Latest / Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture / Immoral Torah? Why Removing Hard Biblical Laws Does More Harm Than Good

Transcript

Immoral Torah? Why Removing Hard Biblical Laws Does More Harm Than Good · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

0:01
Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that
0:04
Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become
0:08
Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.
0:11
Speaker 1: I'm doctor James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking
0:15
Speaker 1: Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world
0:18
Speaker 1: and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that
0:22
Speaker 1: hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now on to
0:25
Speaker 1: today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone, welcome to this
0:29
Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Christian of doctor James Spencer and I
0:32
Speaker 1: am joined today by doctor Gary Edward Schnicker. I'm pretty
0:38
Speaker 1: sure I got that right, and you all know, yeah,
0:40
Speaker 1: you all know how I am things. He is a
0:43
Speaker 1: Distinguished Professor of Old Testament at the School of Divinity
0:46
Speaker 1: at Cairn University, and he's also got a substack at
0:50
Speaker 1: carpenter student dot com. That's Carpenter's what ends with an
0:55
Speaker 1: S and then student begins with an S, so there's
0:57
Speaker 1: two s's in the middle there. Those links will be
1:00
Speaker 1: in the show notes, so if you wanted to check
1:02
Speaker 1: out the rest of his work, you can go there.
1:05
Speaker 1: But today we're going to be discussing an article that
1:07
Speaker 1: he recently published in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society,
1:12
Speaker 1: and it's on a pretty important topic from my perspective,
1:15
Speaker 1: repairing Torah, James W. Watts and Moses as mediator of
1:20
Speaker 1: im moral instructions. So we're gonna have a conversation about
1:24
Speaker 1: the immoral instructions of the Torah and Gary, welcome to
1:28
Speaker 1: the program.
1:28
Speaker 2: Thanks very much for being here.
1:30
Speaker 3: Well, welcome and thanks for having me. But already have
1:34
Speaker 3: to say a thing. Immoral is in quotes.
1:37
Speaker 1: Yes, in morals in quote yes, and morals in quotes.
1:41
Speaker 1: That'll become clear as we have a conversation. So yeah, yeah,
1:46
Speaker 1: So give me just a sense of So I'm back
1:50
Speaker 1: in just you and I have never really met. We
1:52
Speaker 1: didn't have a ton of time to talk before the interview.
1:54
Speaker 1: But I'm an Old Testament guy too. I did my
1:55
Speaker 1: PhD in Theological Cities Old Testament It's heads, and so
2:00
Speaker 1: this article kind of threw me in early. I wasn't
2:03
Speaker 1: as familiar with Watts's work, and so I really appreciate your.
2:06
Speaker 2: Review of it.
2:07
Speaker 1: But what drew you into this topic? What makes it
2:10
Speaker 1: sort of relevant to you? And do you see it
2:12
Speaker 1: as something that is sort of peeking into Old Testament
2:16
Speaker 1: studies as a whole.
2:19
Speaker 3: So for the last part, absolutely, yes, this is very
2:24
Speaker 3: much a problem in Old Testament studies. But no, I've
2:29
Speaker 3: known of Watts's scholarship since the late nineteen nineties and
2:35
Speaker 3: I've followed him. He's a very sober, careful, good scholar,
2:40
Speaker 3: and I hadn't I wasn't looking for anything with him.
2:44
Speaker 3: I think about five years ago thereabouts, I turned in
2:47
Speaker 3: an article and to jso two and it's always the thing,
2:52
Speaker 3: you work really hard to make your word count and then
2:54
Speaker 3: they tell you add all these ten things, and so
2:57
Speaker 3: I was adding all the things, and one of the
2:59
Speaker 3: things I said is James Watts has a commentary on
3:03
Speaker 3: Leviticus one through ten, and so I wasn't aware of it.
3:06
Speaker 4: So I got it.
3:07
Speaker 3: It was great, really great. I mean I did use
3:11
Speaker 3: it from the library because it was so expensive. But
3:13
Speaker 3: then anyway, that article got published. But when I saw
3:17
Speaker 3: his new volume two coming out of the commentary, very expensive,
3:22
Speaker 3: but I said I have to have it, so I
3:24
Speaker 3: splurged when my wife wasn't watching. And when I got it,
3:29
Speaker 3: I was looking at it and I just couldn't believe
3:34
Speaker 3: what I was reading. He is saying in his introduction
3:38
Speaker 3: to cross out all the immoral verses of the entire Bible,
3:44
Speaker 3: but most of them are in Torah, and so he
3:47
Speaker 3: even gives a list of these immoral verses, and he
3:50
Speaker 3: seriously goes on and on about it. He's written one
3:53
Speaker 3: other essay about this, and I went and got that.
3:55
Speaker 3: So at first I was just disgusted that I had
3:58
Speaker 3: wasted money on this commentary. I mean really, And so
4:05
Speaker 3: it was that same day I was out biking and
4:08
Speaker 3: I was just so frustrated at myself, and I was
4:10
Speaker 3: just so dumb, and I certainly didn't want my wife
4:15
Speaker 3: to find out. But all of a sudden, it just
4:19
Speaker 3: hit me when I was out biking, is what would
4:23
Speaker 3: happen if we did cross out all of these verses
4:29
Speaker 3: that well, to be honest with you, I think the
4:33
Speaker 3: verses that Christians at least dislike, and I think probably
4:39
Speaker 3: many Christians hate them. Now nobody says that, but I
4:43
Speaker 3: think what's what I realized is Watts probably is tapping
4:48
Speaker 3: into something here, because these are the verses Christians are
4:52
Speaker 3: embarrassed about because Christians worry maybe they are immoral. So
4:59
Speaker 3: but what hit me is what if we crossed them out,
5:01
Speaker 3: what would happen? And it was just in a flash
5:04
Speaker 3: I knew I had to research this. So this is
5:06
Speaker 3: not an area that I was really there was a
5:10
Speaker 3: lot long on remp for It was Wats's commentary that
5:14
Speaker 3: pulled me into it, and then once I started researching
5:17
Speaker 3: it because of that question what would happen if we
5:22
Speaker 3: cut these verses out? I realized immediately that these are
5:28
Speaker 3: God's protections and offering justice to people in the ancient
5:33
Speaker 3: world who need it most, and so we can't just
5:37
Speaker 3: cut these verses out of the Bible without ruining. In short,
5:44
Speaker 3: if we cut these verses out of the Bible, it
5:47
Speaker 3: empowers male predators and it puts everyone else at risk.
5:51
Speaker 1: Simply, so, let's clarify Watts's position for listeners just so
5:58
Speaker 1: they have a good understanding of it basically, and I'll
6:01
Speaker 1: kind of throw my summary out there and then you
6:02
Speaker 1: can geek it a little bit. But basically, there are
6:06
Speaker 1: these passages in the Old Testament that are related to
6:08
Speaker 1: things like rape, homosexuality, and I think there were a
6:15
Speaker 1: couple of slavery ones in there. You know, these kind
6:18
Speaker 1: of laws, as you rightly I think state Christians are really.
6:22
Speaker 2: Uncomfortable with them.
6:23
Speaker 1: They don't like when they are reading through the Old Testament.
6:26
Speaker 1: These are the ones the passages you get to and
6:28
Speaker 1: you're like, oh wow, I kind of wish that wasn't there.
6:30
Speaker 1: I'd really like to skip over this, right. And so
6:33
Speaker 1: what he's saying is, listen, they don't have to be there.
6:36
Speaker 1: Let's just cross them out. He's advocating with for Bible
6:40
Speaker 1: translators even to leave them out or at least cross
6:44
Speaker 1: the mount and really doing some editorial work on the
6:48
Speaker 1: Old Testament to bring it up to the moral standards
6:51
Speaker 1: of modern day. Is that a fair characterization or what
6:54
Speaker 1: would you add to that?
