there's an ostracon, that means a potsherd with an inscription, which has the name Egelyau, meaning calf of Yahweh. That suggests the calf was seen by some as an acceptable symbol of Yahweh, as it was for El, and also for Baal, by the way. But the Old Testament rejects that.

Johnny Ova: Fascinating, very fascinating. Now I want to turn to some of the mythological figures you've written about, like Leviathan and Behemoth, being borrowed from Canaanite sources. How did these cosmic battle myths get incorporated into Yahweh's identity as a divine warrior?

Dr. John Day: Oh yes, I should have mentioned Leviathan when talking about what was absorbed from Baal. In the Ugaritic texts we don't get a long description, but it's stated at one point that Baal defeated the seven-headed serpent or dragon called Leviathan. In the Old Testament it's Yahweh who defeats Leviathan. You find this, for example, in Psalm 74, speaking of creation. It talks about Yahweh shattering the heads of Leviathan in connection with the creation of the world. That's Psalm 74:14, I think. In Isaiah 27:1 this is projected into the future. On that day, meaning at the end, Yahweh will slay Leviathan, the twisting and crooked serpent, and slay the dragon that is in the sea. Now, would you believe it, those very same terms, twisting, crooked serpent and dragon, are used of Leviathan in the Ugaritic texts. So clearly Yahweh has appropriated Baal's role there.

Dr. John Day: And in the New Testament, you might be interested to hear, in the book of Revelation there's a dragon with seven heads in Revelation 12 symbolizing Satan. You've written on Revelation, so you know all about it. In Revelation 13 there's the beast with seven heads, symbolizing, I believe, the Roman Empire. This is clearly taken over, ultimately, from Leviathan, the seven-headed Canaanite monster. It was taken over by the Old Testament, and somehow it lived on and reappeared in the first century in the book of Revelation, in an apocalyptic, eschatological future sense, as in Isaiah 27:1. That's quite fascinating. Just as, you remember, Jesus is accused of casting out demons by Beelzebul. Not Beelzebub, that's a later corruption. Beelzebul. And Beelzebul means Prince Baal, would you believe it. It's an epithet of Baal in the Ugaritic texts, except the other way round, Zebul Baal, Prince Baal. In New Testament times it's used as a term for Satan.

Dr. John Day: This is quite remarkable. Somehow the seven-headed dragon and Beelzebul must have gone underground for several centuries. I think Baal-zebub is only mentioned in the book of Kings, centuries earlier, and then suddenly it reappears in the first century in the New Testament. So some of this imagery went underground a bit, it seems, and then emerges. Of course, we're also limited in the sources we have. A lot more was written in the ancient world than we possess. That's why very often we have to speculate.

Johnny Ova: Sure. You argue that true monotheism doesn't emerge until the Babylonian exile. Can you trace for us the journey from polytheism through henotheism or monolatry to absolute monotheism?

Dr. John Day: That's my point of view, yes. This is a tricky subject. We don't know all the details precisely, and different scholars might hold slightly different views. But I would say that in ancient Israel in the pre-exilic period, before the Babylonian conquest in the sixth century, many Israelites probably worshipped other gods in addition to Yahweh. That's clear from the condemnations of the prophets. The prophets are constantly condemning the people for idolatry and the worship of other gods. But already in the 9th century BC, the prophet Elijah confronted King Ahab and the people and said you must either worship Yahweh or worship Baal. He didn't think it was acceptable to worship both, which is probably what many people were doing. So we can tell that already in the 9th century BC there was what you might call a Yahweh alone party that insisted on worshipping only Yahweh. It's what we call monolatry rather than absolute monotheism. One scholar called it practical monotheism.

Dr. John Day: You remember from the Ten Commandments, you shall have no other gods before me. That's not the same as saying no other god exists. Psalm 95 refers to Yahweh as a great king above all gods. He's king over them, but it doesn't deny the existence of other gods. So the Yahweh alone party, who may have been a minority at first in the pre-exilic period, would have been monolatrous rather than absolutely monotheistic. The tendency toward monolatry was encouraged by King Josiah's reformation. This is an important event. In 621 BC King Josiah, king of Judah, abolished all the local shrines, what the Old Testament calls the high places, because they were built on high places. He abolished them all with their cults.

