Why Bible scholars don't like univocality 

I agree... and I think that might be what I am trying to argue for. When I look to do theology, I am not starting with a central theme... and then trying to figure out if "the Bible" can support my theme. I am looking at different texts by different authors and noting where there seems to be agreement about a central idea, even if the details around that idea aren't 100% the same. The resurrection is a prime candidate for this. All 4 gospels, the book of Acts, and the Apostle Paul all agree on the resurrection happening. The details of that, however, differ from author to author. The theology is that the authors of the NT texts agree on the resurrection of Jesus. Then we talk about the agreeing and disagreeing details of that account.

I actually mostly like Dan and his takes… I don’t always agree with all of them, but I appreciate them for sure. As I said in another comment, this isn’t meant as a corrective or critique of his or other scholars like him. My aim of this video is to help someone who doesn’t get “why” they say certain things like this… and to add another perspective that isn’t solely the historical-critical one.

Glad I can help

Yes. I am not arguing with the biblical scholar here. I am pointing out to anyone who would not know the “why” behind their statements. And all I am saying about the no inherent meaning behind texts (and it’s more than Dan McClellan who espouses this) is that they say it over and over again, yet, through their scholarship prove that the author’s had intent. To say something like “texts have no inherent meaning” to someone who doesn’t know what you mean by that can be misinterpreted and dangerous. They can then, if that is true, assign whatever meaning they want to it (which is exactly what a lot of scholars on social media are fighting against). Just trying to make explicit what is implicit.

Yeah, the dude doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about and then he doubles down and then he says oh I didn’t mean that. He thinks everybody else is stupid. Another fundamental evangelical apologist. Uggh!

I said to another commenter that these are more a combination of presupposition and methodology. The presuppositions are: the Bible can be studied historically and scientifically without being theological 2) the supernatural cannot be tested or proven, 3) the Bible is best studied in its manuscript form and 4) texts have no inherent meaning. What you do with them then becomes the methodology. So, in some sense yes… in another sense no.

@@sam_burke how are scholars presupposing that the supernatural can't be tested or proven? I mean, we know that nobody yet HAS found a way to do so. As soon as somebody does find a way to test or prove the supernatural, why wouldn't scholars include it? The real challenge, of course, is being able to demonstrate that one's test/proof is valid. But you could say that about any scientific test.

@@davidlamb1107 I think they mean this: because we cannot currently test things like 1) miracles, 2) the existence of God 3) creation from nothing, 4) The resurrection, etc... then we cannot presuppose those things to govern the text, therefore we cannot presuppose univocality. This is a huge argument between Biblical scholars and Christian fundamentalists... because the fundamentalist presupposes divine verbal-plenary inspiration and therefore inerrancy of the text... therefore the apologetic univocalizing of the text is fair game. The Biblical scholar recognizes that there is no way to test any of that... and the opposite (errors in the text, contradictions, etc...) seem to be more prevalent... so it would better serve what the Bible is to view it as a multi-vocal, multi authored library of ancient literature.

@@sam_burke right, so the scholars are not "presupposing" that the supernatural cannot be tested or proven. That is indeed the circumstance in which they find themselves, but they are not presupposing that circumstance. Rather, they are simply experiencing it.

@@davidlamb1107 I think they would call that a methodology, but underneath that methodology would be a presupposition something like “the supernatural is unlikely” or something like that.. but that is one huge reason that they reject univocality… because univocality’s main leg to stand on is the divine inspiration/inerrancy of the text. So if the supernatural is unlikely, and cannot be verified or tested, then the inspiration of the text is false, and then the inerrancy of the text is false, therefore, God did not write or “breathe out” the text, therefore univocality is impossible. When someone uses univocality (which I think is more of a methodology than a presupposition… but that is another topic) all those other presuppositions undergird it. So when a biblical scholar says “to look at the text in an unbiased way is to suspend the supernatural” or something akin to that, it is a part of why one cannot use univocality.

I hear you. And my illustration isn’t meant to be a point for the modern Christian side. If anything, it is a little bit of a rebuke on how modern Christians interact with the Bible while disagreeing with a premise about inherent meaning. And about your other statements… I’m not sure that a direct message from God to people would be overwhelmingly convincing to everyone either. I mean, just ask the LDS church about how that is going. There is a whole, major conversation about this that feels irresponsible to try and start I the comments section of a RU-vid video, but I will say this, your doubts and skepticism are not without warrant. I am, by nature, a very skeptical person and yet I have, for whatever reason, a deep faith… and a weird ability to sit in the tension of conflict and disagreement and be okay with it. I know not everyone is okay with that. It’s like what the NRSVUE says at the end of Matthew’s take on the Jesus story: “when they saw him (Jesus resurrected) they worshipped him,but they doubted”.

