EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,023 words- 0:00 – 1:36
How the Billy Carson “debate” brought Wesley Huff into the spotlight
- NANarrator
(drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music)
- JRJoe Rogan
Wes, very nice to meet you.
- WHWesley Huff
Joe, pleasure.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, uh, I, like many people, was introduced to you because of the, uh, debate-
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... that you had with Billy Carson.
- WHWesley Huff
Qu- quote, unquote.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, it's one of those things where, uh, it's very unfortunate when people get caught with their pants down.
- WHWesley Huff
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, um, I'm not an expert in many things, but the things that I am an expert on, you could wake me up at four o'clock in the morning and ask me about those things, and I'd go, "Oh, yeah, no, um-"
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
"... this is what it is."
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I know, y- you know, like martial arts or comedy, I could tell you... I could give you an expert version of r- reality.
- WHWesley Huff
Uh-huh.
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, it, it seems like he does not have that, and he is a wonderful talker, and it's a lot of fun. I like watching his videos. It's, I l- I love all that ancient history stuff, and even the, the most ridiculous tin foil hat aspects of ancien- it's fun.
- WHWesley Huff
It's entertainment.
- JRJoe Rogan
But I know the, d- there's a different... Like, Andrew Schultz and I had a discussion about this, like he said when he had Billy on the podcast, he said, "We're not gonna fucking research anything."
- WHWesley Huff
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
"We're not gonna search anything. We're not gonna do anything. We'll just let him talk cuz it's fun."
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Andrew's awesome. Um, but when he was on with you, it was quite apparent that you are an actual expert in-
- WHWesley Huff
Hm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... in the Bible-
- WHWesley Huff
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and in many religious, uh, texts, and that he d- d- didn't necessarily have the facts straight.
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah.
- 1:36 – 2:49
Fallout after the exchange: cease-and-desist threats and the Streisand effect
- JRJoe Rogan
So what was the fallout of all of that?
- WHWesley Huff
Well, it's interesting you say the expert thing, cuz I, I literally was asked to do it 24 hours beforehand. So I had, like, the m- least amount of preparation-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- WHWesley Huff
... going into it, and I, I was okay with that, because I'd, I'd listened-
- JRJoe Rogan
Cuz you're an actual expert.
- WHWesley Huff
... I'd listened to Billy Carson. Well, and I'd listened to the stuff he'd said, so I knew enough about the ways that he'd articulated-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WHWesley Huff
... things about the ancient Near East and the Bible and Christianity to know enough that he, his level is, uh, is pretty surface. But the fallout was that not only did he not want us to release the, the conversation, but then he started throwing out cease and desist letters, and then he started, you know, uh, trying to sue people. So, I mean, I was never worried because I'm a Canadian, and, eh, anybody who's tried to sue internationally knows that...
- JRJoe Rogan
Good luck. (laughs)
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah, right, yeah. As far as I understand it, he would've had to file a claim in a Canadian court that would have been reviewed to have legal precedence.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- WHWesley Huff
That, t- he, eh- he'd have to prove that he could win.
- JRJoe Rogan
What was his argument?
- WHWesley Huff
Um, apart from the fact that he was embarrassed that he lost?
- 2:49 – 6:11
Sponsor break: ExpressVPN and online privacy
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, yeah, that's... Well, that's not really an argument, right? We've all been there. You're hungover, thinking about all the dumb stuff you did last night and wondering if anybody remembers. Unfortunately, someone does remember everything you do online, and they've got receipts. I'm talking about your internet provider and data brokers and every shady marketing company that gets their greedy hands on your private activity. But this year is gonna be different. Give your online privacy a fresh start with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN is an easy-to-use app that encrypts your online activity and reroutes it through secure servers, keeping your browsing history private from third parties. And it hides your IP address, making it impossible for data brokers to use it to track you. You don't have to be a tech genius to use ExpressVPN. No matter what device you're using, phone, tablet, laptop, or smart TV, just tap one button to make everything you do online private. It's incredibly fast. It doesn't slow down your streaming or downloading, and it lets you connect instantly to secure servers in 105 countries around the world. So, forget Dry January. This year, you're going to do Private January with ExpressVPN. Get four extra months of fresh, clean privacy protection with my special link at expressvpn.com/rogan. That's expressvpn.com/rogan to get four extra months completely free. Tap the banner to learn more. That's just...
