Biblical scholar Dan McClellan has made it his mission to combat misinformation about the Bible on social media. He's garnered a huge following on TikTok by "stitching" videos of creators who post what he sees as misinterpretations of biblical scripture. His videos often ruffle feathers of the religious world, but with a PhD in Theology and Religion from Exeter University, he has the credentials to back it up. On this week's edition of Weekend Insight, TPR's Jerry Clayton talks to McClellan about his efforts to educate the public about what the Bible does and doesn’t say.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity
Clayton: Can you explain the difference between a biblical scholar such as yourself and a theologian?
McClellan: A theologian is generally involved in doing the work of religion — of telling people — well, let's understand the Bible this way and let's live it according to this. And theologians tend to be restricted by a number of dogmas, and a critical scholar of the Bible is not involved in the practice of religion but is involved in evaluating and interrogating and analyzing the religion as it is practiced by other people.
And in regard to the Bible, it's primarily going to be focused on how the Bible came together, how it was likely understood by its original authors and audiences, and then how groups have understood it ever since then.
Clayton: What is the biggest misconception floating around on social media about the Bible?
McClellan: I think the one that is most fundamental that influences all the others is this idea that the text is univocal, which means it speaks with one single, unified, consistent voice from one single, unified, consistent perspective — which means it cannot disagree with itself.
And so it must be inerrant. It must be inspired. You can understand one text by going to this other text way over on the other side of the Bible, and the two must be able to be harmonized and reconciled. I think that assumption is a dogma that underlies so many of the other dogmas that I see being spread on social media about the Bible.
Clayton: A lot of people cherry pick verses from the Bible to achieve their goals. One topic that seems to raise a lot of interest is homosexuality. How do you deal with this topic?
McClellan: It is something that has contributed to a lot of structuring power and values over and against the interests of the LGBTQ+ community. So, I think it's something that is problematic the way a lot of people are talking about it.
There are very few passages in the Bible that address the question of same sex intercourse. I don't say homosexuality because that primarily refers to a sexual orientation today, and modern notions of sexuality and sexual orientation didn't exist in the ancient world, so they had no concept of homosexuality as a sexual orientation as we understand it today. But they did address in a few places same sex intercourse, and they are generally condemnatory towards same sex intercourse.
But their understanding of when and why it takes place and what might motivate it for one sex over and against the other sex, and what might motivate it for a person who prefers a given role in that intercourse over and against the person who prefers another role in that intercourse, their understanding of all of that was wildly different than our understanding today and is phenomenally outdated, and is governed by assumptions about how the world works that no longer hold.
The only reason that people still want to care about how people talked about same sex intercourse 2000 years ago is because it has become a central identity marker for conservative readers of the Bible, and it allows them to engage in structuring power and values to serve the interests of their identity politics.
Everybody has to negotiate with the biblical text. There is no person living today who lives every last thing that's in the Bible. We have reinterpreted so much of the Bible. We've interpreted so many things right out of the Bible. The Bible is 100% pro-slavery from beginning to end. We renegotiated that away.
You can find Dan McClellan on TikTok, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook
