Latest / Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture / Not All Moabites Are Moabites (Gary Edward Schnittjer)

Transcript

Not All Moabites Are Moabites (Gary Edward Schnittjer) · 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. Hy Everyone, Welcome to this
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Christian on Doctor James Spencer and I'm
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: joined again by doctor Gary Edward Schnitger, and we're going
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: to be talking about his book Old Testament Use of
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Old Testament in Parallel Layout that's coming out later this year.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: It's going to be a multi volume work. The first
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: one is on tour and the profits and these are
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: coming out of Zondervan Academic. But what we really are
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: going to start discussing today on a more basic level
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: is when we talk about the Old Testament use of
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: the Old Testament, a lot of our minds might just
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: go to straight quotes of previous Old Testament texts, but
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: that's not quite all there.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Is.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: And so what we want to start by talking through
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: is what's the role of things like illusions in the
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: use of the Old Testament and how does that even work?
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: How do we identify them, how should we think about them,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: and how should we think through them. So with all
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: that said, Gary, welcome back to the podcast. Thanks so
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: much for being here, and thanks for your work on this.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I really appreciated reading through it.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: H James, I'm thrilled to be here on this. This
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: is my favorite thing to talk about, so thanks for
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: having me on.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: Amazing. Well, let's dive in a little bit.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: You know, like I said, I think most of the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: time when I talk to people or when I'm teaching
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: students and we talk about the Old Testament use of
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: the Old Testament, they automatically go to quotations, which isn't crazy,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: It's just.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: Sort of the tip of the iceberg.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: So would how would you explain some of the other
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: things that we should be looking for in the Old Testament,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: How do identify them, how to define them?
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: Like?
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I want that did you study with Richard Schultz?
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: I did? Yeah, I had him at Wheaton.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Yes, I mean he one of the important things that
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: he did in his research is he got it the
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: idea of purposeful or intentionality. And so that's the watershed
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: is between an illusion and I'm going to use the
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: word illusion as an umbrella. It includes quotation, it includes paraphrase,
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: and it includes lesser evoking of the text, but it's
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: purposeful and there's it's not just purposeful, but there's evidence
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: that it's purposeful. And so the dividing line, then an
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: echo means there's something similar. It might be a just
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: a stock phrase or a figure of speech, but there's
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: not evidence. We're not sure if it's intentional or not intentional.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: So an illusion, inclusive of power, phrase and quotation, it's
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: on purpose and we can we can tell that, and
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: I think that maybe one of the things that it's
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: good to get out of the way right away. I
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: work on interpretive illusions, and again that's inclusive of quotation
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: and paraphrase. Interpretive illusions have to have three things. There
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: has to be an identifiable donor text that's the one
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: that is the older cited text that donates the idea,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: and then an identifiable receptor text that is a text
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: a later biblical text that's citing the earlier text. And
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: then there needs to be some kind of identifiable interpretive outcome,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: and that's where we know that there's an intentionality, and
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: so right away then you can see if there's an
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: interpretive outcome that means it's more than just quoting. And
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: I think that well, in the New Testament, there's plenty
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: of quotations. In the Old Testament, there's less quotations. And
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: what a lot of Bible readers get troubled by is
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: when they don't use the exact words. But when a
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: later biblical author is alluding to an earlier biblical writing,
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: they're probably not going to use the same exact words.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: The whole point of alluding to it is to move
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: things forward, what I would call advancement of revelation at
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: that point.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so you don't have to use the exact same words.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: No, And I think that that's kind of a modern
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: expectation that we bring to the text that kind of
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: messes us up. In our hermaeneutics, we wound up arguing
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: about the wrong thing most of the time when we're
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: worried about why did the words change? In the ancient world,
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: you know, they know what the original authoritative text said.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: The whole point of working with it is to they're
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: trying to the bib of authors are trying to say
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: something new, but they want to say it through this traditional,
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: authoritative discourse that God has given previously.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: When you think about identifying these interpretive illusions, and I
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: appreciate your sort of threefold framework, I think about something
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: like I had a discussion here recently about the early
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: chapters of Genesis, Genesis one through let's call it five,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: And you have the use of the image of God
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: language in.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: Genesis one, and then you also have the use of.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: That language, very similar use of that language when it's
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: talking about Seth and the genealogy, and he's made in
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: the image of Adam, who was in turn made in
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: the image of God. And the discussion I was having
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: was whether that has interpretive significance, how that might relate
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: to things like the firstborn sort of gard I'm within
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: the narrative of Genesis itself. You know, what does this
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: do for the line of Cain. And is this at
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: all suggesting sort of that weird historical argument of only
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: this line was made in the image of God and
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: no other line. Now I have a very particular understanding
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: of that, but one of the things I argued.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: Was, look, it didn't have to be said.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Like this was included, and it's included as an obvious
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: callback to Genesis one. Didn't actually have to be There
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: was no reason to make this particular point at this
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: particular moment if it doesn't mean something else. Is that
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: part of Does that line of logic, that way of
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: seeing it, Does that conform to sort of those three
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: points that you've provided there.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's a good example. And I actually
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: call that an interpretive blend because in Genesis five and
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: let's there's an intry on that in my book, there's
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: a blending together of a passage from what we call
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: Genesis one with a passage from what we call Genesis two.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: So it's an interpretive blend. There's a little quotations or illusions,
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: and we can identify specifically what words in the donor
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: text and how it's been morphed by laying them out
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: side by side. And so one of the interpretive outcomes
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: there just in the immediate is you've alluded to it.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: But the idea that we ask a question a lot
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: of times, what does it mean to be created in
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: the image of God? Right? What is that all about?