- WHWesley Huff
Well, the cease and desist letter, yeah. The cease and desist letter said, you, I don't want you to use my name or my face-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- WHWesley Huff
... in anything going forward, and anything you've used up until this point, you need to remove. And I was given 24 hours notice to do this.
- JRJoe Rogan
But if, if you're a public figure, he's clearly a public figure, is that even... Can you actually say-
- WHWesley Huff
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
... no?
- WHWesley Huff
No, no, no, you can't do it.
- NANarrator
It's-
- JRJoe Rogan
So what was the... uh, does he have a lawyer that wrote the cease and desist? Is he a lawyer?
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah. No. So he actually... It's interesting, 'cause he... Mark Menard, who was the guy who hosted this interaction, um, he sent Mark a handwritten one, and then he eventually gave Mark an official one from his lawyer. So I actually was sent one by his lawyer, which I, you know, screenshotted, posted publicly online, and said, "I'm gonna ignore this." Uh, and then, uh, but he'd sent Mark, who was the podcast host-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WHWesley Huff
... uh, as, as far as I'm aware, numerous cease and desists, and Anton, who was the media manager, he'd sent a number of cease and desists.
- JRJoe Rogan
(inhales) It's unfortunate.
- WHWesley Huff
It is unfortunate.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's, you're... When you get caught with your pants down, you're supposed to say, "I got caught with my pants down."
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's what you're supposed to do.
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, it's the only, uh, especially if you're public, like, it's very clear that you're incorrect.
- WHWesley Huff
Well, the irony of this situation is if he'd just kinda left it, it probably wouldn't have made anywhere close to the splash-
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- WHWesley Huff
... that it's made. And we told him that. We said, like, "Hey-"
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- WHWesley Huff
"... Barbra Streisand effect-"
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- WHWesley Huff
"... is going to happen."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- WHWesley Huff
Like, "You're a big enough personality that if I make a video and say, like, 'Hey..."I had this conversation, didn't go well for Billy, and Billy doesn't want it released. That's gonna start to gain traction sooner or later.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Um, it's-
- 6:11 – 7:11
What real expertise looks like: languages, philology, and scholarly methodology
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, the problem is to really delve into these subjects.
- WHWesley Huff
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
To, to re- it takes a tremendous amount of research.
- WHWesley Huff
Mm-hmm.
- NANarrator
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Years and years and years of research. You really have to know what you're talking about. Most of us don't.
- NANarrator
Yeah.
- WHWesley Huff
One, especially with languages.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- WHWesley Huff
Like, we didn't get into it. I, I hoped to have, in our initial conversation, kind of press him a little bit more on the more overt things he'd said about, like, Greek and Hebrew and Sumerian, because I've studied a number of ancient languages, and when you study the languages, you realize the complexities of these things.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WHWesley Huff
And so when someone hasn't and they're making statements that are obviously indicative of someone who hasn't studied them, it's, it's super apparent.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- WHWesley Huff
And so I think it's one thing to be making claims about, say, like, Christian history or the Bible, but when you start to get into, like, linguistics and philology, it gets messy, and if you don't know what you're talking about, it gets really apparent really fast.
- 7:11 – 11:44
How the “debate” was arranged—and whether Carson knew what he was walking into
- JRJoe Rogan
So the gentleman who brought the two of you together, what was his goal? Like, what was he trying to do and how did he r- approach you?
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah, so he's friends, or I should say was friends (laughs) . He was friends with Billy. They live in the same neighborhood.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, boy.
- WHWesley Huff
So it's actually become really, um ... It's become pretty rough for him. So he released a video yesterday, which I think people should go and check out, where he kind of gives his perspective. He's been friends with Billy for years. He was at Billy's wedding.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oof.
- WHWesley Huff
Billy had 15 people at his wedding.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oof.
- WHWesley Huff
Mark was one of them. And they're, they live in this community in Florida. Their, their sons are friends. Their wives would hang out.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oof.