@@sam_burke - agreed, nothing gets resolved in the comment section ;) It is nice to see and hear a different voice other than the rank & file Bible inerrantist viewpoint. Thanks for sharing the nuance

Ironically the atheist rhetoric is just the same old stuff.

@@dan_m7774 - well give us the same ol arguments, you'll get the same ol results. not really shocking. I mean I guess I could give you a novel response. Got a claim to go through?

@@ardbegthequestion You have not provided an argument. You simply make a judgement. This is why I think many internet variety atheists lack critical thinking.

Yup… I am just stating that they should clarify that when they say “texts have no inherent meaning.” I have had several people say that and then use that thought to say that they can read meaning into the text because “it is only what we assign it”. Like I said to someone else… I’m just trying to make explicit what is implicit.

I am aware of both of these resources.. plus many other. Neither of these change what I said in the video… I’m not trying to somehow apologetically disagree with critical Bible scholars. I know we see a lot of that on TikTok videos, RU-vid, etc… I am trying to explain why they do what they do… and a couple of areas where I may disagree with their conclusions. I decided a long time ago that it is better and more honest for me to sit in the tension instead of trying to make things fit together so it is all nice and neat and wrapped in a bow.

Right. I am not saying that all presuppositions are equal… just that they exist and they end up guiding our methodology. And I am not saying that the historical-critical method is somehow wrong. Just trying to help someone who hears a critical Bible scholar say “you cannot presuppose univocality” and their response is “huh… why not? Why would they say that?” Because, unfortunately, a lot of Christians (especially evangelicals) have only been told one way to think about any of this.

2 & 3 aren't valid??? (Note that 2 isn't saying that the supernatural does NOT exist; it's saying that the authority of natural evidence that we can observe and show must take precedence over testimony that can only be accepted by faith.) How are these not valid presuppositions??? To do anything else would be to pre-assume that all the claims of the Biblical authors are in fact true, as though humans (i.e., the authors of the individual texts) never tell untruths... which we already KNOW that humans do, ESPECIALLY in areas of politics and religion.

@@davidlamb1107 and to assume 2. And 3. Would be to methodologically and presuppositionally prioritise atheism. “Natural evidence” and “that which we can observe” is already loading the deck in favour of empiricist positivism. These presuppositions just beg the question of what is “natural” in the first place seeing as that itself relies on prior philosophical assumptions. Nature itself is interpreted through a lens and is not prima facie self evident. They aren’t “neutral” presuppositions. No presupposition is.

@@FreshPelmeni of COURSE we have to prefer empiricist positivism over other options. We already know that it produces useful results within reality (and by reality, I mean the shared context within which we interact, regardless of whatever other properties that context has and however else it can be defined). We have zero knowledge (justified true belief) of other mechanisms to achieve knowledge about reality. Until such time as we discover other mechanisms, we are entirely justified in prioritizing empiricist positivism to other options. This isn't a presupposition -- this is mere experience combined with occam's razor.

@@davidlamb1107 that is such a silly response that I don’t know where to begin. 1. Positivist empiricism has been thoroughly debunked for almost a century now. It is a ludicrous position namely that is plainly self contradictory in that there is no empirical verification or confirmation of the principle that things need must be empirically verifiable. 2. You are intrinsically presupposing what the structure of “reality” is when you adopt this pragmatic approach. You have a host of unjustified epistemological and metaphysical presuppositions which go into the conception of the external world even under this “bare bones” scheme. Sorry to break it to you, buddy, but the external world is not self evident in disclosing information - it is interpreted through and coloured through a philosophical paradigm. 3. Pragmatism as a measure of truth is literally a fallacy. Theories routinely work for all the wrong reasons. My theory that vampires don’t attack me because I wear garlic everywhere I go “works”, but it works for all the wrong reasons. 4. Occam’s razor is not a real philosophical principle. It was never designed to be a philosophical tool - it was designed by William of Ockham as a biblical heuristic. It has shifted beyond this original purpose into something that modern and amateur philosophers use as a cloak and dagger move to ignore critical questions of justification. Why on earth should I prefer “simpler” explanations over more complicated ones? Simplicity says nothing about truth. It’s an arbitrary preference. In other words, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

A lot of it is not really religious.

We don’t. The only thing I can think of is to do theology, but maybe not even then. If we go with more of an authorial consensus of agreement approach, we might be better off.

But that is exactly what they have said: presupposing univocality comes from presupposing God inspired the text… and because God can’t have internal inconsistencies, therefore the text can’t, therefore the whole text is internally consistent, even when it seems it is not. That is THE rationality behind univocality of the text of the Bible. So in the mind of a biblical critical scholar, because there is no way to prove any of that… you cannot presuppose univocality.

@@sam_burke I'm not really sure who 'they' is, but if it's supposed to be Critical Scholars, I'm sure they're aware of more views on inspiration and inerrancy than that- even my old uber-evangelical systematic theology book listed out several in order to strawman them next to verbal plenarism. If the critical scholars we're talking about are making a critique specifically pointed at the verbal plenarist, then they do have a point- internal consistency comes with really high stakes for that view. Dynamic Inspiration or partial inspiration obviously come with more wiggle-room. I'm ignorant if critical scholarship has a definition of 'univocality' such that only applies to plenary and dictation views, but it seems obvious to me that a dynamic inspiration viewpoint could handle many categories of internal inconsistencies without falling to pieces and still maintain univocality, but I suspect that's part of your point when you say that the authors act as if their references agree with them, so there is a presumed univocality baked into say, James when he samples from Proverbs and the Sermon on the Mount.

@@lukemacri6557 there are some prominent biblical scholars on RU-vid and TikTok who have been trying to help squash the spread of misinformation about the Bible and some of the more “wild” takes (because there are a lot of those). As they share the academic scholarly side of biblical scholarship, they have been met by apologists who are trying to prove them wrong whenever they point out inconsistencies within the texts of the Bible… so the not presupposing univocality (the whole Bible has to be internally consistent in one voice) line has been brought up a lot to help the larger audience show the fallacious arguments from the apologists. And most of it stems to verbal-plenary inspiration and inerrancy of the text.

Therefore, my video is to help people who go “huh?” When the univocality line gets brought up…. To show why a Bible scholar would say that, and then to offer a slightly different view of using a unifying framework that doesn’t seek to explain away inconsistencies within the text, but looks to find unifying theological themes when authors of biblical texts seem to agree

@sam_burke understood, thanks for the conversation, and keep making videos! 👍

It 100% is a presupposition. Methodologies are built on presuppositions. Presuppositions are things we suppose beforehand. The presupposition is that this text is not primarily a book of devotion, faith, spirituality, but rather a book of history, science, etc… and must be analyzed and scrutinized with the same methods we use for critical analysis for any other historical or scientific claim or document. I’m not arguing that it is wrong… just pointing out what they are supposing that leads to their methodology. And after only a few minutes in, you presupposed I don’t know what I am talking about… probably because of all the apologists out there trying to go at these scholars. I may not always agree with them, but I’m not trying to make arguments against their works…

And also, by that understanding, univocality is not a presupposition either… it would be a methodology built on the presupposition that the text is inspired by God and God is internally consistent within themselves. You are right, however, to point out that I added in methodology to the presupposition of each of these 4. Otherwise this video would be hours long. The presuppositions, minus the methods are as such: 1) the Bible can be studied historically and scientifically minus the theological aspect 2) the supernatural cannot be reproduced and tested 3) the original manuscripts of individual books are an end in and of themselves and should be viewed as such and 4) texts have no inherent meaning outside of what we grant them.

@@sam_burke Sure, if you want to argue that everything is a presupposition. But which presupposition requires less assumptions - that the Bible is divinely written (and then you have to go into the details about what the role of the human authors/editors and the divine [God the father? Holy Spirit? Jesus?] each had) or that the Bible is a collection of texts written by humans in ancient times? The latter requires far less assumptions, and that is the presupposition that is required for historical-critical studies. As for point two, if you read any other culture's mythical stories (take for example, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_West) they describe supernatural events too. If you were studying that, would you be required to believe and adopt those supernatural beliefs? if not, why give the Bible special treatment? You're a pastor (and so am I) so I understand that you feel comfortable presupposing univocality. My sense is that in this video you want to "'expose" the presuppositions of historical-critical scholarship in such a way that you can say "hey, they are presupposing too, so I'll just reject their presuppositions and agree to mine". But what you've done is give extreme special treatment to the Bible. That's fine for church work, but it is not fair to the authors/editors who actually wrote the texts. Historical-critical scholarship attempts to find out what they actually meant. Regarding univocality in ancient Judaism - there were many different schools of thought. In this sense, there are many "univocalities" and each one serves its respective community until it passes away or morphs into another group. This continues today in "Christianities" and it would be fair and honest to say that we each carry our own interpretation, but not the absolute truth.

@@sohu86x Oh.. ok. Now I see where the miscommunication is. haha. Here's the deal. I am not arguing for using staunch univocality of the text in this video nor am I saying that what Biblical scholars are doing is wrong. And, as I said to another commenter, not all presuppositions are created equal. Some presuppositions are designed to keep bias in... while others are designed to guide methodologies to keep bias out. My whole reason for creating the video was because I had congregants asking me why Bible scholars on RU-vid and TikTok were saying we shouldn't presuppose univocality... and I use this platform to help them wrestle with things that we wouldn't normally find in the evangelical church world. And while I presuppose/believe in the inspiration of the text... I do not hold to rigid inerrancy (which gets me into a little trouble in my evangelical world sometimes). I do argue for individual texts to be allowed to be analyzed and to breathe on their own. The only time I can think of even using a univocalizing framework... and what I ended up concluding at the end of this video, if univocality is even the right term for it... is when trying to do some sort of theology. And that is more of a renegotiation with the text to see where authors seem to come to theological agreement... and letting where they disagree to stand on its own. I am extremely comfortable with allowing texts to disagree with each other and actually find deep richness in the tension of disagreement.

@@sam_burke Thanks for responding and explaining your thoughts. From my understanding, constructing "theology" in the traditional sense almost requires some sort of univocality. But if we examine the texts closely, there is little to no univocality across texts. Take, for example, the synoptic gospels. They were written at different times with different audiences in mind, and for different purposes. Scholars notice that the earliest gospel, Mark, has very few supernatural events. But the later gospels increasingly write of those events. Take, also for example, the epistles. The later epistles move away from the imminent return of Jesus and go on to discuss how the church should be organized. This idea is explicitly absent in the earlier epistles. I guess what I'm saying is that it's fine to keep these ideas out of the church (but is it really? It is, to be honest, extremely dishonest and disingenuous to "hide" these from lay Christians - c.f. Satan's guide to the Bible on youtube does a fantastic job on some of these issues), but rational, honest people must wrestle with the texts as they are, not as we want them to be (which is the core of theologizing imo). I think the more we recognize that these texts are just texts written by human hands (here we do not presuppose any divine activity), then we will come to some very interesting conclusions about univocality, or to be precise, its absense across the texts.

Critical biblical scholars use the historical critical method of textual analysis and their guiding principles inform that methodology. The reason that they reject apologists is because of their methodology. It is their methodology that rejects univocality, not the fact that they aren’t apologists. And what I am proposing in this video is not complete univocality, but an agreement, consensus style approach of where the texts agree and letting them also disagree and conflict where they naturally do. And I am a lot of things… and though I am not a critical Bible scholar… I am not an apologist. Just a quick watch of some of my other videos would clear that up.

@@sam_burke why are you talking to me like I don’t know what I’m talking about? You don’t know what you’re talking about. Apologists make me sick. You can deny your one until hell freezes over. And you’re one video is enough for me to see. Apologists are the most conniving people and then you got people in your comment section that are trashing critical biblical scholars. I despise apologists they’re so conniving. You misrepresent scholarship and then your ignorant followers continue the BS.