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: And we have all these discussions, and most of the
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: answers have been horrible, and the history of this discussion agreed.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: Genesis by answer is right. If Seth is in the
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: image and likeness of Adam, and Adam is in the
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: image and likeness of God, then Adam is a son
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: of God. So I mean, whether we get into the
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: firstborn or whether we worry about the other line or not,
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: we can at least begin to nail down to be
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: created in the image of God is to be a
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: son of God. And you know, Genesis one, of course
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: pulls up some things about that dominion and so forth.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: But so that's in the illusion that the biblical author
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: makes in the Book of Genesis to earlier authoritative passages
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: in the Book of Genesis. So the donor text are
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Genesis one and two, receptor textas Genesis five, and interpretive
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: outcomes at least include sort of spinning out what it
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: means to be created in the image of God.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: I like that a lot at least includes because I
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: think that we can we argue about the rest, we
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: argue about the rest, But I also think that that
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: it does set a constraint and limit and a recognition
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: that hey, look, this text is actually doing something. It
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: really is doing something, and it's at least doing this something.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Now what else it might be doing. That's where all
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: these other factors that we would see in the narrative
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: have to come into play. And that's where some of
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: the more interpretive, maybe creative interpretive work could begin. But
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: that isn't necessarily entailed in this specific illusion in and
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: of itself.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: But there is a kernel that is there no matter what, right,
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: And I.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: Think that that's kind of an important point that what
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: maybe hasn't been done well enough is I think we
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: want to jump off into the exe Jesus and the
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: theology so quickly, yeah, and the thematic But what we
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: maybe need to pause and do just a little bit
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: more is actually get our hands dirty in comparing you know,
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: why is the tense this word different? Why are these
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: two things blended? Why is the prepositional phrase? And start
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: with the mechanics of what the biblical authors themselves are doing,
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: and then we can run there's nothing wrong with us
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: making modern interpretations, but I guess my work has been
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: pained on. Now let's pause and listen to the Biblical
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: authors first, let them be our teachers and guides, and
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: then we can do some of our extrapolations. You know.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: I know we're going to move into the New Testament
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: next time in a future episode, so we're not dealing
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: with the New Testament here, but just for comparison's sake,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: you know, I, like you probably took Greek and Hebrew
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: coming through seminary and through my PhD studies. What I
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: found the difference was, and I think the reason I
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: gravitated towards Hebrew was that it has more of an
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: openness to it. There isn't a strict logic in the
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: same way that you find in Greek. That there's a
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: much more rigid is probably too harsh a word, but
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: a much more structured, you know, sort of grammatical connections
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: between various things in a Greek text versus Hebrew, which
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: has a fluidity to it that isn't as tied to
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: tense and aspect and syntax, you know, all those different
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: kind of pieces that you'd find in grammar.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: It almost opens itself.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Up more to an illusion based sort of textuality across
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: the Old Testament. I guess I'm wondering if that insight
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: rings true to you or how you correct that or
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: you know is that you've worked in both, and so
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: I'm just interested to understand your take on the difference.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: Well, I think you're certainly right that the nature of
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Hebrew is so much different in the grammar and syntax
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: that it opens itself to a different kind of illusions.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: But I would think, probably James, that the whole idea
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: of alluding and making these connections, it's probably just natural
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: and literary. So I don't think that that part's necessarily different.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: But the mechanics of how the New Testament within the
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: context of the Second Temple situation and all the complications
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: of describle cultures that are going on that time, that's
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: going to set it apart from the more in house
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: Hebrew Torah and Hebrew prophets and Hebrew poetry and Hebrew narratives.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: That's a little bit more all on the same page
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: as far as the literary elements go. So there's a
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: different dynamic maybe to the kind of illusions we're going
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: to sit in the Old Testament, and there's an easy
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: move between those. That is, there's there's not a real
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: sense that when we read the prophets they talk about
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Torah and you talk about God's covenant. But they're not
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: hung up on kind of explaining and getting down and