- WHWesley Huff
And, um, Mark told me, he's like, "I've been hearing Billy say, you know, he wants to debate nobody. He'll debate him for years." And so as far as I think Mark was concerned, he was giving Billy the opportunity that Billy had told a lot of people he wanted.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- WHWesley Huff
And so he ... You know, this was set up, um, in that Mark and Billy have been talking. They've been on each other's podcasts in the past, and they've been friends, but more like business colleagues. Like, Mark has come out and said, uh, "I hadn't really gone into the stuff he'd said about Christianity or ancient religions or whatever that much." Mark is a, he's a Christian. Um, he has like a public profession of faith and he- him and Billy had talked about the fact that they wanted to talk about, like, faith stuff and some of their differences.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WHWesley Huff
And that, um, that Mark was kind of prepping for this, and his media manager, Anton, had sent him some of my stuff and said like, "Wes has done some stuff on some things that, that Billy has talked about. And, uh, you know, maybe you should look up some, some of the stuff, you know, read into it." And Mark, very last minute, was like, "Well, I'm- I feel inadequate. Do you think I could just ask Wes?" And so he DMed me on Instagram and just kind of laid this out like, "Hey, I'm gonna have Billy in my studio in 24 hours. I can tell him you're coming, can tell him who you are. I can, like, give him your background. But would you be willing to come?" And so that's what I did. And so that's how it got set up.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, um, correct me if I'm wrong, but was Billy aware that this was going to be a debate or did he think it was going to be just a discussion? Like, what did he think it was gonna be?
- WHWesley Huff
No, he'd been given all of the pre- prerequisites.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- WHWesley Huff
Like, he knew we were gonna go over some of his stuff that he'd said about Christianity, that I was gonna come in, who I was, what my name was, some- some of my background, and that part of the conversation was going to be me kind of asking him some clarifying questions and, and rebutting some of the things that he said. So he- You didn't watch the three-hour live stream that they did, did you?
- JRJoe Rogan
I watched chunks of it.
- WHWesley Huff
Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
I, I watched a little bit. I'm like, "Oof." And then I shut it off, and then I watched a little bit more. Oof.
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah. So unfortunately, Billy there says he had no idea going in. And I mean, as Mark said in his video that he released yesterday, I mean that's patently false. He knew what it was gonna be, who was gonna be involved, and even some of the things that we would be talking about.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm. Okay. And he also was claiming that it wasn't a debate, that he had been involved in debates before and that he would d- prepare for debates, but this is something he didn't prepare. But again, it's like-
- WHWesley Huff
(clears throat)
- JRJoe Rogan
... if you ask me about things that I know about-
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... you, you can wake me up-
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... out of a full sleep and give me a couple seconds, I'll go, "Oh, okay. Uh, this is what it is."
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah.
- 11:44 – 12:52
Huff’s background: missionary upbringing and early exposure to multiple religions
- JRJoe Rogan
So let's just get into your background.
- WHWesley Huff
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, how did, how did you get started in your research and how did you, how did you get into this?
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah. So I grew up in a Christian home. I- My parents were missionaries. So I was born in Pakistan and spent a portion of my childhood in the Middle East with my parents working in Amman, Jordan. And then, uh, we came back from, from the Middle East when I was pretty young. And, uh, so I grew up in this very like, uh, diverse home in the sense that my mom was, uh, a missionary kid who grew up in India. And so we had a lot of, like, world view kind of perspectives...... uh, represented in our home. Like I often say, we had the Bhagavad Gita and the Book of Mormon and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- WHWesley Huff
... the Quran on the shelf. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, wow.
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah. And I think, you know, that always, although my parents were never overt with this kind of stuff, uh, they always had the perspective that, you know, "We're Christians. We believe that this worldly perspective is true, but hey, this stuff isn't scary. This stuff isn't, you know, off limits." You know, "We can investigate these things." And they never said that outright, but that, I always felt this kind of attitude of that kind of perspective.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- 12:52 – 19:13
A sudden paralysis at 12—and the experience he calls a miracle
- WHWesley Huff
And, you know, having been exposed in majority Muslim contexts and seeing that kind of stuff, and my mom having like a, a, a pretty good knowledge growing up in India of things like Hinduism and Sikhism and, and that. Um, and, uh, I don't know how much o- of the kind of testimony stuff you watched of mine, but, um, just before my 12th birthday, I actually was diagnosed with a neurological condition that left me paralyzed from the waist down.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I did see all that. Yeah.