6:55
Speaker 4: Yeah?
6:56
Speaker 3: I mean that that is fair New Testament too. He
7:00
Speaker 3: gives a list of all the verses that he considers immoral.
7:03
Speaker 3: Luckily he's a strong specialist in the Taurus, because there's
7:07
Speaker 3: a lot of verses you and I might want to
7:08
Speaker 3: add to Hitsel. He missed some good ones. But he
7:15
Speaker 3: does not cross out any narratives. So, for example, the
7:21
Speaker 3: narrative account of the destruction of sod ngomor he doesn't
7:25
Speaker 3: cross out none of that because he doesn't want to
7:28
Speaker 3: be a hypocrite. That is, he wants to only cut
7:32
Speaker 3: out the norms where there's an authoritative teaching to do
7:37
Speaker 3: something that he considers immoral.
7:39
Speaker 4: So and he's just a matter of.
7:41
Speaker 3: Fact about it, like when the Bible commands genocide or
7:45
Speaker 3: sexual standards or patriarchy, or he's against capital punishment, and
7:51
Speaker 3: he very much points out that, you know, the Bible
7:54
Speaker 3: has capital punishment for just about everything, including a bunch
7:57
Speaker 3: of very minor religious you know, fractions, and so all
8:01
Speaker 3: of this is immoral, and so he thinks it's wrong.
8:07
Speaker 3: Now part of one thing to put in here that
8:10
Speaker 3: will help listeners just a little how to come to this.
8:14
Speaker 3: Watts does say very clearly that meaning has to be
8:19
Speaker 3: understood in context. What's different is his view of context.
8:25
Speaker 3: So he used to have a normal view of context.
8:28
Speaker 3: By normal, I mean ancient biblical literary context. But for
8:33
Speaker 3: about the past twenty years thereabouts he's been working on
8:36
Speaker 3: what he calls ritualization, and what that means we would
8:41
Speaker 3: call that probably reception history. But every reading, every interpretation,
8:46
Speaker 3: every book, every sermon, everything that's ever been said about, say,
8:50
Speaker 3: the Book of Leviticus, which this commentary is about, all
8:55
Speaker 3: of that is the meaning or the context, if you will,
9:00
Speaker 3: essentially the meaning. So then he's done a series of
9:04
Speaker 3: studies on how the Bible has been used by criminals, terrorists, dictators,
9:14
Speaker 3: slave traders, awful people to justify awful things, and he
9:18
Speaker 3: says that's the meaning, and so he wants to nip
9:21
Speaker 3: it in the bud. And you know, he's admitting he
9:25
Speaker 3: feels like he's been responsible teaching Torah all these years.
9:30
Speaker 3: He's part of the problem. And so he wants us
9:34
Speaker 3: to essentially cancel the immoral teachings of Scripture by getting
9:39
Speaker 3: all scholars to cross them out and getting Bible publishers
9:44
Speaker 3: to put strike through text across them out. He doesn't
9:47
Speaker 3: want to delete them because we need to learn from
9:50
Speaker 3: past mistakes. So that's essentially his view is repealing the
9:56
Speaker 3: immoral teachings of Scripture. And he just over and over
10:00
Speaker 3: again lists all those kinds of things. Any do provide
10:04
Speaker 3: a list of all the immorals texts. According to Wat,
10:07
Speaker 3: it's in my article right in the whole Bible.
10:13
Speaker 1: It's so that understanding of context is really I think helpful.
10:18
Speaker 1: I find it really difficult to hold given. I mean,
10:22
Speaker 1: I just had a gentleman named Dan Hawk on He's
10:26
Speaker 1: He's written a book on you know, American history, and
10:32
Speaker 1: to some extent, the use of the Joshua narrative to
10:34
Speaker 1: justify certain nationalistic tendencies and conquest narratives and those kind
10:39
Speaker 1: of things. You see this with the Exodus an awful
10:41
Speaker 1: lot in liberation theologies, but even in early colonial America,
10:46
Speaker 1: where you know America takes on the Exodus narrative, they are,
10:51
Speaker 1: you know, essentially the Israelites being rescued from the tyrants
10:54
Speaker 1: of Great Britain. And so even though he doesn't include
10:59
Speaker 1: those narratives, that understanding of context would almost necessarily require
11:04
Speaker 1: that we read these other texts in the same way
11:08
Speaker 1: that we look across the whole reception history of this
11:12
Speaker 1: and say, well, how have these texts been used, and
11:14
Speaker 1: then what does that add to the meaning, or how
11:17
Speaker 1: should we understand these texts based on this meaning? It
11:21
Speaker 1: seems highly problematic from a methodological perspective to do this
11:26
Speaker 1: without calling balls and strikes on what is an appropriate
11:31
Speaker 1: interpretation and use versus what's an illegitimate interpretation and use?
11:37
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I agree with you so far as it goes.
11:41
Speaker 3: I think, you know, and part of what you're saying
11:45
Speaker 3: is even we can't really separate the norms from the
11:48
Speaker 3: narratives exactly when we're talking about authority of text.
11:51
Speaker 4: That's right, But I think what.
11:56
Speaker 3: I mean to put a simple view on it, My
11:58
Speaker 3: view simply is bad interpretation. Isn't the meaning, It's bad interpretation, right.
12:06
Speaker 3: And maybe a second thing on context. I think, as
12:11
Speaker 3: far as a punchline, if we construe context in such
12:16
Speaker 3: a way that it contradicts the meaning of the text,
12:19
Speaker 3: that's not the context, right. I mean, right, we're you know,
12:24
Speaker 3: that's not how it works. But I think that I
12:29
Speaker 3: want to positively say Watts has really helped me and
12:37
Speaker 3: he has something important here because he's spent the last
12:39
Speaker 3: twenty years doing studies of terrible uses of scripture. And
12:44
Speaker 3: what I think that the list opens for us isn't
12:48
Speaker 3: just this argument with Wat's over hermaeneutics. I mean, I'm
12:52
Speaker 3: willing to just say, Okay, we agree to disagree, but
12:56
Speaker 3: I think that the larger issue is these texts that
13:00
Speaker 3: he thinks are immoral. Those are essentially he's created a
13:04
Speaker 3: list of the scriptural norms, at least setting aside in airbans,
13:09
Speaker 3: scriptural norms that Christians are embarrassed about. And that's really
13:15
Speaker 3: helpful to be able to quantify that. Yeah, maybe the
13:21
Speaker 3: underlying dark secret that no one knew Christians want to
13:24
Speaker 3: talk about is we think that maybe the Bible is
13:29
Speaker 3: immoral because I mean, let's face it, Christians have a
13:33
Speaker 3: hard time thinking that there's any way to contextualize killing
13:39
Speaker 3: all those people, there's any way to contextualize some of
13:43
Speaker 3: the laws, such as one of the most notorious is
13:49
Speaker 3: where the victim has to marry the rapist. Like, Christians
13:53
Speaker 3: can't imagine any scenario in which those could be contextualized,
13:58
Speaker 3: And so the easiest thing is I mean, you know
14:03
Speaker 3: this as well as anyone. I mean, every Sunday people
14:07
Speaker 3: are in church saying I'm glad we just have the
14:10
Speaker 3: New Testament. You know, it's like, well, wait, the New
14:14
Speaker 3: Trustament doesn't put a stop to slavery, right, Yeah, the
14:19
Speaker 3: New Testament isn't modern either. So so I think then
14:26
Speaker 3: Watts has done something really important, a couple of important things.
14:30
Speaker 3: But I think that there's something more here to do
14:37
Speaker 3: than just to disagree.
14:37
Speaker 1: With Watts, don't I Actually, I'm glad you brought that up.
