A Review of Dan McClellan's The Bible Says So (2025):
Data Bludgeons Dogma in this Excellent Volume
Dan McClellan (M) is perhaps one of the most well-known academics and bible scholarship popularizers on the internet today. His motto, “Data over dogma” is a widely quoted catchphrase now, and he has spent some notable effort in attempting to educate people online, dispelling misinformation, and importantly combatting Christian apologetics. This makes his recent book also quite valuable: The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) About Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues (St. Martin’s Essentials, 2025).
The volume is a tour de force of various commonly held beliefs about the bible and what it says, with lengthy treatments of these issues, laying them out for everyone to read and adjudicate in their own right, while also being firm about where the evidence leads (so adjudicating on the part of laymen is inherently limited, as it should be). He carefully guides readers to what the most reasoned conclusions are.
The volume is split into an introduction, nineteen chapters covering specific issues, and a conclusion, along with an acknowledgements section, bibliography, and detailed indices. M displays his general tendencies also exhibited in his videos, which is a generally careful and quite studious approach to the evidence, while also a sharp eye for deflating the nonsensical approaches of non-specialists and apologists who would distort the bible in various capacities. The first two chapters cover both the formation of the bible and its authentication (i.e., how it came to be viewed as “inspired” when the bible itself never says that it is). These are also as a result the only two chapters which are not exactly “on topic” so to speak. They are instead necessary meta questions about the bible, but not quite about the issues presented therein. The next several chapters are all quite extensive on other topics, and to be sure M does not single out misconceptions that only belong to the religious obscurantists, but also to the so-called “rationalist” and “secularist” populace as well; such as the highly nuanced issue of “The Bible Says Rape Victims Must Marry Their Rapists.”
As it generally happens, I seldom have many critiques of M’s work (more just incessant quibbles) since he makes every effort to be quite careful in his research, and this book is no exception in that regard. It will be valuable to everyone, including my fellow Marxist comrades, as an introductory volume on several different issues pervading the biblical text, and will provide them the start for a more nuanced and balanced approach, necessary for any fair analysis, as well as for any political activism, something M is certainly not averse to in this book. M spares no moment in condemning the moral outlooks of various biblical authors. The chapter on slavery, for instance, ends with: “What is clear is that the Bible absolutely nowhere says that slavery is wrong” (77) and is generally firm in ensuring his readers this institution was inhumane and quite awful. This is something Christians today have been unable to come to terms with.
Regardless, as with any volume there are always quibbles to be had here and there. Notably, the indices are flawed at points (e.g., the entry for Michael S. Heiser states that one can find him referenced on pages 278n9 and 278n15, but while the footnotes are correct, the page number should be 280), so readers will occasionally be sent on a bit of a goose chase to find something. This is, of course, rather insignificant and indexing is a notorious bane on an author’s life, so I pass no judgement on this non-meaningful defect.
There are other occasions I noticed where, however, M has missed occasions for more expanded discussion, or discussion which would just overtly knock down any ambiguity for apologists, and thus make his arguments more effective. For instance, on p. 81, M discusses the evidence that Yahweh had a wife named Asherah in ancient Israel, and takes particular aim at the inscriptions from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud. These inscriptions particularly refer to a “Yahweh of [placename] and his Asherah.” Conservative academics (and even critical ones) have been stumped by this since the pronominal possessive suffix (-h) in Hebrew typically denotates possession of an object. Proper names typically do not take this pronominal suffix in biblical Hebrew. However, since at least the 1990s, it has been known that various Semitic languages do in fact allow for proper names to have a pronominal possessive suffix, including potentially in Ugaritic.[1] Even more importantly, examples of this were found in South Arabian languages, which are central Semitic cousins of Hebrew, as well.[2] Furthermore, since epigraphic Hebrew frequently exhibits traits atypical of biblical Hebrew anyways, the difference seems insignificant. Engagement with this would have solidified M’s arguments that much better, i.e., this in turn upends the arguments of scholars like Ryan Thomas in his essay which M cites (271n9) and makes it highly likely that this is just the propername Asherah with an appended third person, masculine, possessive suffix as found in other languages in the surrounding areas.
Other quibbles could be mentioned. For instance in his discussion of Deut. 32:8–9 while listing various texts that might help relate the sons of “God” to the bny ilm (sons of Ilu/El) in Ugaritic literature, M omits a quite helpful reference to the Targum Ps.-Jonathan on Deut. 32:8, which quite precisely lists the “seventy angels” as the eventual ruling principalities, which provides evidence of the continued interpretive tradition as well. I would also conflict with McClellan on a few random philological and categorical points (e.g., p. 159, I do not think these deities were demoted to “angels,” at least not how we moderns would differentiate an “angel” from a deity; p. 86, I would heavily contest the idea that qanah ever has a creative/procreative connotation in the bible[3]).