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: dirty into the details of Tora. They take it for
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: granted that they're that's not the problem. Their readers don't
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: not know what tour is. They don't obey what Tora is.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: That that's the deeper issue. So they're pushing literarily against
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: the will of the readers so that the prophet even
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: might so let's say, weaponize Torah. So a really good
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: example of this is Amos where he talks about, you know,
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: he makes a playoff of you know, once people get
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: into the land, they're in Deuteronomy fourteen, Deuteronomy twenty six,
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: they only have to bring their tithes and offerings once
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: every three years because it's inconvenient, if you will, and
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: so they can kind of boil it down to silver
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: and then bring it back to sacrifices when they get there. Well,
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Amos taunts his temple going northern constituents and says, go ahead,
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: bring your sacrifices and your tithes every three days, and
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: so you have this sort of mocking play. So there's
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: an illusion to Torah, but he's not like trying to
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: explain the mechanics of it. All right, he thinks that
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: the problem lies elsewhere with these conngregants who have you know,
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: they're interested in religion for their own purposes, not for gods.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, interesting, that's helpful, And I think it sort
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: of leads us into some of your comments related to
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: maybe progressive revelation. You've already kind of alluded to this
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: in your earlier comments, like how these illusions actually work
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: and why they wouldn't necesscessarily have to be or even
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: why quoting wouldn't necessarily serve this aspect of an expanded
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: an expansion of Torah, a faithful expansion of Torah within
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: a given scenario that a later author may be writing about.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that in this field now, since
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: I've been talking about it for these past number of years,
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: more and more people are warming up to progressive revelation.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: But this is not the way we used to look
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: at it, if you will. So this is more of
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: a newer and especially something that I've been pushing is
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: that we do look at the advancement of revelation, and
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: so there is actually and I actually prefer the word
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: advancement better because it's more directed towards the Gospel of Christ.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Like this is all going for. There's a direction. It's
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: not just progressive in all sorts of directions. Yeah, but
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: I think that what we're what we need to get
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: out here then is there's uh maybe one way I said,
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: if we look at the genre of say laws, we
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: tend to think of them as sometimes wrongly, as as
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: though they're static, as though they are these inert things.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: But the Lord doesn't say when people complain about these
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: things to him, he doesn't say I spoke, don't don't,
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: don't talk to me about that. Just read the Bible.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: We find the Lord making adjustments with uh Torah. And
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: even the whole idea of a prophet like Moses is
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: one who is going to teach and preach in accord
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: with Torah. And so there's there's room. As Israel's messy
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: history goes from this to that to the next situation,
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: from rights slaves to wanderers to settlers to kingdom builders
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: to exile to people that return that are part of
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: the empire and a really small province. All those changes
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: require adjustments to how the teachings function, and so there's
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: there's lots of room for the prophets to follow in
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: the footsteps of Moses, who follows in the footsteps of
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: the Lord who tweaks Torah, and the Lord not even
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: shy about tweaking his own tweaks. When we think about it,
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: for us that that takes a moment, and it takes
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: our breath away, because we're like, well, wait, wait, wait,
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: the Word of God stands forever. Wait, it's authoritati if
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: you can't just change it, well, yeah, but there is
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: a a progressive revelation, a forward motion, a redemptive direction,
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: if you will. And we see that there's this Bible's
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: interpretation of the Bible is moving in this redemptive direction.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: It's not just change for change's sake, so to speak.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: It's interesting.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: There's a and I'm blanking on the gentleman's name, but
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: there's a scientific theory that deals with something akin to this,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: but in the scientific field.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: And what he.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Posits is that there's a hardcore of truth that doesn't change.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: That this is the underlying I think he uses the
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: word principle, which I'm not real wild on, but it
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: gets at the idea it's this unchanging kernel that it's
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: not going to move. And then what he calls a
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: protective belt around that. And this protective belt is a
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: set of hypotheses and theories and operations and you know.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: Situations right that are sort of malleable.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: But what never changes is this hardcore truth in the middle.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: And it just strikes me that what you're explaining is
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: very similar to that so much as the underlying core