14:41
Speaker 1: I think it's one of the things that I really
14:42
Speaker 1: liked about your piece is that you weren't overly harsh.
14:45
Speaker 1: It was clear you disagreed with but you weren't overly
14:48
Speaker 1: harsh about his work.
14:49
Speaker 2: You actually found that benefit within it.
14:51
Speaker 1: And so as I was reading it, and I'm you know,
14:54
Speaker 1: sort of thinking it through and saying, yeah, I'm probably
14:57
Speaker 1: identifying the same problem you are.
14:59
Speaker 2: I mean, we've been through multiple itterations of this.
15:02
Speaker 1: You know, Andy Stanley's work kind of was a more
15:06
Speaker 1: popular version of this, obviously more ancient. You have Marcian
15:10
Speaker 1: and saying let's get rid of portion, you know, the
15:12
Speaker 1: portions that we don't like events, right, And so this
15:15
Speaker 1: is sort of a cyclical thing that tends to come
15:17
Speaker 1: up where we're just having a hard time dealing with
15:21
Speaker 1: these specific passages. And so when I when I did
15:24
Speaker 1: a little more reading on Watts's position, I kind of
15:28
Speaker 1: sit back and I'm like, he's trying to solve a problem.
15:30
Speaker 1: I don't think he's trying to solve the problem in
15:32
Speaker 1: the right way, but I think he's identifying the problem correctly.
15:36
Speaker 1: I just I think there has to be a better
15:38
Speaker 1: way to do that, and I think your article sort
15:41
Speaker 1: of points toward one reason why we can't solve the
15:44
Speaker 1: problem in the way that he's suggesting that wasn't a
15:49
Speaker 1: just an appeal to hey, leave our Bibles alone, right.
15:53
Speaker 1: I think your argument gives it a little bit more
15:55
Speaker 1: teeth and a different understanding, So I appreciate it. That's
15:58
Speaker 1: why don't we kind of pivot how you responded to
16:01
Speaker 1: Watts's work in the article and help people understand that
16:04
Speaker 1: it's not just you know, we're not just clutching pearls
16:08
Speaker 1: and going to leave our Bibles alone, but there is
16:10
Speaker 1: a real rational leaving these passages in there, and a
16:14
Speaker 1: constructive aspect of having them as opposed to.
16:17
Speaker 2: Pulling them out or deleting them or whatever we do.
16:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think that, you know, that's that's really
16:24
Speaker 3: the big thing is crossing them out is entirely the
16:30
Speaker 3: wrong way to go. I use the word the expression
16:34
Speaker 3: collateral damage, right, So when we start crossing things out
16:40
Speaker 3: of the Bible, there's collateral damage. And Watts doesn't see this.
16:45
Speaker 3: In personal correspondence I've had with him, it's like, well,
16:49
Speaker 3: you know, this doesn't put ancient people in danger. But
16:54
Speaker 3: the way we interpret the Bible normally almost everyone we're
16:58
Speaker 3: interpreting it in its ancient content text, and if the
17:01
Speaker 3: Bible no longer said, you know, hey, we need to
17:05
Speaker 3: protect the most vulnerable folks in our society, like slaves.
17:11
Speaker 3: Then all of a sudden, we have a Bible that
17:13
Speaker 3: is I use this term at the beginning, empowering predatorial males.
17:18
Speaker 3: It's unleashing them today. That's the problem is. I'm not
17:23
Speaker 3: worried about the ancient world either. I'm worried about how
17:27
Speaker 3: the Bible functions for practicing Christians today, because you know,
17:32
Speaker 3: we're walking in circles of people that actually go to
17:35
Speaker 3: church and read the Bible and trust the Lord, and
17:39
Speaker 3: so in those circles it matters how we interpret it
17:44
Speaker 3: in what the Bible actually says.
17:46
Speaker 4: And I think.
17:48
Speaker 3: That that.
17:53
Speaker 4: Sense.
17:55
Speaker 3: I mean, you mentioned Andy Stanley, and there's others who
17:59
Speaker 3: strongly for the New Testament and talk about almost how
18:04
Speaker 3: the Old Testament is neutered practically, you know, by how
18:09
Speaker 3: it's treated. That is also just as dangerous. And you
18:14
Speaker 3: might have done better than me. But when I looked
18:16
Speaker 3: at wats his list, I thought about, you know, he's
18:21
Speaker 3: worried about the other side of me. He feels like
18:24
Speaker 3: we're responsible and look what I've been promoting for the past,
18:27
Speaker 3: you know, thirty years of my career. I'm looking at
18:30
Speaker 3: his listing. Once I realized, these teachings are God protecting
18:37
Speaker 3: the most vulnerable people, and I've been skipping over them
18:41
Speaker 3: because they're hard. I've been teaching that, you know, covenants,
18:45
Speaker 3: and I've been teaching the Redemption, and I haven't spent
18:50
Speaker 3: the time in my seminary classes on the most difficult texts.
18:56
Speaker 3: And so I realized I'm part of the problem, not
18:59
Speaker 3: because I've been teaching those texts, but because I haven't been. Yeah,
19:03
Speaker 3: and so I need to start emphasizing these texts because
19:08
Speaker 3: we kind of have watts Is crossing out what are
19:11
Speaker 3: essentially non functioning laws. Yeah, I mean nobody's nobody's preaching
19:18
Speaker 3: on these passages. I don't want to say nobody, but
19:23
Speaker 3: and then, well, anyway, there's more to it. But that's
19:27
Speaker 3: that's kind of I think part of the rub.
19:31
Speaker 2: Do you think this? So my dissertation supervisor is Dick Aberbeck.
19:35
Speaker 1: He wrote a book on the Old Testament Law for
19:38
Speaker 1: the New Testament Church.
19:39
Speaker 2: I don't think that's exactly the name of it.
19:41
Speaker 1: But in there he argues something about the law that
19:44
Speaker 1: the law is good, weak, and unified all at the
19:47
Speaker 1: same time. And he essentially makes what I think is
19:50
Speaker 1: the helpful He helpfully frames the law and says, basically,
19:56
Speaker 1: there's a point where he talks about, Look, the law
19:59
Speaker 1: isn't always about instituting the ideal. Sometimes the law is
20:04
Speaker 1: about managing the unideal. And I think we see this
20:08
Speaker 1: in Jesus's teaching when he's going back and forth with
20:11
Speaker 1: the Pharisees on divorce. Moses's command to give a certificate
20:16
Speaker 1: a divorce Jesus roots in the hardness of man's heart,
20:20
Speaker 1: not in the ideal situation that he paints in Genesis two,
20:25
Speaker 1: where man and woman become one flesh, and so here
20:28
Speaker 1: the law is sort.
20:29
Speaker 2: Of holding back.
20:32
Speaker 1: The evil that might be done were that evil not
20:36
Speaker 1: for restrained. And so I guess my broader question is,
20:40
Speaker 1: do you think that part of what Watts is struggling
20:43
Speaker 1: with is this sense that when you read the law
20:46
Speaker 1: in the Old Testament, that you're looking at this as
20:51
Speaker 1: the law is constituting the ideal in society, as opposed
20:56
Speaker 1: to dealing with the in ideal of society and trying
21:00
Speaker 1: to curtail the sort of problems that would would arise
21:04
Speaker 1: if there are no implications for curtailing the behavior that
21:09
Speaker 1: makes sense.
21:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I'm very sympathetic, and I would hold
21:14
Speaker 3: to have view something like Dick Everveck's view that you
21:17
Speaker 3: just described. I think that, you know, we're kindred spirits
21:22
Speaker 3: in that sense.
21:25
Speaker 2: Yeah.
21:25
Speaker 3: I think that Watts isn't partisoning this out. He thinks
21:28
Speaker 3: this is immoral.
21:29
Speaker 4: And we're just we're Yeah.