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah. So that, um, so that's a condition that's called acute transverse myelitis, which I often say is a forget, is a word you can forget as soon as you hear it 'cause-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- WHWesley Huff
... it's a complicated one. But what happened was that I had the flu and my body's immune system attacked the nerve endings at the base of my spinal cord and caused swelling and cut off the communication between my brain and my legs. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
Instantaneously, right?
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah, basically. I, I'd gone down for a nap, I was camping out in the bathroom floor, um, for flu reasons and, uh, when I woke up about 30 minutes later, I couldn't feel my legs. And so, yeah, that's the acute part of the acute transverse myelitis, was that it was basically instantaneous. And that's what made the diagnosis as severe as it was. Like, they said there's a 30% chance... 'Cause it was, it was like a small percentage of, uh, a probability that I, I would recover, but a much higher percentage that there would be a, a lot of either complete paralysis for the rest of my life or, um, some kind of, uh, issues with walking. It's related to, like, diseases like multiple sclero- sclerosis-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WHWesley Huff
... in that it's, it's neurological and it, it affects that kind of thing. And, um, one month from the day that I, I woke up and couldn't feel my legs, I, I woke up on a Saturday morning, got out of bed, walked over to my wheelchair, and sat down.
- JRJoe Rogan
One month?
- WHWesley Huff
One month, yeah. F- January 8th to February 8th, exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Very fortunate.
- WHWesley Huff
Uh, you're telling me.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
What treatment did they give you?
- WHWesley Huff
So they're, um ... Initially, they gave me, uh, steroids to reduce the, the swelling, but, uh, so I spent 11 days in the hospital, um, being overseen by, uh, pediatric, pediatric neurologists, uh, and specialists in, in this, because it's a very rare condition. And so they were studying me, and, um, they gave me steroids and they, they did some other tests, but really there was no true kind of treatment in that, in that... Uh, so I was doing, um, physiotherapy. I'd be pulled out of gym class in school, but it was a little bit of a joke. Like, "Can, can you move your legs?" You know, "Can you-"
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WHWesley Huff
... "can you..." It was-
- JRJoe Rogan
Could you move anything?
- WHWesley Huff
No, nothing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Could you feel anything?
- WHWesley Huff
No. No, in fact, um, when I was in the hospital, I'd, I'd wake up and there'd be, uh, pinpricks in my legs 'cause they'd be testing where, uh, like where the reactions were and they'd have used a syringe, and so I'd wake up and there'd be these tiny little pinpricks in my legs because they'd been testing while I was asleep to see what the kind of, um, you know, whether it was registering-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WHWesley Huff
... neurologically with anything. But I couldn't feel anything. I was fully a paraplegic.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah. But, but going back to that, like, so I've, I experienced this, what I consider to be a true supernatural experience in that I walked into the hospital, to the doctors that had overseen me, and they were the first ones that used the word miracle. They said, "We really don't have any type of medical explanation." And mainly-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WHWesley Huff
... because there was no, um, atrophy. Because of the, the cutoff of the communication, my muscles in those 30 days were fine, um, in this short amount of time, but, uh, they said there should be something and we're, we're picking up nothing.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's crazy because, uh, I've broken limbs before and had them in casts, and just in the six weeks that you have a cast on-
- 19:13 – 30:03
From faith questions to scholarship: university challenges and the need to test claims
- WHWesley Huff
And, um, that was about a period of about a year and a half, and at the end of that, um, I- I did truly feel that, okay, well, I think in the ways that I, in my limited ability as a teenager, to investigate these things, I think that Christianity is true. But it wasn't until I went to university, where I was engaging with people of other faith perspectives, um, in Toronto at- at York University, where I was talking to Muslims and Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and atheists, you know, run the gamut.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WHWesley Huff
And I was having these conversations and I was expressing kind of my perspective on what I believed, and they would say things like, "Well, that sounds great Wes, but, you know, that's all the Bible. You can't trust that." And so that's where I started to take the-
- JRJoe Rogan
Did Mormon say that to you?
- WHWesley Huff
Well, yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Because that's kind of crazy. (laughs)
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah. Yeah. Well, in the sense that, so, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
The Mormon was the craziest one-
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah, I-
- JRJoe Rogan
... 'cause we know who wrote it. You know?
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And- and he's a shady dude.