I have one issue which is not a quibble though, and that is on the topic of Nero and the Number of the Beast in Revelation (pp. 236–37). Here I will also depart with traditional Marxist interpretation of this passage,[4] but the argument that 666/616 indicates Caesar Nero is, to say the least, defective and is entirely dependent on interpretation and the interpretive framework used. For instance, I would like to ask what evidence is there that Revelation must be using Hebrew gematria here? It seems scant to say the least. But a tad worse is that it requires a lot of coincidences. For instance, it must be that Nero is cited with his title explicitly and only that title, but what if we are dealing with an abbreviated title and also Greek numerology? Well, as Peter Goeman notes, Domitian’s abbreviated name and title on coinage added up to 666 too.[5] Goeman goes on to note that the Beast’s number only adds up to a name not a title. Also, this only works specifically with Hebrew, even though Aramaic was more common. Furthermore, it requires a defective spelling/transliteration of Caesar with a missing yod, which is nowhere attested in our extant texts. Scholars for generations, have, instead, proposed other potential readings, and in fact the idea that it was Nero specifically is not particularly early either. This reading is only possible, at best, and only if we presume the usage of gematria, Hebrew, a defective title transliteration, that “name” also indicates “name + title,” etc. The coincidences have to constantly stack up to make it remotely plausible. As for how 616 came about? Well, the answer could be as simple as poor handwriting on the part of a copyist (ι for ξ) as Goeman notes, and there is one manuscript which even reads 665! As Goeman says, “These variants show that there was not a unified understanding of the referent of this number, and therefore Nero was not recognized as the intended referent.” While Revelation likely did initially refer to a specific figure or prophesied figure, there is no way to adequately determine this is Nero, which I and other scholars have discussed in various publications as of late.[6] Whoever it was is lost to time. Furthermore, if it were Nero, I think M would then have to open up the fact that Revelation is therefore completely consistent with a dating as early as 68 CE, since there is nothing to point to any later date explicitly (especially since there is not a shred of evidence any Domitianic persecution ever took place). Nero Redivivus at best only makes a ca. 90s CE date possible, not remotely probable. Regardless, and in defense of M, his position is well within the mainstream consensus.
Given this is my most noteworthy critique, it speaks to the high quality of M’s work. M’s volume is extremely worth procuring a copy and reading deeply, and will be a useful reference for laity world over. My critiques are all, for the most part, minor and should not be remotely seen as signs of a major defect. Thus, as a volume disseminating mainstream scholarship to the masses, it more than succeeds, and in combatting common misinformation and errant ideas about the bible, it is even better. Dan McClellan’s book comes highly recommended to the layman and scholar alike.
—Chrissy M. Hansen
Footnotes:
[1] P. Xella, “Le dieu et ‘sa’ déesse: l’utilisation des suffixes pronominaux avec des théonymes d’Ebla a Ugarit et à Kuntillet ‘Ajrud,” Ugarit-Forschungen 27 (1995): 599–610.
[2] Peter Stein, “Gottesname und Genitivattribut?” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 131, no. 1 (2019): 1–27.
[3] McClellan cites Genesis 4:1, Deuteronomy 32:6, and Proverbs 8:22. I do not see this as a necessary reading of Genesis 4:1 at all. While Eve did just give birth to Cain, the reading of her coming into possession of Cain is distinct from the birthing. Through the birthing, she comes into possession, but the possession is subsequent to birthing. Deuteronomy 32:6 is clearly stating that Yahweh came into possession of Israel and is anticipating Deut. 32:8–9. The term “father” does not give this context any procreative meaning, as this was just a general phrase used of any patron deity. Lastly, Proverbs 8:22 is clearly, in my view, a term being used in the sense of “possession” given the immediate context (cf. 8:21).
[4] Beginning with Friedrich Engels, “The Book of Revelation” (1883).
[5] Peter Goeman, “Does 666 refer to Nero in Revelation 13:18?” https://petergoeman.com/does-666-refer-to-nero-in-revelation-1318/.
[6] Max Nelson, “A Concealed Claudian: The Meaning of 666 in Revelation,” Journal of Theological Studies (2025), digital paper, https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/flaf015; Chrissy M. Hansen, “The Number of the Myth: A Defense of the Ahistoricity of the Neronian Persecution,” Journal of Early Christian History 13, no. 2 (2023): 1–21; Shushma Malik, The Nero-Antichrist: Founding and Fashioning a Paradigm (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 16–78; and of course, Soviet era academics were ahead of the game on this, see Josef Češka, “Tacitovi Chrestiani a apokalyptické číslo,” Listy filologické 92, no. 3 (1969): 239–49.