Johnny Ova: Like literally high places, right?

Dr. John Day: Yes, that's right. Not that high, but pretty high. It seems these high places had what's called syncretistic worship. Syncretistic means mixing up religions. So the worship there would have mixed the religion of Canaan with the religion of Yahweh. We read that in 621 BC Josiah abolished all their cults and insisted everyone come to the Jerusalem temple to worship. It's a bit off-putting to have to go all the way to Jerusalem. I know Israel is quite a small country, and I suppose they weren't going every week like church, just for the main festivals. This is the reform of King Josiah described in 2 Kings 22 to 23. Interestingly, his reformation also involved abolishing pagan cults going on in the Jerusalem temple. 2 Kings 23 mentions the cult of the god Baal, the goddess Asherah, and the worship of all the host of heaven, the stars and the sun and the moon. All their cults were abolished in 621 BC. The king had absolute power then. The worship of the god Molech in the Valley of Hinnom was also abolished by King Josiah, the cult I mentioned earlier involving child sacrifice.

Dr. John Day: You may wonder why people would offer up children to a god. I think it's a case of desperate measures for desperate times, because it seems to predominate in the eighth and seventh centuries, when the Assyrians were dominating the land, and perhaps it was a way of encouraging the god to make things better for them. Anyway, this obnoxious cult was abolished by Josiah in 621 BC. Then the exile comes along. The Babylonians conquered Jerusalem first in 597 and then again in 586. That's the really big event, when the temple is destroyed and the kingdom comes to an end. The prophets of that time tended to see the exile as a judgment on their sin, so they thought they'd better do better in future. That leads to a strong tendency in the exile to try to be more faithful to Yahweh, and it continued in the post-exilic period after the Persian king Cyrus allowed the Jews to return.

Dr. John Day: Toward the end of the exile there was a prophet called Second Isaiah, or Deutero-Isaiah, the author of Isaiah 40 to 55. If you read these chapters, they're clearly not written by Isaiah of Jerusalem, because they presuppose that Babylonia is now the chief power and the Jews are suffering under them, many of them in exile. That's quite different from the beginning of Isaiah, where Assyria is the leading power, top dog, like your country America. Now it's Babylonia. In these chapters the prophet, called Second Isaiah or Deutero-Isaiah by scholars, seems to insist that only one God exists. One verse is Isaiah 45:5: I am the Lord, and there is no other. Besides me there is no God. You can find similar sayings elsewhere in his prophecy. Believe it or not, some scholars think even this may not be absolutely monotheistic. They think maybe the prophet is simply saying Yahweh is the only God of any importance, the only God who acts. But I personally think the prophet is absolutely monotheistic. He couldn't have made it any clearer, and that has been the traditional view.

Dr. John Day: After Second Isaiah we're in what's called the post-exilic period, or what Jews often prefer to call the Second Temple period, and it seems many of the people now probably were monotheistic. That tendency may have been encouraged by Ezra and Nehemiah, leading Jews in the Persian Empire. They forbade mixed marriages between Jews and foreigners, which wasn't for racist reasons but to try to maintain the purity of the religion. So that certainly encouraged monolatry. There wasn't much scope for the religion of other peoples to interfere with the Yahweh religion. By the way, the Canaanites were long gone by then. However, archaeology has revealed Elephantine in southern Egypt, which I mentioned earlier, where there was a Jewish colony. I think they were guarding the southern border of the Persian Empire. They worshipped Yahu, as they called him, alongside a few goddesses like Anat-Bethel and Anat-Yahu, and also a god, Herem-Bethel. Anat, you may recall, had been the wife of Baal in Canaanite religion, so it seems to be a relic of that that somehow turned up at Elephantine among the Jews.