- WHWesley Huff
He is a shady dude. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean-
- WHWesley Huff
Well, no, they did in the sense that, um, the Book of Mormon, uh, trumps the- the Bible. So they would believe, I think it's the 10th article of the Mormon church is that they believe the Bible insofar as it is translated. And so they- they have this perspective that there's been things that have been affected. I mean, uh, Joseph Smith made his own translation of the Bible.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WHWesley Huff
And it's rough.
- JRJoe Rogan
And when he was 14. Yeah.
- WHWesley Huff
Well, I think it was later on that he- he made the Joseph Smith Translation.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, really?
- WHWesley Huff
But I- I don't even know if the official, like LDS church ascribes to the Joseph Smith translation because I think they even see like, "Ugh," they're like, "This is ... We know what the Greek and the Hebrew looks like and this is w- not even-"
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, he was a, you know, legitimate con man.
- WHWesley Huff
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, which is fascinating that it's- people have such a- a deep search for meaning and truth that if you, uh, are confident-
- WHWesley Huff
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and if you- which is what a con man is, you know, confidence man. If you are really good at expressing yourself-
- WHWesley Huff
Mm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and really, like you show confidence in your convictions, you can-
- 30:03 – 31:20
Sponsor break: DraftKings Sportsbook
- JRJoe Rogan
Playoffs. We're talking about playoffs? You bet we are. Get in on the action with DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NFL. Scoring touchdowns is key to winning the playoffs, and you can score big by betting on them at DraftKings, the number one place to bet touchdowns. Ready to place your bet? Try betting on something simple, like a player to score six. Go to DraftKings Sportsbook app and make your pick. New DraftKings customers can bet five bucks to get $200 in bonus bets instantly. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use the code ROGAN, that's code ROGAN for new customers to get $200 in bonus bets instantly when you bet just five bucks. Only on DraftKings Sportsbook, the crown is yours.
- NANarrator
Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. In New York, call 877-8HOPENY or text HOPENY 467369. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. Please play responsibly. On behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas. 21 and over. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.co/audio.
- 31:20 – 34:42
Dead Sea Scrolls and the shock of textual stability: the Great Isaiah Scroll
- JRJoe Rogan
What is the oldest version-
- WHWesley Huff
(clears throat)
- JRJoe Rogan
... of the Bible, or the stories in the Bible? Is it the Dead Sea Scrolls, or are there older versions?
- WHWesley Huff
The Dead Sea Scrolls are the oldest of the Old Testament, so when they were discovered, I mean, um, so they were discovered in 1946 to 1957 and at that point during their discovery, they pushed back a lot of our previous, uh, oldest manuscripts 1,000 years.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- WHWesley Huff
Which was a big deal. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
How old are they?
- WHWesley Huff
They're anywhere between the third century BC and the first century BC. So, it's kinda tricky because the Dead Sea Scrolls are ... They're like a library that we refer to. So it's, um, approximately 970 documents, but it's distributed out between, um, 10,000 and 11 thou- thousand fragments. So, there's a lot going on there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- WHWesley Huff
Right? So, and some of these, I mean, are, are so fragmentary that you look at them and it's like confetti.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WHWesley Huff
'Cause they're, I mean, 3,000 years old. Well, not quite that. They're like two- 2,000-plus years old.
- JRJoe Rogan
Animal skins too, right?
- WHWesley Huff
Well, all sorts of things. Animal skins, uh, papyri, and then some of them are actually done on copper.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- WHWesley Huff
They're, like, inscribed in copper.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, wow.
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah, one of the coolest ones ... Actually this relates, 'cause I know you're a Marco Allegro guy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- WHWesley Huff
The first time I was introduced to Marco Allegro was not his sacred mushroom and the cross stuff, but he published a book on what's called the Copper Scroll, 'cause part of the Dead Sea Scroll fragments are, is this inscribed document on copper, which is an ancient treasure map.
- JRJoe Rogan
Can you see it?
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is it online?
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah. Jamie, pull up the ...
- JRJoe Rogan
Jamie.
- WHWesley Huff
Hey.
- JRJoe Rogan
There it is. Wow.