21:33
Speaker 3: But I think that your question really is one more
21:36
Speaker 3: that is important for Christians who wonder, for example, why
21:48
Speaker 3: God wouldn't say that slavery is wrong? Right now? You
21:54
Speaker 3: and I would be the first people to say, the
21:57
Speaker 3: Bible never promotes slavery. Yeah, but the Bible offers regulations
22:02
Speaker 3: to protect slaves and to promote righteous living within the
22:08
Speaker 3: ancient Near East, where slavery is extremely prevalent, and in
22:12
Speaker 3: the New Testament within the Roman Empire, where slavery is
22:16
Speaker 3: terrible and completely pervasive. And Christians, though the kind of
22:23
Speaker 3: people we teach and that Dick teaches, I wonder, why
22:27
Speaker 3: couldn't just God say that? But I didn't fully realize
22:32
Speaker 3: this until I started doing this research for this article
22:35
Speaker 3: and for a book that's coming out behind it.
22:37
Speaker 4: Now.
22:39
Speaker 3: There is no such thing as abolition of slavery in
22:43
Speaker 3: the ancient world. I mean no such thing, right, every
22:48
Speaker 3: culture has prevalent slavery, and all the evidence that we
22:52
Speaker 3: have and people are really who are specialists have dug
22:55
Speaker 3: into this, and I've read the dissertations and so on.
23:00
Speaker 3: Slaves who do get their freedom have made it when
23:03
Speaker 3: they own their own slaves, and when there are a
23:07
Speaker 3: couple of these revolts, there's not many, but where slaves
23:09
Speaker 3: actually take over society in a couple of moments, especially
23:13
Speaker 3: in Greece, they enslave other people. So like, there's no
23:19
Speaker 3: evidence at all until we're coming up much more towards
23:24
Speaker 3: modern times of anything like we would call abolition of slavery.
23:28
Speaker 3: So to put it in simple terms, the people in
23:31
Speaker 3: the ancient world wouldn't even understand well, putting even simpler terms,
23:36
Speaker 3: God's not Yahweh is not a modern American, and he's
23:40
Speaker 3: not giving teachings to modern Americans. He's reaching out to
23:45
Speaker 3: people in the ancient erees and he's giving them what
23:47
Speaker 3: they need. He's not being unrealistic. And the Bible does
23:50
Speaker 3: know of these ideals.
23:51
Speaker 4: That you mentioned.
23:53
Speaker 3: Right, there will be no more slave, nor free male,
23:56
Speaker 3: nor female June or gentile. So the Bible knows about that.
24:00
Speaker 3: But the Bible is not in la la land talking
24:04
Speaker 3: about things that don't mean anything. It's helping people to
24:08
Speaker 3: serve God within these very difficult ancient situations.
24:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just it seems like such an important piece
24:16
Speaker 1: of that context. That is sort of when I read
24:20
Speaker 1: wats this work and I'm hearing.
24:22
Speaker 2: Him to all these these laws and moral and then
24:24
Speaker 2: I read your article and.
24:26
Speaker 1: Your argument I think is really persuasive, because what you're
24:29
Speaker 1: saying is, look, when we when we strike these laws out,
24:32
Speaker 1: we're actually losing something really quite important, the equity and
24:37
Speaker 1: provision given to the vulnerable society. This isn't about authorizing
24:43
Speaker 1: rape or anything, you know, anything like that, capital punishment,
24:46
Speaker 1: all those different things, right, This about curtailing the evils
24:52
Speaker 1: of society so that you know, you're you're sort of
24:56
Speaker 1: managing the chaos, right that would irrupt if these laws
25:01
Speaker 1: weren't there. And so it just seems to me that
25:04
Speaker 1: that's a really crucial part of the context. It's just
25:06
Speaker 1: sort of falling a little flat here, is that these laws,
25:10
Speaker 1: no matter how they've been used after the fact, in context,
25:15
Speaker 1: they're actually really crucial and demonstrate a care and provision
25:18
Speaker 1: for the people in the society.
25:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's really important. And when I hasten
25:25
Speaker 3: to at I mean I feel the way of Watson's argument,
25:29
Speaker 3: and I feel the way of my students, my seminary students,
25:33
Speaker 3: my college students, when they chafe against these things. I'm
25:38
Speaker 3: also right, and I buy into Galatians three twenty eight.
25:43
Speaker 3: I love it, but that's not what people in the
25:47
Speaker 3: Roman Empire needed. And I think that, you know, maybe
25:54
Speaker 3: it's easy for us to sit here in our lives,
25:59
Speaker 3: but if we don't euphemize, and we don't like say,
26:03
Speaker 3: euphemistically human trafficking, we talk about slavery, and we don't
26:09
Speaker 3: change the definitions to make it too big.
26:12
Speaker 4: Of a number.
26:13
Speaker 3: Right, we just talked about actual slavery. There are still
26:16
Speaker 3: millions of slaves in the world today. So even though
26:20
Speaker 3: we might enjoy ourselves here in the United States for
26:23
Speaker 3: the most part, not that there's no problems, we have
26:26
Speaker 3: lots of problems, but there's people who still are suffering
26:31
Speaker 3: under the same kinds of troubles that where God was
26:35
Speaker 3: trying to protect these folks from in the ancient world.
26:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we still see all that sort of all
26:43
Speaker 1: the sort of problems that were attended there.
26:46
Speaker 2: It's not as if we.
26:49
Speaker 1: Evolved to some sort of moral plane where our world
26:54
Speaker 1: doesn't have all these problems and there's necessity for laws
26:57
Speaker 1: of the similar nature to what we see in the
26:59
Speaker 1: Old test even today. Or it's not an advocacy for
27:04
Speaker 1: it's a an attempt to be against that's right. And
27:09
Speaker 1: I think that, Yeah, sometimes it just feels like we
27:12
Speaker 1: lose that sort of tension in the law of Again,
27:15
Speaker 1: it's not instituting an ideal oftentimes it's curtailing a an
27:20
Speaker 1: avarant practice that, if left unchecked, would go to the
27:25
Speaker 1: end degree.
27:27
Speaker 3: And so, but I understand how it is, because yeah,
27:30
Speaker 3: things are things are different now than they were when
27:33
Speaker 3: you and I were growing up. In this digital age,
27:37
Speaker 3: people that come to church and all of us, we
27:42
Speaker 3: get that the world gets to scream at us in
27:44
Speaker 3: a way that it hasn't before. And right you point
27:48
Speaker 3: out like you believe that, and there's no like deep
27:52
Speaker 3: thinking in it. So people are just thinking, oh, yeah,
27:54
Speaker 3: the Bible two is about slavery, The Bible two is
27:56
Speaker 3: about kill all these people. Oh, the Bible has these
27:58
Speaker 3: teachings that the victim has to marry the rapist. So
28:01
Speaker 3: nobody's really digging into it. This is all just this
28:07
Speaker 3: I don't know, this fear, this dread that you know
28:12
Speaker 3: that you can have an evangelical pastor that you mentioned
28:15
Speaker 3: in Atlanta, a large multi side church, just like you know,
28:19
Speaker 3: what would help the gospel if we unhitched the old Covenant.
28:23
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what. That shall not obey the ten Commandments.
28:27
Speaker 3: It's like, wait, that's not a Christian view, right, So
28:32
Speaker 3: I mean that's that's what's really frightening to me, is
28:36
Speaker 3: that Watts is saying something that a lot of people
28:40
Speaker 3: would really like to do, right, Yeah, oh yeah, there's
28:44
Speaker 3: some verses.
28:45
Speaker 1: I don't like when I think part of it is
28:48
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure you have too. In the course
28:51
Speaker 1: of your study, you've read treatments of this that are
28:54
Speaker 1: deeply scholarly and sort of stay in that real like
28:58
Speaker 1: geeky he through, you know, technical journal sort of sense.