Dr. John Day: But even so, the Elephantine papyri, which are written in Aramaic and there are many of them, suggest that Yahu, Yahweh, was very much the chief god, and these other deities don't play much of a role. So that's basically how I see the development from polytheism to monotheism. This is the religion of Israel as it was. The Old Testament itself, in the pre-exilic period, is thoroughly monolatrous. No other gods are to be worshipped. And as I said, from Second Isaiah onwards we probably have absolute monotheism. But the religion of Israel isn't always the same as what you find in the Old Testament. As you know, the prophets are constantly criticizing the behavior of the people and their unfaithfulness. That's basically how I see it.

Johnny Ova: When Second Isaiah declares, I am Yahweh and there is no other, how radical would that have been? Was the majority more monolatrous than monotheistic?

Dr. John Day: It probably was a radical thing to say, to deny the existence of other gods altogether, if my interpretation, the generally accepted interpretation, is correct that it is a denial of other gods altogether. People sometimes ask me why this would suddenly happen in the exile. It could be that since they thought they'd been unfaithful before the exile, and that's why they were sent into exile, they thought they'd better be good boys and girls in future and went to the other extreme, denying the existence of other gods altogether. We don't really know. There are many things we don't know for sure.

Johnny Ova: Because it seems that's where it turns. I just pulled up this verse in 1 Corinthians 8. It says, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no God but one. It seems like it made that stark turn. Now we're in the New Testament, Paul in this letter to the Corinthians: there's only one God, and no other gods exist. That seems to be the majority mentality.

Dr. John Day: Yes. By the way, I wanted to say something about idols and images. Second Isaiah very much parodies idol worship. He says a man makes a god out of one bit of wood and burns a fire with another bit. He makes it sound a really stupid thing to be doing. But those who did worship idols didn't think they were worshipping merely a piece of wood. They thought the spirit of the god, although it was transcendent in heaven, was present in the image. That's the way they saw it. I thought that might interest you. Another thing I should mention is that even in the pre-exilic period it's very difficult to find any evidence of an image of Yahweh. It does seem there must have been a deep-seated tradition that you don't make images of Yahweh, because it's difficult for anyone to find anything that could be an image of him.

Dr. John Day: Another thing I wanted to mention is Hebrew personal names. In Hebrew personal names from the pre-exilic period, both in the Old Testament and in Hebrew inscriptions, there aren't very many with the names of gods other than Yahweh, or El, which means Yahweh. Only a minority have the name Baal, although there are quite a lot in the Samaria ostraca from the 8th century. Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom. I don't think this proves most people only worshipped Yahweh, but it means Yahweh was very much the supreme and chief god, I think, even for those who worshipped others, going by the personal names. It's the same in the inscriptions and in the Old Testament itself. Baal does appear in some names. Saul had a son called Eshbaal, man of Baal, for example. Sometimes, of course, when they refer to Baal they may have meant Yahweh, by equating them, the sort of thing Hosea condemns. So sometimes it may be Baal in addition to Yahweh, and sometimes perhaps equating them.

Johnny Ova: Trying to frame this the way I see it in America, it's almost like this battle still goes on. As a Christian, you have some Christians who teach a very monotheistic view: there is one God, he rules and reigns, and there are no other gods. Then on the flip side, you have a lot of deliverance ministers binding and casting out things like Jezebel and Baal, with the idea that these are demons that possess people. We see that a lot in America, where they still claim monotheism, yet when they talk about this whole underworld, it's almost a polytheistic type of view, at least from my vantage point. Any thoughts on that?

Dr. John Day: Well, people who believe in angels and demons, which Christians traditionally did and many maybe still do, don't see them as gods. They may be gods in origin, but they've been demoted. They're subordinated, on a lower level than God.

Johnny Ova: Wouldn't that be just a name change to make you feel better, though?

Dr. John Day: They're on a lower level. They're not supreme. And of course, with regard to demons, many Christians would say that some of the things the New Testament attributes to demon possession are simply some kind of psychological illness, because in that period they thought demons actually caused mental illness and epilepsy and things like that. On the other hand, I know some Christians, especially in America perhaps, believe demons literally exist. Is that all, or have you got some more things to ask?

Johnny Ova: I've just got two more questions for you. Dr. Day, after 40 years of studying these texts and traditions, how has understanding this evolutionary process actually enriched, rather than diminished, your appreciation for biblical tradition and the emergence of ethical monotheism?