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah. So it's in Hebrew, and it is wild. So it ha- it has these sites where it says buried treasure is found.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- WHWesley Huff
And there, there have been a number of guys who have tried to, like, look for it, and, um, so-
- 34:42 – 39:05
How scholars rebuild lost manuscripts: paratext, margins, and reconstruction techniques
- WHWesley Huff
Because no one's willing to, like, piece these ... And this is true for a lot of stuff. So, um, like, uh, the largest grouping of, of papyri literature in the world is the Oxyrhynchus collection, which we get a, a good portion of our oldest manuscripts of the New Testament from. But if you go to Oxford and you look at the Oxy- or the, uh, Oxyrhynchus collection and you pull out that drawer, it just, it's, it's like a jigsaw puzzle.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- WHWesley Huff
And you're like ...
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- WHWesley Huff
Like most of it is, is untranslated, untranscribed, because the amount of man hours that it would just take to even put it together, nevermind then go to the effort of transcribing and translating it, n- most people are not willing to do that.
- JRJoe Rogan
And if you're missing chunks, how do you even make that puzzle connect?
- WHWesley Huff
Y- well, that's part of ... So part of my area, area of, uh, specialty and research is in regards to that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- WHWesley Huff
Is, so I study paratextual features.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- WHWesley Huff
We're, we're really gonna get nerdy today.
- JRJoe Rogan
Let's get nerdy.
- WHWesley Huff
Um, where, so you look at the features of the manuscripts, not necessarily the words but things like the spaces between the words, the development of punctuation, uh, indentation or outdentation, and I look at the margins and I try to, based on w- the average size of manuscripts in and around that time, and also the average spacing of words and, um, the margins on top, bottom and the side, recreate what the manuscript could've possibly looked like.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So when you say the Book of Isaiah is intact, uh, how similar is it to the Book of Isaiah that's in the Bible?
- WHWesley Huff
So, that one is fascinating. So this isn't true for all of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but when we discovered the Great Isaiah Scroll, previous to that, the earliest copy of Isaiah that we had was, uh, in the Masoretic Text, which is in the Middle Ages.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah. So it was literally 1,000 years. We literally push back our understanding of Isaiah 1,000 years, and the thing that really shocked scholars ... Like I said, this isn't true for all of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but one of the things that shocked them about Isaiah was that it was word-for-word identical to the Masoretic Text.
- JRJoe Rogan
Word-for-word?
- WHWesley Huff
Word-for-word.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.... wow.
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that it right there?
- WHWesley Huff
So this is the great Isaiah scroll. So, if you go to Israel and you go-
- JRJoe Rogan
Wait, is that papyrus?
- WHWesley Huff
Um, yes. No, I think that one is vellum.
- JRJoe Rogan
What is vellum?
- WHWesley Huff
So, uh, so I should be more specific. So parchment is animal skin. Vellum can be used, uh, synonymously with the term parchment. Technically, parchment is, is, like, baby animal skin, like calves or lambs. Um, but this is the, the great Isaiah scroll, and you can see, like, th- they stitched together-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- 39:05 – 42:09
Ancient languages: Sumerian as a language isolate, and why bold claims are a red flag
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you know who Rick Strassman is?
- WHWesley Huff
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, he's, um, he's a scholar, and he d- did a lot of, uh, work, early work, FDA approved work on psychedelics.
- WHWesley Huff
Hm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And he spent 16 years teaching himself to read ancient Hebrew.
- WHWesley Huff
Nice.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, so, because he wanted to really understand the Bible f- from the original source of ancient Hebrew, and to understand it in context it was 'cause-
- WHWesley Huff
Hm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... ancient Hebrew, the way the words are structured is so different than English and that-
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that something must be lost in translation, so he spent 16 years-
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... teaching himself-
- WHWesley Huff
Wow.
- JRJoe Rogan
... how to read ancient Hebrew. I was like-
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that is so cr- that is such dedication. 16 years.
- WHWesley Huff
That's a long time. That seems too long.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, you're self-taught. I mean-
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... he's doing it himself.
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah. Self-teaching. Yeah. I, I, I self-taught myself Greek at first, and then when I started learning it formally, I realized how much you miss when you self-teach yourself. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, I'm sure. Well, how many people can teach you ancient Hebrew? How many courses are available?
- WHWesley Huff
Oh, you can take it at any graduate college.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah?
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And is it, um, it's not something that we know what, what it sounded like, correct?
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah, I mean, this is the big debate with ancient languages.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- WHWesley Huff
Like, same thing with ... Yeah, arguably, we don't know how any of this was pronounced.