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: of Israelite faith, of our faith doesn't change.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: But there's a whole lot outside there.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: You know, in the protective belt sort of area of it,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: that can move around. Because the world is changing, time
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: is going by, we have to adapt to these new situations,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: and and there's an adaptivity to being in that protective
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: belt so long as it's still reflecting the hardcore commitment
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: in the center.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so an example might help since we're I don't
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: know the name of that scientists either, but the these
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: things can be ethereal if you think all the way
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: at the maybe the end of the story here, and
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: you have Nehemiah who's the governor of Jerusalem, and one
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: of the big problems he runs into is the Sabbath breakers.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Well he's he's like the governor, he has power he's
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: the one who's friends with the king of Persia, but
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: he's not bringing capital charges against the Sabbath breakers. He's
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: trying to persuade them. So in other wards, the truth
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: of the holiness of God and setting aside holy worship
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: to God, that hasn't changed. That's still one of the
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: covenantal elements of their relationship with God. But what has
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: changed is it's no longer a capital crime, it's no
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: longer a criminal law, and so kind of we can say, wow, well,
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: this is an innovation, this is a contradiction. Well, it's
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: probably not a contradiction when we look at sort of
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Neemiah's allusions back to Amos in chapter eight there, I
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: think it is where he's talking kind of making fun
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: of them, you're excited for Sabbath to be over so
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: you can go merchandise again. Or the more specific illusion
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: that we see in chapter thirteen of Nehemiah is from
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Jeremiah chapter seventeen, where Jeremiah says, if you keep bringing
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: your burdens through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day,
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: the Lord's going to bring his wrath against you. So
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: then we could say, well, wait, where did Amos, where
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: did Jeremiah have the audacity to tweak the Ten Commandments?
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: This is one of the top ten. Excuse me, I'll
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: get in trouble from my school if I say, oh,
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: I need a cigarette right now. It sounds we are
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: up in the north. But I mean, I know you
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: did your dissertation on the ten Commandments, and so it's
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: not that Amos and Jeremiah doing something that's completely outside
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: the box. The Sabbath command is tweaked inside the Ten
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Commandments in Deuteronomy five. Yeah, and so there's there is that.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: I guess you would say that something that doesn't change,
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: like we're not gonna you know, adult tooth is wrong
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: all the way. You know, you don't need any tweaking
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: of that. But the circumstances of Israel changed dramatically, and
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: so even one of the top ten commandments winds up
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: being repeatedly tweaked as we go across time, from the
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: time that it's given on Mount Sinai, throughout the history
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: of Israel and the Old Testament.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: And I would even I think that's a really helpful example.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: As I was reading through your work, I was thinking
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: to myself, this gets even more complex and narratives, you know,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: with the one that came to mind was am Non
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: and when he rapes absolom sister and David nothing about it,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, Absolom is sort of
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: jockeying for David's position after he kills Amnon. And this
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: is not framed as a cautionary tale against David. What
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: it really seems like it's a cautionary tale against the
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: way Absolum responds to this situation, you know.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: And so even within the narrative, you have this thing.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Where it's like, well, the king is really in a
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: very deep way withholding justice, but that is in no way,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: shape or form the focus of that narrative. And the
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: very best I would argue, it's sort of background. Right,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: David may not have made the right choice there, but
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: it's not the one that's highlighted as the problem. And
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: so you have all these sort of narratives that obviously
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: use the law as a background, even though it's not explicit,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: they're there. It's part of that sort of narrative context.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: But ultimately you see these different scenarios playing themselves out
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: and within that narrative situation, And so I don't know
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: whether i'd count that it necessarily as illusion, but I
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: find it fascinating to think through as we just think
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: about how that works from you know, Old Testament use
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: of the Old Testament. These things are in the ether,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: and those are probably less intentional than some of the
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: the case of Sabbath that you just named, But I
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: do think it's interesting to think through, like as we're
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: considering how that law gets adapted, the stories themselves suggest
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: the adaptations.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, and there you have. You know, it's boy,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: it's complicent. I want to make sure I don't say