29:04
Speaker 1: And I don't think we're bridging some of that out
29:07
Speaker 1: to people that help them understand and get the frameworks
29:10
Speaker 1: for understanding and even combating some of these arguments. This
29:14
Speaker 1: this issue really came up to me. I had the
29:16
Speaker 1: gentleman who sings the lead for Remedy Drive On, and
29:19
Speaker 1: he does a lot of work with human trafficking, and
29:22
Speaker 1: he made the comment about the Old Testament texts on
29:25
Speaker 1: slavery and how could the Bible endorse slavery? You know,
29:29
Speaker 1: He's asking these questions on the podcast, and I'm sitting
29:31
Speaker 1: here like, I don't know, Like I've never really had
29:35
Speaker 1: a robust I've never just I've just never done the work.
29:38
Speaker 1: So I could give them the pad answers, right, sure,
29:41
Speaker 1: but the pad answers don't.
29:43
Speaker 2: Really work anymore.
29:44
Speaker 1: And I think that, you know, there have to be
29:46
Speaker 1: this sort of depth of engagement, like you're discussing, like,
29:49
Speaker 1: let's get into these texts deeply, but then we've also
29:52
Speaker 1: got to disseminate that depth at a level where people
29:56
Speaker 1: can understand what's going on. And again, that's part of
29:59
Speaker 1: what dremany your arearticle, because I think what you're doing
30:01
Speaker 1: is this sort of collateral damage is an easy notion
30:04
Speaker 1: to understand. Yeah, you know, it makes intuitive sense. You know,
30:07
Speaker 1: if you take a few lines out of a movie,
30:11
Speaker 1: you know that scene doesn't work anymore, right, Like, yeah.
30:15
Speaker 3: We've all seen the new endings that they put on
30:17
Speaker 3: these movies.
30:18
Speaker 4: And said, no, you're that.
30:20
Speaker 2: Wasn't it right?
30:21
Speaker 1: You recut the trailers, you know, that kind of thing.
30:24
Speaker 1: And and so I just think there's something intuitive about
30:28
Speaker 1: the way you're arguing it that could make sense to
30:31
Speaker 1: people on a broader level, Like there is collateral damage
30:34
Speaker 1: anything you're remove out of these texts as implications, right,
30:39
Speaker 1: And it isn't just that we get to cross the
30:41
Speaker 1: mountain and ignore them and then think the Bible has
30:43
Speaker 1: the same meaning as full right. What you end up
30:47
Speaker 1: doing is creating a Bible in your own image, almost right,
30:52
Speaker 1: as opposed to just letting it stand and be itself
30:54
Speaker 1: and us struggling with it. We're trying to tame it
30:58
Speaker 1: in a way. And I think that's and obviously I
31:02
Speaker 1: think that's an unhelpful.
31:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I agree.
31:05
Speaker 3: And Frankenstein didn't know Doctor Frankenstin didn't know what was
31:08
Speaker 3: going to happen to his monster. Where he didn't realize
31:11
Speaker 3: what would happen if he created in his own image.
31:13
Speaker 3: That's right, and that's that's I think one of the
31:18
Speaker 3: real dangers here. And I think, uh, when I did
31:23
Speaker 3: this research, I was I was invited to do a
31:26
Speaker 3: paper at a conference, and I did, and then that became
31:28
Speaker 3: this article. Uh, well, I had some opportunities, and so
31:32
Speaker 3: I went out and I spoke at a bunch of
31:34
Speaker 3: different places on this. And so I spoke to Christian
31:38
Speaker 3: school teachers supposed to spoke to youth leaders, and at
31:41
Speaker 3: an all day seminar where I'm speaking to youth leaders.
31:44
Speaker 3: So I mean, we could really get our hands to it,
31:47
Speaker 3: you know, this full day seminar. And my one of
31:51
Speaker 3: my friends, he's uh who was hosting it. He's been
31:54
Speaker 3: in youth ministry for like forty years. He says, you
31:58
Speaker 3: need to write a book about this that people can
32:01
Speaker 3: use with their young people at church. Yeah, And I'm thinking, like, now,
32:06
Speaker 3: I'm a scholar, I'm going to read this paper. I
32:09
Speaker 3: don't mind doing these workshops. But then I started thinking
32:13
Speaker 3: more about what my friend Matt had told me. And
32:18
Speaker 3: I remember a student came to me, college student. I
32:23
Speaker 3: have to teach one college class of year still to
32:26
Speaker 3: pay my bills, pay my salary. A college student came
32:30
Speaker 3: up after a class, my tour class. I had my
32:33
Speaker 3: Bible here and she was like, this is like November,
32:39
Speaker 3: so it's most of the way through the semester. And
32:42
Speaker 3: she was all read, hadn't said a word all semester, right,
32:46
Speaker 3: and so she reads me this. She says, I want
32:49
Speaker 3: to read you this passage. This is from Exodus twenty one.
32:53
Speaker 3: When a slave owner strikes a male or a female
32:55
Speaker 3: slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately, the
32:59
Speaker 3: owner shall be punished, but if the slave survives a
33:04
Speaker 3: day or two, there will be no punishment, for the
33:07
Speaker 3: slave is the owner's property. She said, how am I
33:11
Speaker 3: supposed to believe in a god like that?
33:14
Speaker 2: Now?
33:15
Speaker 3: This is like five years ago, and so I didn't
33:17
Speaker 3: miss a beat. So this is before I knew anything
33:20
Speaker 3: about Watts.
33:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, I say to.
33:22
Speaker 3: Her, what would the ancient slaves in Israel do if
33:28
Speaker 3: that law wasn't in the Bible? And so she's just
33:32
Speaker 3: like looking at me, looking at me, dude, Well, what
33:35
Speaker 3: do you mean? I said, can you imagine how awful
33:39
Speaker 3: it would be if God wasn't there to protect these
33:43
Speaker 3: ancient slaves from being beaten to death? I said, we
33:47
Speaker 3: need to look at it more. I said, you might
33:48
Speaker 3: not like God's solution, but God's there doing something to
33:53
Speaker 3: protect people that are in a really bad situation. And
33:56
Speaker 3: I think, because I mean you you admitted pat answers.
34:02
Speaker 3: I didn't realize at the time. Once I've gotten into
34:05
Speaker 3: this and looked at it more, the punishment there is
34:08
Speaker 3: the death penalty, Like, so you kill your slave, no problem.
34:13
Speaker 3: I mean read the context, it's like death, death, death, death.
34:17
Speaker 3: And then the law right before this is if somebody
34:21
Speaker 3: beat in a fight injures another free citizen. Yeah, it's
34:26
Speaker 3: similar to the slave who's not dead, but the dead's
34:30
Speaker 3: the slaves who's beaten to death. That master has to
34:34
Speaker 3: face capital punishment. So it's you know, this is a practical,
34:41
Speaker 3: but it's not. The point here is impractical. This is
34:44
Speaker 3: a moral way to deal with a context where slave
34:48
Speaker 3: is ubiquitous. I mean, it's everywhere in the ancient world,
34:52
Speaker 3: and these these people need help. So anyway, to make
34:57
Speaker 3: a long story short, I did ask my academic editor
35:05
Speaker 3: about a book, and but a popular.
35:09
Speaker 4: Book or not.
35:09
Speaker 3: I don't want to say to it popular to be misunderstood,
35:12
Speaker 3: an accessible book. Yeah, And so I normally write academic
35:18
Speaker 3: textbooks and reference works. So she handed me off to
35:25
Speaker 3: a different editor, one that deals with this sort of thing.
35:27
Speaker 3: So I did get contracted for this, and so about
35:31
Speaker 3: a year from now, a popular level book will I
35:35
Speaker 3: will do this and just going back with what you said.