- 42:09 – 51:09
Cracking forgotten scripts: Linear Elamite, and Huff’s infographics as teaching tools
- WHWesley Huff
... where things happen, but there are a number of ancient languages that are language, language isolates. Like, um, Linear Elamite. We had no idea what Linear Elamite even said until 2021.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, wow, I never even heard it until five seconds ago.
- WHWesley Huff
I know. There you go.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- WHWesley Huff
Jamie, if you pull up, um, if you look up, uh, oh, what's it called? There's a cup, a silver cup. It'll come up if you, if you Google image Linear Elamite 'cause you think cuneiform looks wild. Linear Elamite is completely different than that too, and, um, there's a silver cup which we had no idea what it said, and then a bunch of researchers, ancient, uh, near Eastern researchers, uh, developed ... Well, so let's, uh, in, in the corner there. Uh, that one on-
- JRJoe Rogan
Far left corner?
- WHWesley Huff
Oh, no, no. Here. Now it's moved 'cause you clicked it. That one. Yeah, yeah. Click that. So that's Linear Elamite.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- WHWesley Huff
And so, that's in and around the same time that languages like Sumerian. So, there's this very interesting kind of, if we're talking about the, uh, story in the Bible like the, the Tower of Babel, where it says that God confused their languages-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- WHWesley Huff
... and everybody started speaking different languages. You have these languages that just pop up and, out of nowhere, and have no relation to one another. So, Akkadian starts to adopt certain words in Sumerian, but they're still Sumerian wor- It's like pizza is Italian, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- WHWesley Huff
Or like kayak-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WHWesley Huff
... is, uh, Inuit.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- WHWesley Huff
Um, but when you're looking at the words that carry over, it's not because they're, there's a relationship between Akkadian and Sumerian. It's because you have these cultures that live side by side and eventually-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WHWesley Huff
... Akkadian starts to adopt-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- WHWesley Huff
... these things. But Sumerian is... So that's why when I see people like Billy Carson talk about being able to read Sumerian, I'm like, "Dude, I read ancient languages and I can't. I've tried and I can't make heads or tails of Sumerian."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- WHWesley Huff
So-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's a tell.
- WHWesley Huff
... unfortunately-
- JRJoe Rogan
Unfortunately.
- WHWesley Huff
... it kind of gives it away.
- JRJoe Rogan
Listen, I like Billy. He was a nice guy.
- WHWesley Huff
He's a-
- JRJoe Rogan
I really enjoyed talking to him. I, I really do. I think his videos are fun. But I also think truth is important.
- 51:09 – 1:17:27
Bible translation battles and the Reformation: Erasmus, Luther, and power over texts
- JRJoe Rogan
Which that was what Lutheranism was all about, right? Like, Martin Luther wanted to have phonetic translations of the Bible, and there was a lot of resistance to that 'cause the people that knew how to read Latin were like, "Hey, hey. Slow down."
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah. Partly, I mean, there were proto-reformers before Luther.
- JRJoe Rogan
Were there really?
- WHWesley Huff
Guys like, like, uh, Wycliffe. So John Wycliffe and, um, uh, William Tyndale, both translated the Bible, or parts of the Bible into English, and they predated. I mean, and they weren't very popular for it either. I mean, uh, Wycliffe was declared a heretic, and then his body was exhumed and burned because-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oof.
- WHWesley Huff
... be- the, of, of the work that he did. But, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Burned him after he was already dead.
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah, well, Tyndale's, um, Tyndale's line was that he wanted, I believe it was Tyndale, it was either Wycliffe or Tyndale, my friends who are specialists in th- specialists in this are gonna get mad at me for this. But, um, one of those two guys said that they wanted the plow boy to be able to read the Bible and know it as well as the priests.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- WHWesley Huff
And so that's, that was their motivation, is that their, like, you know, public education for literacy in these areas was largely because they just wanted people to read the Bible.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- WHWesley Huff
But that was a big motivation behind Luther, was he's like, "I'm gonna translate this thing into German." Because part of his kind of kicking off of the, what we call the Protestant Reformation, was that he read the Bible in Greek, 'cause there was a guy named Desiderius Erasmus who, uh, was a, uh, they called them humanists, but they- it means something different than now. Humanists were, like, scholars who were trying to figure out the entirety of human knowledge up until that point.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- WHWesley Huff
Like Renaissance men kinda, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, right.
