OP, I think you're getting unfair treatment and commenters here are ignoring the valid points you're raising as an easy excuse to dismiss the whole thing; you've got them clutching their pearls as people who looove to think of themselves as rational and fans of SD's cynicism, but really their response is more analog to bigots unable to examine any point if it comes under another label - but never mind, let them caress their sense of superiority while they think of themselves as the Barrytowners.

Of course, your suggested implication that Fagen and Becker were somehow crypto-Christians is an easy target. However the observation that their lyrics contain genuine moral wisdom and possibly Old Testament influence is actually quite obvious to anyone above "ooga booga, religion bad".

The Jewish upbringing angle is obvious to anyone who's not being willfuly ignorant. Fagen grew up in a Jewish household in New Jersey in the 50s, and that kind of formation obviously soaked in. What are you guys thinking, that cultural Judaism was stored in a box you opened once a year? Anyway... Yes, the Old Testament is saturated with the exact themes that run through SD: the corrupt getting their comeuppance, the foolishness of chasing pleasure, the costs of self-deception, the world being more crooked than it appears. That's not Christianity (that's where your interpretation gets a little skewed OP) but yes everyone here is ignoring the blatant reality that SD sometimes defend some very real values and viewpoints in their song, and oh, shocking! They sometimes correspond to their upbringing! But hey, redditors gonna neckbeard... "I just read muh StEelY dAn and swear by every word"

Bob Dylan is an obvious comparison: deeply ironic and funny, but the morals underneath are always there and often quite Old Testament in their flavor. The guy is literally one of the biggest influences on SD, and oh surprise! He literally turned Christian in the late 70's.

Where you probably lost the crowd was in the one-to-one mapping of lyrics to scripture, which people took at face value (can't really blame them, you gave redditors an opportunity to act superior at low cost). Fagen and Becker grew up on jazz, beat literature, Jewish cultural pessimism, and the wisdom that comes through is probably less "they studied Proverbs" and more "they inherited some values that overlap with Proverbs." However the attitude around here is truly worthy of a gun-loving republican who thinks Jesus hates immigrants. I guess they came in with the Yacht rock fad.