35:41
Speaker 3: One of the conferences I did for Christian school teachers
35:45
Speaker 3: and that was just a short workshop, so it was
35:48
Speaker 3: focused just on the ancient rape laws. So school teachers
35:53
Speaker 3: asking me, well, okay, I buy into everything you're saying.
35:57
Speaker 3: But and she she's ready to write this down. She
36:00
Speaker 3: has like her pad of paper there. She goes, can
36:03
Speaker 3: you tell me where I can look this up to
36:05
Speaker 3: fact check you? And so I'm like, well, I'm like
36:11
Speaker 3: trying to think, yeah, Like, well, i mean I've read
36:17
Speaker 3: the commentaries. I know the commentaries really well. They all
36:20
Speaker 3: skip over this point, right, I mean, you know, more
36:23
Speaker 3: or less juggle it out, she said. And then I'm like,
36:27
Speaker 3: after like thirty seconds or whatever she could say, I'm
36:30
Speaker 3: like not having an answer. She goes, you're telling me
36:33
Speaker 3: that I would need to get a PhD. And you
36:36
Speaker 3: couldn't just look this up easy. You had to really
36:38
Speaker 3: work to get this, didn't you.
36:41
Speaker 4: I said, well.
36:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then I realized that this book that I
36:48
Speaker 3: was talking to Zahner and reflective about, we need a
36:52
Speaker 3: book like this, not one that just says, you know,
36:57
Speaker 3: Christian morals are better than other morals, like a lot
37:01
Speaker 3: of the Apologetics books, and I have nothing against them.
37:04
Speaker 3: I mean, I've read a bunch of them now and I.
37:07
Speaker 4: Have to say they're great.
37:09
Speaker 3: But what we don't have is something to help young
37:12
Speaker 3: people who are growing up. They're coming of age now
37:16
Speaker 3: in this environment and they hate parts of the Bible
37:22
Speaker 3: and they ignore it and they wish it wasn't there.
37:24
Speaker 3: And pastors don't know because they're not like telling the pastor, Pastor,
37:27
Speaker 3: I hate part of the Bible. I'm going to leave
37:28
Speaker 3: Christianity when I can. I mean, we have a very
37:32
Speaker 3: serious problem that we've not set ourselves up well for.
37:38
Speaker 3: We've already lost a lot of young people in this
37:43
Speaker 3: past decade who have grown up in this terrible environment
37:49
Speaker 3: for Christian faith.
37:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think to your point on the For one,
37:54
Speaker 1: I'm really happy you're doing a book like this. When
37:56
Speaker 1: I started doing my initial research on some of this stuff,
37:59
Speaker 1: I couldn't find in those books. I kept running into
38:02
Speaker 1: the Apologetics book. She's looking in the commentaries and like, okay, guys,
38:05
Speaker 1: we've decided just to mid me.
38:08
Speaker 2: I guess you know.
38:09
Speaker 1: So you find some of the stuff in more technical
38:11
Speaker 1: journal articles and things like that, but even there there
38:15
Speaker 1: you know, those technical journal articles are intended to be
38:17
Speaker 1: pretty narrow, and so thinking through a broader scope of
38:21
Speaker 1: this just hasn't really been done, not in a way
38:25
Speaker 1: that's beyond apologetics. And I think what I kept running
38:28
Speaker 1: into with the apologetics arguments was this sort of worse
38:31
Speaker 1: better argument. You know, the Bible's laws are more just
38:35
Speaker 1: than the Ancienteer Eastern laws, which once you start reading
38:39
Speaker 1: the ancient Near Eastern laws, you're kind of like, well
38:41
Speaker 1: that's you know, it's pretty low definition way to frame this,
38:44
Speaker 1: like it's probably not even true exactly, but it's.
38:49
Speaker 4: Is it really?
38:50
Speaker 3: Is it really true that six years of slavery and
38:55
Speaker 3: ancient Israel is better than three years of slavery and
38:58
Speaker 3: ancient battleon Right? I don't see any evidence that that's
39:02
Speaker 3: actually a true statement. Right, That doesn't make any sense.
39:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so I think those to me, the apologetics books,
39:10
Speaker 1: like I said, there, if you think about low definition,
39:13
Speaker 1: what we need is a high definition focus on this, right.
39:16
Speaker 1: It'll bring some of these texts into a different sort
39:18
Speaker 1: of detail and understanding. Uh, and and really address it
39:24
Speaker 1: from a non apologetics review.
39:26
Speaker 3: I think, Yeah, I want to be I want to
39:29
Speaker 3: make sure I said this because I'm not an apologetics
39:31
Speaker 3: teacher either. But when I was doing this research for
39:33
Speaker 3: the article, I went to my apologetics professor friend, who
39:37
Speaker 3: I hold in very high regard. He's read everything. Yeah,
39:40
Speaker 3: so he gave me a long list of books, and
39:43
Speaker 3: so I read them.
39:46
Speaker 4: And so.
39:48
Speaker 3: What I realized though, in working with Watts's argument, Watts
39:54
Speaker 3: hasn't cited any of this. He's not read I wasn't
39:57
Speaker 3: sure if he read any of it, and so when
40:00
Speaker 3: I did reach out to him and correspondence, he shared
40:04
Speaker 3: the thing, No, I don't read any of it because
40:07
Speaker 3: these are immoral texts and it's irrelevant whether there's this
40:11
Speaker 3: worse better thing. And so then what I you noticed,
40:16
Speaker 3: what I've had to do in this article is I
40:19
Speaker 3: listed some of the things that I read. But I said,
40:22
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna I think that would be the right
40:24
Speaker 3: way to actually argue with Watts.
40:27
Speaker 4: I think that our.
40:28
Speaker 3: Apologetics research in these days, since there's been these new atheists,
40:33
Speaker 3: they've really done some great work and outstanding resource. But
40:40
Speaker 3: it was not a way to actually get to a
40:44
Speaker 3: biblical studies professor who's an expert in Torah. That wasn't
40:49
Speaker 3: a way to disagree with him. So I had to
40:52
Speaker 3: kind of what I went up doing, and this really
40:56
Speaker 3: helped me, is I need to argue with lots on
41:00
Speaker 3: his own terms.
41:01
Speaker 2: Yes.
41:02
Speaker 3: I took the theory that he's been promoting for almost
41:05
Speaker 3: a quarter of a century, his view of persuasion, and
41:09
Speaker 3: I critiqued Watts's argument based on his approach to ancient persuasion.
41:17
Speaker 3: And so that wound up kind of opening my eyes
41:21
Speaker 3: to some of these things that yeah, there really is
41:25
Speaker 3: something here that can help today's Christians that we haven't
41:28
Speaker 3: gotten that because we do need these. I mean, we're
41:31
Speaker 3: environment where we need the apologetics that we have. I mean,
41:35
Speaker 3: I can't even imagine going into youth ministry right now
41:40
Speaker 3: compared to when I was young, you know, when I
41:42
Speaker 3: was getting out of seminary.
41:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree, I don't. I wouldn't say
41:47
Speaker 1: that the apologetics are unnecessary. I would say that we've
41:50
Speaker 1: done that work and there needs to be more work done.
41:53
Speaker 1: I think there are areas here where we just haven't
41:55
Speaker 1: really done this as well as we need to. And
41:58
Speaker 1: that's probably on biblical studies, on Old Testament scholarship that's
42:01
Speaker 1: on you know, that's that's kind of on a different
42:04
Speaker 1: discipline than the apologetics guys. The apologetics guys have done
42:07
Speaker 1: their work. Now it's kind of time for a new path.
42:10
Speaker 1: And I think you're you're forging that, which I really appreciate.
42:14
Speaker 4: Good.