- WHWesley Huff
So Desiderius Erasmus is, like, one of the last true Renaissance men. But he was compiling, and he, he produced the first printed edition of the Greek New Testament. And so he comes out with this printed edition of the Greek New Testament, and Luther gets its hand, his hands on it. And so he's reading that, and he notices that in Matthew's Gospel, the word that's in the Latin is penitentiam agite, do penance, in Greek is metanoiate, which is repentance. And the church was using this as like, you need to do penance.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- WHWesley Huff
You need to, you know, do all of this stuff to show that you're sorry, and part of that was, you know, paying the church. And Luther reads this and he goes, "Hey, guys. This means something different. This means repentance, it means changing your mind. It doesn't mean, like, to actually do things." And so, part of his motivation is, like, the Latin isn't reflecting, at least at the point that Latin had developed in, in that day, like, maybe when Jerome translates the Latin Vulgate back in the, the fourth century. And it's called the Vulgate because vulgata means, like, regular.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- WHWesley Huff
Like, you think of vulgar, right? It's just the regular people language. Part of the reason was that in the fourth century, very few people were read- reading Greek. They were reading Latin.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- WHWesley Huff
And so they're like, "Hey, Jerome, you need to produce a Bible in Latin 'cause nobody can read the Bible anymore." And so he produces the Latin Vulgate, and ironically, by the time you get to Luther, a thousand years later, no one can read Latin.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- WHWesley Huff
And they're all using the Vulgate.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That is fascinating. Wow.
- WHWesley Huff
And even Erasmus was, um, so he dedicates his first few editions to the Pope because he knows that the Pope is gonna get wind that he's producing Greek New Testament, New Testaments, and the church is using the Latin, and, um, he- he's risking his, risking his life. So if he dedicates it to the Pope, maybe the Pope will take it easy on him.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm, did it work?
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah, yeah, it did.
- 1:17:27 – 1:39:37
Archaeology, Egypt, and restoration controversies: Gobekli Tepe to the Sphinx
- WHWesley Huff
I'm really hoping to go to Gobli- Gobekli Tepe this upcoming year.
- JRJoe Rogan
What do you... What's your take on this whole reluctance to further excavate and how they have such a small amount of, uh, the site? It's only 5% that's been uncovered, but through LiDAR, they're aware there's a, a bunch more.
- WHWesley Huff
Yeah. I mean, I'm not an archeologist. I have friends who are archeologists, and I think it's... Archeology is tricky, because so much of archeology is dependent on governments and institutions and funding-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WHWesley Huff
... that getting mad at archeologists for not excavating is kind of like getting mad at construction workers for not fixing your potholes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- WHWesley Huff
Where it's like, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- WHWesley Huff
Like, they, they're kind of doing the last stage. So yeah, I mean, I think there's certainly incentive by the Turkish government to want to capitalize on that being a tourist destination.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WHWesley Huff
And, um, you really need to safeguard archeological excavations, because otherwise, it's, it's being compromised-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- WHWesley Huff
... and, um, like, pillaging-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm. Sure.
- WHWesley Huff
... and, and stuff like that. It happens. I mean, when I was-
- JRJoe Rogan
Of course.
- WHWesley Huff
... in Egypt two summers ago, and you go to the Valley of the Kings, they've got security cameras up everywhere, because there are tombs there that we still haven't discovered. And so-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- WHWesley Huff
... they're like, "We don't want people digging around in here looking for-"
- JRJoe Rogan
Of course. Well, they've lost so much over their history.
- WHWesley Huff
Oh, we've only discovered 1% of ancient Egypt.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's so nuts.
- WHWesley Huff
One percent. Isn't that crazy?
- JRJoe Rogan
That is the nuttiest part of all of history, is Egypt, to me. I, I still have not been. I-
- WHWesley Huff
You gotta go.
- JRJoe Rogan
I know. I almost went-
- WHWesley Huff
You gotta go.
- JRJoe Rogan
I almost went in December. I just couldn't find the time. I'm just too damn busy. I will, though. I will. I definitely will. But it is the, to me, the nuttiest time in history, because, uh, good luck explaining the Great Pyramid.
- WHWesley Huff
S-
- JRJoe Rogan
Good luck.
Episode duration: 3:15:45
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode HwyAX69xG1Q
