[This episode was uploaded in audio-only podcast format to correct a problem that listeners noted with the video podcast format where the sound starts cutting in and out around the 1h20 mark]
Conspiracy theory thinking is a staple of the online right. It is seductive. It gives a clear enemy who is manipulating things behind the scenes to enact their sinister plans and designs. The problem with this type of thought is that it removes from us the obligation to examine ourselves and really understand what is actually happening. Often, reality is more subtle, nuanced and comes with goods and ills together, making it hard to easily grapple with. Reality is messy and complicated.
In this episode,
and I look at what we call “Talmudic” thinking and its influence on not just the modern administrative state, but also the patterns of thought that gave birth to American constitutionalism. It was instrumental in the rise of Scholasticism, both Catholic and Protestant and ultimately in systematic theology. We trace this idea back to its Old Testament origins in misunderstanding the nature and purpose of the law and its relationship to the wisdom tradition in the Old Testament up through the New Testament as it is fulfilled in Christ.
With this foundation we follow the movement and influence of “Talmudism” through the middle ages, up through the Reformation and into modernity looking at its implications for the Christian faith as it is practiced in the modern era, especially in the New World, as well as the way it shaped modernity more broadly, especially in the form of the administrative state. “Talmudism” is a way of thinking that gradually was adopted in the west and genuinely contributed to technological mindset that produces such things as “the rule of law,” the administrative state, and even AI.
We really think you will both enjoy this one and be deeply challenged by it. I have had a lot of really good conversations here at Seeking the Hidden Thing, but this is one of the best in my mind.
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