42:14
Speaker 3: Now, here's what you just did, all right, James, Whether
42:18
Speaker 3: those conversation's turned, you've helped. We've redeemed ourselves, I hope,
42:22
Speaker 3: so that we're not going to get a whole bunch
42:23
Speaker 3: of emails from everyone you know and Apologetics next week
42:27
Speaker 3: telling us what's wrong with you, Biblical studies guys, throwing
42:30
Speaker 3: us under.
42:30
Speaker 1: The vice Listen, we've done the political speak and that
42:34
Speaker 1: now we can avoid those emails. No, I think, you know,
42:39
Speaker 1: as I look at it, I think the way I
42:42
Speaker 1: framed it is really the way I think of it.
42:44
Speaker 1: I think as I've talked with more and more people
42:46
Speaker 1: about this since that one podcast I did with with
42:50
Speaker 1: the Gentleman from Remedy Drive, he was not convinced by
42:53
Speaker 1: the apologetics arguments.
42:55
Speaker 2: That's what I was giving.
42:56
Speaker 1: Oh, and you know so because when when he was
43:01
Speaker 1: doing what he was doing, to his credit, he was
43:04
Speaker 1: reading the Biblical text and he's kind of saying the
43:07
Speaker 1: same thing that I understand wants to be saying doesn't
43:11
Speaker 1: matter better or worse. They're both bad. It's like you know,
43:15
Speaker 1: you know when you play that game with your kids,
43:17
Speaker 1: you know, would you rather write, would you rather eat
43:19
Speaker 1: dirt or look at the bottom of my shoe? You're
43:21
Speaker 1: going neither. Those are both horrible options. And that's sort
43:25
Speaker 1: of the way he was seeing it. So the apologetics
43:27
Speaker 1: arguments were he understood them. They were just sawing platforms
43:31
Speaker 1: because reading the Biblical text was those arguments weren't working
43:38
Speaker 1: once it hit the ground in the text itself.
43:41
Speaker 4: Yeah.
43:42
Speaker 3: And and I think that the nagging question on it
43:47
Speaker 3: lady's side, your everyday Christians, but why doesn't God just
43:53
Speaker 3: say slavery's wrong?
43:54
Speaker 4: Right?
43:54
Speaker 3: I mean it's just yeah, Like so there's there's a
43:58
Speaker 3: couple of there's several moving parts. It's here, and it's
44:02
Speaker 3: these nagging questions just won't go away. If we have
44:05
Speaker 3: a clever argument. Well, I mean, we have to actually
44:08
Speaker 3: get her hands dirty in a different way than we
44:11
Speaker 3: have so far. Yeah, And so that's I mean, that's
44:16
Speaker 3: where I want to come back positive and say, I'm
44:19
Speaker 3: really I was so angry when I bought when I
44:22
Speaker 3: opened Watts's book, because I mean it's.
44:25
Speaker 4: A lot of money. I mean, yeah, one hundred and
44:27
Speaker 4: forty dollars.
44:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, a price.
44:30
Speaker 4: Yeah.
44:33
Speaker 2: But the.
44:37
Speaker 3: Once he once, I felt like I had to at
44:42
Speaker 3: least for my own self before I even decided to
44:45
Speaker 3: do any research further than this, it began to turn
44:49
Speaker 3: more and more light bulbs on for me as far
44:52
Speaker 3: as wow. And so it's been a process for me
44:55
Speaker 3: thinking through how if there's any of my students out
45:00
Speaker 3: here watching, have let some of my students down over
45:03
Speaker 3: the past twenty years, and some things that I need
45:07
Speaker 3: to do different and am doing different thanks to Watts,
45:12
Speaker 3: I mean really yeah, yeah for goading me into it,
45:16
Speaker 3: if you will. Now, I'm not doing what Watts wants
45:19
Speaker 3: me to do. I'm kind of doing the opposite of
45:21
Speaker 3: what he wants me to do. But that's what I
45:25
Speaker 3: realized is we don't have to cross these out to
45:28
Speaker 3: get that collateral damage. We have that collateral damage as
45:33
Speaker 3: not just an individual, but as an evangelical reformed Christian
45:39
Speaker 3: body of faith because we haven't owned the Old Testament
45:44
Speaker 3: in the way we should. We have a little bit
45:46
Speaker 3: of mar scene in us and even the traditions among
45:49
Speaker 3: us that do own the Old Testament they tend to
45:52
Speaker 3: use typology in Jesus and not actually get dirty. But
45:57
Speaker 3: what we actually have to do is say, there's nothing
46:00
Speaker 3: wrong with how the scriptures, you know, come to their
46:04
Speaker 3: culmination in Christ, but we need to get our hands
46:08
Speaker 3: dirty with God's protection of the most vulnerable people in
46:11
Speaker 3: the ancient world. Yahaweh cares about girls, they matter to him.
46:18
Speaker 3: Yahweh cares about slaves. He cares about justice, even to
46:23
Speaker 3: the people that were very unpopular in ancient Israel.
46:29
Speaker 1: Well, we're coming to the end of time here. I
46:30
Speaker 1: want to I want to get one more question in.
46:32
Speaker 1: And that is because as we're as we're looking sort
46:35
Speaker 1: of at the gap between people listening to this podcast
46:39
Speaker 1: episode in your book being published, right, there's a lot
46:42
Speaker 1: of space there. I'm I'm sensing from you that maybe
46:46
Speaker 1: you're not going to suggest the pastors just start preaching
46:49
Speaker 1: on these passages willy nilly from the pulpit, But maybe
46:54
Speaker 1: that's not the case. What would you suggest for a
46:56
Speaker 1: pastor or a teacher or something like that, non seminary teacher,
47:01
Speaker 1: like a lay teacher, a lay leader in the church,
47:03
Speaker 1: someone who's actually sort of guiding a congregation. What would
47:08
Speaker 1: you suggest for them to do about this topic, these texts,
47:14
Speaker 1: any approach to addressing him, addressing them that might be helpful.
47:19
Speaker 3: Well, if they're if they're viewing your podcast, this article,
47:25
Speaker 3: I've been given permission by the journal to give it
47:30
Speaker 3: away free and so I think you have a link there,
47:32
Speaker 3: so at any pastor to click the link, any Christian leader,
47:38
Speaker 3: any youth minister. I know that articles are kind of
47:41
Speaker 3: a drag to read, but these, you know, this, this
47:45
Speaker 3: is really important. And I want to say that what
47:50
Speaker 3: I was happily surprised by is I kind of made
47:54
Speaker 3: this whole push for you know, reaching people in church
47:58
Speaker 3: with this, and I said, we really need videos to
48:01
Speaker 3: go with this book, and so what and all my
48:04
Speaker 3: other projects that Zondervan has shot videos, they charge a
48:07
Speaker 3: fortune for them on the side, But this is this
48:11
Speaker 3: is a true story.
48:13
Speaker 1: Uh.
48:13
Speaker 3: This book is that I've I'm working on called Resurrecting
48:17
Speaker 3: the Bible of Jesus. Zondervin Reflective is giving the videos
48:21
Speaker 3: away with the book. So like when Sunday buys a book,
48:24
Speaker 3: there's no like extra million dollars you have to spend
48:27
Speaker 3: for the videos.
48:30
Speaker 4: It's it's with the book.
48:32
Speaker 3: So the idea then I'm hopeful that folks will, you know,
48:40
Speaker 3: take the time to read it, but then teach.
48:43
Speaker 4: A class on it.
48:45
Speaker 3: Get the elders on board, and all of us need
48:49
Speaker 3: to remember, you know, we've already lost a lot of
48:52
Speaker 3: young people from the faith because we've not handled what
48:58
Speaker 3: happens when you have a digital world like we have.