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: the wrong thing, but you have in Deuteronomy twenty two,
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: you have these series of rape laws.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but what.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: The Aminen's story at least shows, and it's not an
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: exegesus of the rape lause, but it does show how
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: distorted and perverse someone's perspective can be. Because he's the
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: narrative us the word he seizes her. So that's the
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: very language that is used in Deudonomy twenty two that
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: we would say that's rape and it can never be justified.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: But then Amin's trying to kind of romance his sister,
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: and so you have this then insight that we might
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: not get in Deuteronomy twenty two, but we get that
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: there are perverse thoughts that a rapist has, and the
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: rapists might not be thinking I'm going to rape this person.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: The rapist might actually between a wu in this case,
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: it's not really quite like a modern date rape. But yeah,
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: so the larger story, though, you're right, is this is
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: all just the bigger story where they're moving between when
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: David is top Jerusalem looking at someone else's wife and
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: where the story's going is one of the most iconic
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: moments in all of the Book of Samuel, where out
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: in exile David's high top a different city crying out
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: absolute my son, my son, absolum oh that I would
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: have died, but you would have lived, Absolute my son.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: So you have this very literary presentation which is not
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: at all It's a good example because it's not at
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: all stopping and saying, well, let's think through the mechanics
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: of rape. Well, yeah, there is a rape here, and
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: it's very serious, but it's part of a much more
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: complex story with these terrible moving parts that maybe all
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: started when David is raping someone else's wife it turns
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: out to be his friend.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: And I actually think that's crucial to the word you
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: use complexity. Complex The Bible isn't working in simple paradigms,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: and so as it's narrating, as it's prophesying into these situations,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: these are not simple cause and effect usually problems, there
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: is some complexity to them, and I think that's part
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: of why you see these adaptations. They're almost like, as
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: you put it, they're advancing towards something, but they're also
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: applying these laws within a context, and so they are
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: doing really I think deep interpretive work of the Torah
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: to give it sufficient teeth within the setting that they're
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: using it in.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: If that makes sense.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it does. And I think that you know, you
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: and I when we gather with church folks in a
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Bible study or in a Sunday morning discussion, a lot
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: of times we take things what's right and what's wrong?
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Is this character good or is this character bad? But
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: that doesn't have much to do with real life. And
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: so if we like take a short story like Ruth,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: all of the sort of the Torah illusions in that
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: book are complicated, and they're very embedded in this story,
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: so much embedded that many many readers just read it
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: as a type of Christ or something like this, and
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: don't even bother with getting their hands messy with the Covenant.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: But you find a really complex situation is there at
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: the city gate when Bolas talks of this unnamed financially
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: responsible relation. Yeah, and they talk about, you know, keeping
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: his name alive. Are they going to keep the name
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: of the dead alive? Well, that is going to bring
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: in both the love inheritance from numbers twenty seven, but
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: it also brings up from Deuteronomy twenty five the law
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: of lever a marriage yep. And it's more complex than
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: that because there's also the redemption of Naomi's field, and
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: so that's now we're in Leviticus twenty five. But then
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: one of the key things that comes up in the chapter,
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: besides all of this going on between these different laws
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: that they're navigating simultaneously, is it's when bo As mentions, oh, yeah,
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: by the way, she's a moa Bidas. It's like, right,
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: then if more Bible well like, And we don't know
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: if the unnamed financially responsible near relation knew his Bible well,
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: but if he did, he would be thinking, oh, well,
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: you don't one on me twenty three says, thou shalt not
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: be kind to Mobites. Yeah, and he knows that's illegal,
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: and so all of a sudden he's like, well, I
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: don't want to jeopardize my inheritance, is what he says?
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: What does he mean by that? Does he mean like,
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: because Mobites are not welcome into the assembly of yahweh?
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: So is that what he means, which then is pushing
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: us really towards the big finish of the book. Right,
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: he did his maternal one of his the matriarchs of
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: David fourth generation is a Mobiite. So then we're left
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: as readers of the book saying, wait, if Mobiites are
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: excluded forever, then what about the dividic covenant?
