This week we're taking on the thought-stopping cliché to end all thought-stopping clichés: "trust in the Lord, and lean not on your own understanding." Is "reading with the Holy Spirit" a special line to God that us dirty scholars just can't access, or is it John Lennox's red Ferrari parked right next to an invisible dragon nobody else can see?

Then we wade into the online cottage industry of "secret" Hebrew letter codes—the ones that supposedly smuggle Jesus into the very first word of the Bible—and explain why Aleph-Tav, the Eth Cepher Bible, and every last appeal to Strong's tells you a lot more about the decoder than it does about the text.

Support Data Over Dogma and get every episode early and ad-free, plus exclusive bonus content — become a patron:

https://www.patreon.com/DataOverDogma

Get your Data Over Dogma merch at our online store:

https://data-over-dogma-shop.fourthwall.com/

Watch every episode on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@dataoverdogma

Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/dataoverdogmapod

TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@data.over.dogma.pod

Threads — https://www.threads.com/@dataoverdogmapod

X — https://x.com/data_over_dogma

Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/DataOverDogmaPod

Get Dan McClellan's New York Times bestselling book, The Bible Says So:

https://static.macmillan.com/static/smp/bible-says-so-9781250347466/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices