One of the biggest lies we're told is that celebrating our ancestral past is stupid, dishonest, or worse. None of that is true. "Beowulf," the Anglo-Saxon masterpiece about England's Germanic forefathers, is a sophisticated tale full of weirdness, complexity, and melancholy—plus, it's an awesome romp with lots of crazy monsters and sick fights. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan uncovers the poem's greatness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ep. 22: Heroes of Old

The classical education you never knew you were missing. Join scholar and writer Spencer Klavan on a tour through the great works of the West. In a world gone mad, we're not alone: the great men and women who went before us have wisdom to guide us. With their help, we can recover truth, beauty, and the stuff that matters.

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Why do we say "Holy Spirit" more often than "Holy Ghost"? It's not just because we're scared of things that go bump in the night. This week I'm taking a listener question about why "Spirit" and "Ghost" seem interchangeable in early modern English translations of the Bible, but not so much anymore. It's about how English has changed, how the Biblical languages changed over time, and how we've changed since salvation history began. Pre-order my new book, Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/2QccOfM Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/ Subscribe to my new joint Substack with Andrew Klavan (no relation): https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com

Words, Words, Words 10: The Holy Ghost Story

"We're not a good species": that's the rallying cry of Les Knight, founder of the Voluntary Extinction Movement. But the idea that humanity was a mistake didn't just spring out of nowhere. It was built up gradually over centuries, as a side-effect of the scientific revolution. Goethe's Faust is a brilliant attempt to recover and sanctify the role of humanity in creating reality. It is more important now than ever. Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/ Pre-order my new book, Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/2QccOfM Subscribe to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com I maked this: "China's Three-Body Problem--and Ours," at Law & Liberty: https://lawliberty.org/chinas-three-body-problem-and-ours/   

Nope-ing Out on Humanity

Is it OK to be white? Claremont Institute Senior Fellow is out with a provocative new book about anti-white discrimination in America, and what's to be done about it. We got into a really interesting discussion about race, culture, and politics--including questions like whether Western culture is "white" and what racial harmony in 21st-century America can and should look like. Take a listen, and then check out Jeremy's book: The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism is Tearing America Apart: https://www.amazon.com/Unprotected-Class-Anti-White-Destroying-America/dp/1684514584 Find Jeremy on Substack: https://jeremycarl.substack.com Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/ Pre-order my new book, Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/2QccOfM Subscribe to my new joint Substack with Andrew Klavan (no relation): https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com I maked this: "Civil LARP," a review of Alex Garland's Civil War:  https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/beltway-confidential/2963967/civil-larp-the-journalists-are-at-it-again/

Interview: Jeremy Carl, [Insert Youtube Warning Label Here]

Blue and black? Or yellow and white? For eons, mankind has grappled with this essential question. Wars have been fought. Families have been torn asunder. Brother has turned against brother and father against son. But now, at last, we can resolve this most important of debates with help from none other than--Ludwig Goethe? Turns out the whole affair brings up all the important issues we need to start moving from Marlowe's Faust to Goethe's, and on the way to pick up a whole new vision for the future of science. Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/ Pre-order my new book, Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/2QccOfM Subscribe to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com I maked this: "Civil LARP," a review of Alex Garland's Civil War:  https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/beltway-confidential/2963967/civil-larp-the-journalists-are-at-it-again/

Say Yes to the Dress: Goethe, Newton, and the Internet's Biggest Fight Ever

It's not every podcast that comes with a disclaimer, but this one is just spicy enough that it needs a warning on the label. I got a great and fascinating question about how to translate a passage from John's Gospel...and the answer will take me into Mary's status in the church, the meaning of the word "the," and the cosmic significance of each of our lives. How's that for a Friday afternoon?* Pre-order my new book, Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/2QccOfM Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/ Subscribe to my new joint Substack with Andrew Klavan (no relation): https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com *Words words words is a subsidiary of Young Heretics hosted by Spencer Klavan and represents exclusively the views of one dudebro books podcaster on exclusively those lexical matters he chooses to address. It has not been approved by the USCCB and is not intended to throw shade on or resolve disputes among Christians including but not limited to Catholics, Anglicans, evangelicals, baptists, anabaptists, katabaptists, parabaptists, pseudobaptists, and baptists with funny hats, regarding issues pertaining but not limited to the perpetual virginity of Mary, her immaculate conception, her experience of labor, her preference for the Browns over the Packers, or her views on the seasoning of fish. Side effects may include morphological fixation and fine grained knowledge of Biblical Greek; if either of these persist longer than a languid afternoon spent leafing through dictionaries and sighing like a character in a Victorian novel, consult your pastor.

Ep. 22: Heroes of Old

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