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: What's happening? Right, all of a sudden, this this fun
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: story about this romance between this older gentleman and his uh,
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: you know, this woman from foreign land. All of a
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: sudden it takes on all these covenantal dimensions because the
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: dividic Covenant is in jeopardy, the Gospel is in jeopardy
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: because of Torah. That's complicated.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I think the impetus is to allow
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: that story to degenerate and to say nope, it can't
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: mean that because this dudonimistic law precludes us being nice
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: to Moabites. The better way to read it is to say, huh,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: there must be something underneath this law and Deuteronomy that
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: I'm missing. Yeah, there must be something deeper there that
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: I'm just not quite getting in that context. And now
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: I need to go back and understand that a little
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: differently and exactly right, right, because as.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: This advance is, what it's showing us is.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: That God's loyalty is covenant love extends well beyond Israelites,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: even to those who were previously precluded.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: And this is something that when we go back to
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: chapter two of Ruth to the Fields, where Boas is
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: reasoning this out right, he can't give Ruth the rights
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: of gleaning because that's for residing foreigners and it's.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: Not for Mobites, right.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: It's absolutely now, And like his his his guy that's
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: working for him says, the word mobite is you seven
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: times in the book, and the word mobitis is you
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: seven times? All right, so yeah, twice it's used in
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: one verse. So Boa shows up says, who is that?
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: His worker says, that's the Mobiitis from mo app It's like, oh,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: rely that mobid it's one from mo app good to know,
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: and so it's over the top. But then as Ruth
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: is calling herself, I'm a foreigner, she uses that there's
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: different words for foreigner, but she uses the excluded language.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: But then Boa says, wait, wait, wait, I've heard about
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: what you've done, and when you've done it, you've placed
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: yourselves under the wings of yahweh, And so bo As
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: grants her the rights of gleaning. He treats her like
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: a somebody who can assimilate, like a gear, a residing
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: foreigner that can assimilate. And then we learn even more
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: when your works top in the middle of the night,
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: you know, a few weeks later, and it's like who
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: are you? And Ruth says, oh, put your wing over me, right,
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: And so his prayer of using that language, he ends
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: up answering his own prayer in a sense when she
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: proposes marriage to him. And all that pushes us back
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: to when she said to Naomi, your God is my god,
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: your people are my people. We realize, okay, not all
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: Mobites are Mobites, right, So it's easy for us, as
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: you said, to say, thou shalt not be kind to Moabites.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: But in the Bible, all the different interpretations of that law,
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: it's never interpreted as an ethnic or a rarail law.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: It's always interpreted symbolically, and so it doesn't even apply
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: to mobites in many cases as its right. So the
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: narrative that the law plays off of, right, going back
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: to the nasty mobites in the wilderness who mistreated Israel,
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: that's a symbolic narrative that shows the kind of people
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: that are always excluded, the enemies of Israel.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a It's an entire book that I think
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: illustrates the point that there is an advancing revelation here
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: and how whatever confusion we may have about something like
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: God desires mercy, not sacrifice, right, and it's like, well,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: why did he give us all these sacrificial laws? Then,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: you know, like Ruth encapsulates this entire tension within it
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: because it's not supposed to happen if we read the
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: law as precluding into perpetuity, if we understand it as
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: the actual exclusion of a people group, not something deeper
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: there that in the context is being warned against. But
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: now as this woman Ruth, you know, pledges herself to this,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: her mother in law, takes on her gods as her
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: own god. Now you are in a very different context,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: and Boaz is the one who recognizes this. He sees
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: it and acts on it, even despite it almost encapsulates.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: We might say, what it means to have mercy rather
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: than sacrifice?
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And I think that you know what
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: what I try to do with my students, and I'm
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: about to probably annoy your readers, is I don't let
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: my students when we studied Ruth use the word kinsman redeemer.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: You've heard me a couple of times use the word
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: financially responsible near relative, because that's what it means. And
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: so we use the term kinsman redeemer, and we load
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: it with all this typological sense that comes from us.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: But it's not a sexy term. It's it's not this
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: theologically loaded term. It's just a financially responsible next of kin.
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: And so when I when I the reason I do
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: that to my students is so they stop and live
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: in the moment that they don't when they don't know
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: what to do, they just oh, well, this is kind
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: of a story about this romance. So well, we need
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: to we need to find the gospel here No, I
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: don't need to find the gospel. The gospel right here.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: We're on the way in this gospel story. But we
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: need to see what's going on here in this moment
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: of progressive revelation. I don't need to jump to the future.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: We can live here. And so I think that kind
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: of our discomfort in dealing with all this is part
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: of the part of the issue. And we don't often
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: like complications and messiness when we have our discussions. We
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: want to settle everything right.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: Well, let me pivot a little bit, because you've got
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: this new book coming out and it's really helpful. You know,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: you and I have been at this for a long time.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: You know, I got my doctorate in twenty twelve ish
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: somewhere in there, and so it's been a good decade
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: plus that I've been studying the Old Testament. You're the same,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: probably even longer than I have. There's a a tendency.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: I think that as we read and reread these texts,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: we start to have enough packed into our brains that
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: we start to recognize some of these illusions that we
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: start to connect these dots in a text, and so
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: that even if we're reading Ruth, we go back automatically
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: to some of these laws. Where someone who's more of
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: a casual Bible reader, who's just in the church in
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: the pews, they may read Ruth and go that was
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: a fantastic story. They'll catch some of the themes that
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: they don't always get, the illusions and the depth. How
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: do you help someone develop that depth aside from you know,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: an expensive PhD in years of study?