@@gmac6503 You can think what you will... my aim in this video had nothing to do with 1) trashing biblical scholars or 2) apologetically arguing for a univocal harmonizing of all texts. My aim was and is to help people who don't understand why a biblical scholar would say "you cannot presuppose univocality" by showing them the presuppositions and methodologies behind their analysis of the texts. To say that "Critical Biblical scholars do not presuppose univocality because they are not apologists" is like saying "a lion is a lion because it is not a turtle." The lion is a lion because it is a lion... and what makes it a lion has very little to do with what makes a turtle a turtle. It's when the turtle tries to correct the lion for being a lion that it rejects the turtle and its premise. What makes a critical Biblical scholar has nothing to do with not being an apologist. It has to do with their methods and approaches to these texts and the conclusions that they draw in the academic study of these texts. When an apologist then argues (apologizes) with them from their own flawed set of presuppositions (usually verbal-plenary inspiration, inerrancy and univocalization and harmonization) the Biblical scholar corrects them from their own methodologies. All my video is doing is pointing out the methodologies for how a biblical scholar analyzes the text for people who have asked me personally, "Why do they say that?" And, because I also studied theology, I am trying to add a way to look at these texts that 1) allows them to breathe on their own while 2) finding where they naturally can agree with one another and not trying to force them to. Apologists use univocality and fake harmonization to force things to fit that don't fit so they can "win an argument."

@@sam_burke ok. I tried twice and you still don't get it but you told me I don't get it again. it's like talking to a cinder block. Here's a guy who believes that the Bibles is inerrant, Yahweh is one triune god, the hypostatic union, and other apologetics' beliefs that they must adhere to, and go to the Bible to defend those views. I don't know if this dude believes in 365 prophecies in the Old Testament of the coming messiah but it wouldn't surprise me this guy is not a biblical scholar and people like the fake PhD James White boasts all the time about being an apologist as well as most of the other pastors. I bet I could name 10 critical biblical scholars, and he wouldn't know them at all and I could think of two right off the top of my head that he would probably immediately call a name and slander do you think this dude thinks Paul wrote the pastoral's? Do you think he thinks that Moses wrote the Pentateuch? Does this dude know that whoever wrote the gospel is anonymous and we have no idea who wrote them? as a person wrote on social media today, "Christian apologists are just dishonest shills." does this dude even know that Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible condoned slavery and ordered rape and killing innocent children? no, he's an apologist

@@sam_burke yeah and I think what I know and I know what I think. This dude also believe that there's a devil in the Hebrew Bible who thinks that certain passages are talking about Satan and apparently he doesn't know Hebrew and he hasn't read any critical scholars on it. Then he thinks that marriage was created by God so apparently he hasn't read any critical scholars on that either. He's an apologist

What he did in this video is what I wish they would say over and over again… because what they seem to say a lot is “no inherent meaning… only what we ascribe to it” or something like that, which opens the door for all kinds of wacky takes that have nothing to do with what was even likely intended, which is what he is combatting online all the time. I don’t disagree with his explanation, I just wish that he (and others) would be more explicit than implicit with what they mean when they say that.

@@sam_burke I think scholarship is still in its infancy with bringing information to the public, so scholars are still getting used to gearing things not for scholars. I know Dan’s book that he’s writing is for a high school reading level, so he’s had to adjust his writing style, explanations, etc and it hasn’t been so easy.

@@Quack_Shot ya… that is difficult. Here is another thought… the example I did in my video of a letter I wrote my wife that is found 300 years later… I believe that letter carries both my intended and inherent meaning. The issue is, 300 years later, all one can reconstruct is what might have been my intended meaning, because they cannot possibly know 100% what my inherent meaning is, because I am not there to say what it was. However, It does not mean that it doesn’t have it… it means we cannot have certainty in knowing it. That is what Dan communicated clearly in this video. What he responded to was exactly what I was trying to point out how people would take that statement and why, even though it is a true methodology, it can be turned around to mean something very different than what he meant or intended. For those who are well read or understand philosophy, linguistics, etc… the phrase might be a no brainer… but that is likely the minority of people on RU-vid and TikTok.

I hear you on this for sure. There are things that don’t line up or make sense or that can even produce tension in these texts. 1) I don’t hold to a strict univocality of the text, 2) I may have a very different view than you think/assume about inspiration 3) I see a growing understanding of who God is seen to be over the course of scripture, so not all things attributed may be actually true. (Especially if these texts (Torah) were penned later and as a collection of multiple sources. ) therefore, my interpretive framework on these things is to lean into the explanations and attitudes attributed to Jesus and view/reinterpret who God is through that framework.. and sit in the tension of the ones that don’t line up and not try to apologetically explain them away.

Instead, why didn't you try to understand the meaning of the text?

@@truthbebold4009 which text specifically? I understand both of them separately… the original poster was pointing to, what would seem to be a contradiction if Jesus is indeed God. They were alluding to the question “why would God say one thing there… and another thing there?” And instead of trying to apologetically tie myself in knots… I am ok with allowing these things to sit in tension.