49:01
Speaker 3: We also need to begin to really think how are
49:06
Speaker 3: we going to instruct people in the Bible of Jesus
49:12
Speaker 3: in a very serious way. So yes, I wouldn't want somebody,
49:18
Speaker 3: you know, back to your question, really, Nelly, to go and.
49:23
Speaker 4: Not know what to.
49:24
Speaker 3: Say right right, to have to read these texts because
49:29
Speaker 3: I mean our literature really, I had to do a
49:33
Speaker 3: lot of work in ancient Ear Eastern texts and things
49:37
Speaker 3: like this that it's not the normal path to like
49:41
Speaker 3: the textbooks and reference books I've written.
49:43
Speaker 4: It was a different path than that.
49:46
Speaker 3: So anyway, I would encourage people, let's stop brushing these
49:50
Speaker 3: things under the carpet. Let's get them out, because we
49:53
Speaker 3: are creating collateral damage when we ignore these teachings that
49:58
Speaker 3: we need to teach very good. Like you said, we
50:03
Speaker 3: need help, and not all of us can do what
50:05
Speaker 3: you did and get your PhD with Dick Averback. Right,
50:10
Speaker 3: but like anybody that can, you know, buy a pie
50:14
Speaker 3: and spend a couple hours with Dick. I mean that
50:16
Speaker 3: would be a well spent albom.
50:20
Speaker 2: Yeah.
50:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a good afternoon.
50:23
Speaker 2: It is a good afternoon. I agree. I think that overall.
50:28
Speaker 1: I really appreciate the work you're doing here. I think
50:30
Speaker 1: it's great that they're making the article available. We will
50:33
Speaker 1: have the link to that mission notes, and we'll make
50:35
Speaker 1: this as accessible as possible, because I guess my encouraging
50:39
Speaker 1: would just be the folks like this is, even if
50:42
Speaker 1: you don't preach on these texts next Sunday, Right, even
50:45
Speaker 1: if you don't teach on these texts next Sunday, there's
50:47
Speaker 1: no reason for you not to be looking at these
50:49
Speaker 1: texts and thinking about these texts and actually trying to
50:51
Speaker 1: study them for yourself so you have a better understanding
50:54
Speaker 1: of it. I think that's the best place for folks
50:57
Speaker 1: to start. I know that was a good place for
50:59
Speaker 1: me to start.
51:01
Speaker 3: Me too, Yeah, I mean I wasn't ready for it.
51:05
Speaker 3: I mean I teach tour for a living every semester. Yeah,
51:10
Speaker 3: I mean that's what I do.
51:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, and.
51:14
Speaker 3: Uh huh, I needed to say, whoa, I need to
51:19
Speaker 3: help my students in a way that I haven't helped
51:22
Speaker 3: them so far.
51:24
Speaker 2: Yeah.
51:25
Speaker 1: Well, I'm excited about this work. Hopefully you'll come back
51:29
Speaker 1: home when your book comes.
51:30
Speaker 2: Out we can have another conversation.
51:32
Speaker 3: But i'd love to do that my pleasure, James. I'm
51:37
Speaker 3: really glad that you asked me, and I couldn't believe it.
51:41
Speaker 3: I mean, maybe you do this all the time because
51:42
Speaker 3: you're a podcaster, but I'm like, you know, I get
51:45
Speaker 3: asked to do podcasts for my books, but like like
51:51
Speaker 3: a podcast on an academic article, whoa, because.
51:56
Speaker 4: It's an important thing.
51:58
Speaker 1: This is the first one I've done, so you know,
52:01
Speaker 1: it's the first one i've done. I thought it went
52:02
Speaker 1: really well, and it's my sort of my I won't
52:05
Speaker 1: call it my New Year's resolution, but this year twenty
52:07
Speaker 1: twenty six, what we're really trying to do is have
52:09
Speaker 1: folks like you on who've written more technical articles and
52:13
Speaker 1: talk through those so that we can start bridging the
52:15
Speaker 1: gap between academics and lay ministry. I think a lot
52:20
Speaker 1: of times these articles you hear all the time, humanities
52:23
Speaker 1: articles you get cited. You know, you like, only two
52:25
Speaker 1: percent gets sided or something ridiculous number like that. And
52:29
Speaker 1: so I think there's a lot of well of good
52:33
Speaker 1: work in the articles that come out, particularly in Jets,
52:35
Speaker 1: Trinity Journal, you know, some of those other you know,
52:38
Speaker 1: sort of standard journals that academics are aware of, but
52:44
Speaker 1: that content doesn't disseminate itself out to lay people in
52:48
Speaker 1: a way that is particularly helpful. So yeah, you're the
52:52
Speaker 1: first one I've had on. I thought this went really well,
52:54
Speaker 1: and I appreciate it you taking a flyer on it
52:56
Speaker 1: and coming on and discussing your article.
52:58
Speaker 2: I think it's great.
53:00
Speaker 3: It's a pleasure because this topic is really important, and
53:04
Speaker 3: so you know, it was I have a full research
53:10
Speaker 3: plate besides this. But once Wats's thing came out and
53:14
Speaker 3: I realized what's going on, and I did a couple
53:16
Speaker 3: of venues and then I started doing more venues where
53:19
Speaker 3: I'm talking to leaders, and I said, no, I need
53:22
Speaker 3: to make room for this. This is something you know,
53:26
Speaker 3: do the videos to the accessible book, the whole thing.
53:29
Speaker 1: I agree. I agree. Well, Gary, thanks for being on
53:32
Speaker 1: the show. Like I said, everybody, the links will be
53:36
Speaker 1: on the show page. You can find Gary's you have
53:39
Speaker 1: a faculty page. I'm sure at Aaron University where you teach,
53:43
Speaker 1: you have Carpenter's Student to us is in the middle
53:47
Speaker 1: there Carpenter'student dot com that will take people right to
53:50
Speaker 1: your substack where they can get more information. And I
53:53
Speaker 1: just encourage the people about for resurrecting the Bible of
53:56
Speaker 1: Jesus that'll be coming out next year them.
54:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, in the beginning of twenty twenty seven. And you know,
54:05
Speaker 3: my substack is free, so if somebody gets on there,
54:11
Speaker 3: I have some other things coming up before that, but
54:13
Speaker 3: in the fall especially, we'll be ramping up towards the
54:16
Speaker 3: release of that and have some you know, some things
54:19
Speaker 3: that people can begin to get on board with.
54:21
Speaker 2: Excellent.
54:23
Speaker 1: Well, check the show notes on this one more probably
54:25
Speaker 1: more importantly than a lot of the other episodes where
54:28
Speaker 1: I just have a book link. This one's going to
54:30
Speaker 1: have multiple places where you can get more information on
54:33
Speaker 1: this topic. So I just encourage everybody check the show notes,
54:36
Speaker 1: flick through on those links, find the articles, might start start.
54:40
Speaker 2: Getting into this subject. It's an important one.
54:42
Speaker 1: And I know I'm kind of an old Testament geek,
54:44
Speaker 1: and so you know, coming from me, that may maybe
54:47
Speaker 1: that colors this a little bit, but I really think
54:49
Speaker 1: this is just a biblical studies issue, and so if
54:52
Speaker 1: you're interested in understanding the Bible better, this is an
54:55
Speaker 1: issue you really need to dig into. So we'll leave
54:59
Speaker 1: it there again, Thank you Gary for being on the show,
55:02
Speaker 1: and we'll catch everybody on the next episode of Thinking
55:05
Speaker 1: Christian Take Care. I just want to take a second
55:08
Speaker 1: to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership
55:10
Speaker 1: with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go
55:13
Speaker 1: to lifeaudio dot com, you'll find dozens of other faith
55:15
Speaker 1: centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer,
55:19
Speaker 1: Bible study, parenting, and more.