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's that's it's always tempting to take
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: a PhD. Yeah, But I think that I think that
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: we've we kind of have a phobia against the laws.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: So when we read the old test that we're in
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: a narrative like Ruth, and we somehow can just ignore
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: that this is a very legal heavy narrative and we're
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: able to basically ignore all of that and just read
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: it as a nice harlequin romance, right, Hallmark romance. That's
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: a better way. I said, Well, sorry, like a Hallmark
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: romance that somebody would watch on TV and say, oh,
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: isn't that quaint? Well, yes, it's quaint, but there's something
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: more at stake, and people are trying to live according
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: to God's covenantal will, and so I think part of
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: it is maybe the mechanical issue of you know, reading
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: the cross references in our Bible. But I think the
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: bigger problem that we're up against at the moment is
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: there's sort of a repulsion towards Torah and towards especially
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: the teachings of Torah. And so that that repulsion that
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: a lot of Christians have, they think, oh, I don't
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: want to I'm interested in grace. Well, you know, we
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: have news for people. Torah is God's gift to his people,
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: his covenantal will is the Gospel I mean moving forward.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: And so I think that we have to both get
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: the mechanics of actually making the connections that are made
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: in the Bible and thinking through the complexities of what
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: are there not to be complex for complexity's sake, but
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: life is messy. And on the other side, to recognize
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: that the Gospel starts way earlier in the Bible, and
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: we don't have to put it in there. We don't
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: have to like find some Kinsman Deemer trick to like
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: push the Gospel into the Bible. It's already there. And
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: so we just have to study the Bible and we
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: have to trust the Lord. And so this progressive revelation
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: then is maybe as much coming out of a value
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: of how we would treat scripture and begin to see
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: the connections that are native to it, not just try
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: to put the message onto it that we want to find.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: That's a little bit too simplistic, but there's so many
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm just talking about in our day. I'm
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: kind of addressing the Biblical illiteracy which is rampant, and
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: then also some of the related reasons to that, and
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: what we do. We don't bother to undo the biblical illiteracy,
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: We kind of find a way to work in it
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: and accept people's prejudice against God's word.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, the first time you were on the show show,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: we talked actually about the immoral Torah and your article
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: and jets on this issue, and basically for those of
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: you who haven't listened to that episode, you can go
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: back and find it. But the gist of it was
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: that there's a movement in amongst some Old Testament scholars
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: to mark out a not remove, but.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: Cross out.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Laws in the Torah that we would deem immoral. And
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: I think that's an extreme case of what you're really
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: talking about here, because the more mundane way of doing
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: is just to say, yes, I know that they're all there. Yes,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: I know that they're all God's word. It's almost completely
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: irrelevant for anything that I am interested in doing, and
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: so I'm just going to stick somewhere else in the
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: canon and ignore most of that. It's functionally, you know,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: you're not actually physically crossing anything out, and so it
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: conveys a certain reverence for scripture that maybe the other
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: maybe crossing out versus doesn't, But it's functionally doing the
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: same thing. It's ignoring an aspect of the counsel of
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: God's word that we should not be ignoring. And so,
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: and you're right, I think that is related to a
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: skill level. People tend to get more comfortable. You know,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: there's a reason I don't read Song of Solomon every day.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: That's some weird stuff, and I'm just not as good
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: at interpreting that. And so you're going to gravitate to
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: your areas of competence. I think that's a normal thing.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's not like I would say, yeah,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: I've never read the Song of Solomon before, and I
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: would never read it again, right, And so I think
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: we have to sort of balance somewhere in there, do
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: you think as you wrote your book, and it's got
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of really helpful charts and layouts and really
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: giving examples of how these things interconnect. Is part of
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: your hope to sort of get people thinking in this
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: way about the Old Testament and helping them to understand
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: how they actually can.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: Think this way about the Old Testament.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, this book is the one I really
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: wanted to write. It's and my editor really wanted this too.