@@sam_burke The OP is assuming it was wrong to punish the man picking up sticks on the Sabbath. No attempt was made to understand the context or the meaning and purpose of the Sabbath. Likewise, the statement by Jesus gives only a tidbit of a glance at the meaning and purpose of the Sabbath. The Bible was written to be pondered and examined. Those who refuse to do this are like the so-called scientists who made claims decades ago that 98% of our DNA is junk. It doesn't take any wisdom to dismiss something that seems contradictory. Doing so requires no more intelligence than your lower leg reacting to a tap from the doctor's little knee hammer. Armed with OP's methodology I can assume that the Bible is true. Why? because the society that is currently rejecting the God who rejects the selfish and self-absorbed is in fact selfish and self-absorbed. If it was a selfless society that was rejecting the God who advocates for selflessness, then their objections might be worthy of examining. By being selfish and self-absorbed, our society discredits itself and brings into question all of its claims against the Bible. I might conclude that as a society goes, so goes its belief in the Bible as God's word. Yet, if a true revival were to occur, we would see a positive turn away from selfishness and self-absorbed(edness) and towards selflessness. Ahhh, but what about the inquisition and all that? Well sure, that's a great example of retaining control of the Bible in order to control a population. See The Book of Eli movie for a good example of using the Bible to control the people.

@@sam_burke @sam_burke The OP is assuming it was wrong to punish the man picking up sticks on the Sabbath. No attempt was made to understand the context or the meaning and purpose of the Sabbath. Likewise, the statement by Jesus gives only a tidbit of a glance at the meaning and purpose of the Sabbath. The Bible was written to be pondered and examined. Those who refuse to do this are like the so-called scientists who made claims decades ago that 98% of our DNA is junk. It doesn't take any wisdom to dismiss something that seems contradictory. Doing so requires no more intelligence than your lower leg reacting to a tap from the doctor's little knee hammer. Armed with OP's methodology I can assume that the Bible is true. Why? because the society that is currently rejecting the God who rejects the selfish and self-absorbed is in fact selfish and self-absorbed. If it was a selfless society that was rejecting the God who advocates for selflessness, then their objections might be worthy of examining. By being selfish and self-absorbed, our society discredits itself and brings into question all of its claims against the Bible. I might conclude that as a society goes, so goes its belief in the Bible as God's word. Yet, if a true revival were to occur, we would see a positive turn away from selfishness and self-absorbed(edness) and towards selflessness. Ahhh, but what about the inquisition and all that? Well sure, that's a great example of retaining control of the Bible in order to control a population. See The Book of Eli movie for a good example of using the Bible to control the people.

It’s because their whole method is built off of verifiable and reproducible data. You cannot reproduce the miraculous in order to test it. And to a lot of them, what cannot be tested cannot be proved.

@@sam_burke They can not even reproduce the individual writing occured. There is not even an original document.

Also just the claim one is a biblical scholar places an authority to a Canon and not the thousands of other writings during the same historical periods that are rejected as biblical.

@@dan_m7774 I think they started doing that to historically place the literature and understand the history, and it morphed from that to trying to understand the ancient writings and how they “meshed” with that literature. Of course, not all Biblical scholars do this, but critical scholars for sure do.

There is a difference between rejecting a supernatural purpose behind the Bible and simply not presuming this supernatural influence. It's not foolish, on the contrary, it's the only way to examine the text honestly. You can't presuppose univocality or divine inspiration or any such thing, if you're goal is an honest evaluation of the texts. When you also have background knowledge that many of the stories in the Bible are clear mythology and probably not even meant to be taken "literally", it seems pointless to pretend that there is some univocal divine guidance behind the whole thing. Don't start with an assumed conclusion and then try to fit the evidence into your conclusion while pretending to care about the truth.

Oh, I understand what it is. I just don’t adhere to that dogma. And, quite frankly, neither do a majority of Biblical scholars, church fathers, or church historians. The consensus view among the church fathers seems to be that John died of natural causes sometime in the late 1st century or early second century. But because of obscurity surrounding his death, and the statement from Jesus in John 21 to Peter about the beloved disciple… people started theorizing that maybe he, in fact, never died. So yes… I understand the theory… and no, I don’t buy it.