Dr. John Day: I'm now 77, believe it or not, but in perfect health, and I've been studying the Bible since about the age of 10, so about 67 years. I was brought up in a very conservative evangelical church that maintained there were no errors whatsoever in the Bible, that the Bible is an infallible book. Many people are like this in America, as you know. That was the kind of church I grew up in. As I studied the Bible critically and actually read it, I found, and a lot of fundamentalists don't actually read the Bible, they say it's an infallible book, but if they read it they would soon see that it isn't, so over the years, as I studied the Bible and read books about it, I concluded that the Bible is not an infallible book. So I had to revise my views about the Bible. I am a Christian. I'm devoted to Christ, and I see a progressive evolution toward Christ in the beliefs within the Bible. I came to see it's not all on one level. There was development of belief.

Dr. John Day: For example, Psalm 88 implies that the dead don't praise God, whereas the New Testament would say they do. There's a development there over time in belief in life after death. In the Old Testament you get many passages that show hatred of enemies, and Jesus said we shouldn't hate our enemies but love them. So there you see a development. My views of the nature of the Bible have been transformed, and I think I've come to a more true and honest picture. Jesus, according to John 14:6, said he was the way, the truth and the life. So I very much think reverence for truth is important, whether we like it or not. We may come across things that challenge our original beliefs. But I believe in making our religion fit the facts rather than trying to make the facts fit the theology. So theologically you would probably say I'm some kind of liberal. But that doesn't mean I'm faithless. I have a genuine belief in God and Christ. With study of the Bible, one might believe less, but perhaps come to believe what one does believe more intensely. I certainly think study of the Bible brings one to a more honest picture of what actually happened, as opposed to what the preacher in the pulpit might tell us to believe.

Dr. John Day: That's one of the things I would say. And I would say supreme truth is found in Christ, and he is the criterion by which we should judge other things in the Bible, whether they're true or not. Though I think Jesus himself, as a first-century Jew, was in some sense also a man of his time in certain ways. Otherwise he couldn't really communicate with human beings of the first century, if he knew everything we know about space. He probably believed in a three-decker universe. That's what people believed at that time. If he didn't believe those things, he wouldn't be truly human, would he? So I'd say study hasn't removed faith, but it's led to a revised version of it. And I think it's very important that we're honest and seek the truth wherever it leads.

Johnny Ova: I agree. You can't deny facts to try to fit them around your faith.

Dr. John Day: Yes. President Trump denies facts, doesn't he? He says he's got alternative facts. That wasn't his phrase, though.

Johnny Ova: Your faith should stem from the facts. It has to be that way.

Dr. John Day: Yes. So I would see ultimate authority in religion as coming not only from the Bible but also from reason. The Church of England, which I'm a member of, for better or worse, traditionally talks about three authorities: Bible, reason and tradition. I don't pay much attention to tradition. Tradition could be wrong. So I would say Bible and reason. We have to try to formulate a theology that's consistent with the essentials of biblical faith and with reason as we now know it, whether that's belief in evolution, which I think is compatible with believing in a creator God, or believing in climate change, which I'm surprised some American evangelicals don't believe in. It's just shutting one's eyes to the facts of life around one. Anyway, I'm jabbering on far too much, and you might want to edit some of the things I've said.

Johnny Ova: No, it's all good. You answered my second question in that too. I was going to ask, for Christians listening who may feel unsettled by this information, what would you say about how this historical understanding can deepen their faith rather than threaten it?

Dr. John Day: Right. I would say one has to revise one's faith, but one doesn't have to give up one's faith. One achieves a more honest faith. That's what I would say. I believe God wants us to pursue truth. Just think of Jesus in the New Testament. He was probably regarded as a heretic by many people at the time, wasn't he, challenging traditional views? So I think that's the right spirit, and we can do the same in our own age.

Johnny Ova: Dr. Day, this has been great, and I really appreciate your expertise and your time with me today. I know people are going to be blessed and challenged by this too, but these are necessary conversations we need to have and open up. So again, thank you so much for your time today.

Dr. John Day: It's been a pleasure, and thanks for having me. Goodbye.