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: She's got her PhD In Old Testament, So this is
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: the one that really was driving the others. But I
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: have a book called Old Testament Use of Old Testament,
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: which is a handbook that kind of explains through each
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: book of the Old Testament and sort of the hermeneutical
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: profile of each Biblical author and examples of how they
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: use scripture. I have another book, a co authored book
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: called How to Study the Bible's Use of the Bible,
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: which is really there's seven choices that we need to
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: make in order to interpret the Bible's use of the
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: Bible well, which is one of the hardest things to interpret.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: But this book that is just coming out this year,
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: Old Testament Use of Old Testament in parallel a out.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: It's not making an argument, it's laying out the evidence
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: in a new way that will provide a true inductive
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: tool for users. So it's not just like laying it
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: out there in a way that there's some guardrails in
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: a sense, so that the related texture laid out side
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: by side. But there there's a system of color coding
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: so that English Bible readers or seminary students and pastors
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: who have studied Hebrew and Greek, they'll be able to
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: see exactly what is related to each other and what's different.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: And then also there's suggestions by using red for where
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: the interpretive I guess outcomes are that the author intended,
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: and those kind of put this way in the introduction,
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: the user needs to ask every time they see red,
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: is that where the red goes? Or does it go
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: somewhere else? Right, So there's the cold text is the
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: blue text, and the distinctive text is the black. So
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: the color coding makes it really just jump off the
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: page so that the reader can have real help. But
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: what I've blocked out it doesn't like just talk at
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: the reader and tell the reader here's the answer, here's
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: the answer that's in the other books. So I'm not
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: shy about my views. But this is the inductive study
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: to get the reader's chance to wrestle with the scriptures themselves,
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: but with helps of the reader says, but I don't
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: know what to do. Well, here's the Bible, and it's
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: color coded, it's laid out. You can do something with us.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: It reminded me when I looking through it and just
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: reading through various.
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: Aspects of it.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: The synopsis of the Gospels, you know where you have
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: it laid out in Greek and English, and you can
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: compare across the gospels, what's different, what's the same.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: And so I found it really helpful as a reference work.
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: And I think you're right.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: It doesn't make an argument per se, although it's definitely
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: illustrating that this is important work that needs to be done.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: So very cool. I'm excited for it to come out.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: When does it release, Gary.
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: It comes out in November.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: November, okay, so available on Amazon for pre order, maybe
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: September ish, julyish, something.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: Like that, probably by the end of June.
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: By end of June. Okay, here you go.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: Well, I know we didn't cook quite through everything today,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: but we're going to have you back to talk a
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: little bit about more about Old Testament use in the
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: New Testament, which is honestly seems like the more normal
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: field of study. Normal might be the wrong word, the
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: more popular field of study. People tend to want to
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: see how the testaments connect. But I really find this
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: work Old Testament use in the Old Testament to be fascinating,
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: and so really appreciate your work, Appreciate the conversation, and
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: we'll do this again Old Testament use in the New
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: Testament in the next episode.
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: So thanks Gary very much for being here.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: James, thanks for having me on. It's great to have
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: a chance to talk through these things.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Do me one favor and mention your substack before we
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: leave it.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: Is please, Yeah, go ahead and do that.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: Carpentersstudent dot Com. It's free. There's two s's in the middle,
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: Carpenter's Student dot Com, and that's a place where able
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: to get into some of the behind the scenes things
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: that really can't be done anywhere else. There's no room
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: for that kind of stuff in books or in the classroom.
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: Very good. Well, we'll have that linked in the show notes.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: So if you want to check out more from Gary,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: I'd really recommend going there. I've gotten to read through
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: several of his articles just in preparing for these episodes
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: and finding them really helpful. We'll probably reference one of
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: them in the next couple episodes. Grandparent Texts was probably
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: one of my favorites that he did, and so we'll
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: dive into those. But yeah, I encourage you to check
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: out Gary's work and certainly by the book. We'll have
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: links to everything in the show notes. I believe this
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: episode will have launched after the pre order window, and
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: so we'll probably have the pre order link in there
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: for the zonom book that we've been talking a little
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: bit about this time, so also check that out. So
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: that's it for this episode. Thanks again, Gary for being here,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: and thanks everybody for listening. We'll catch you on the
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: next episode of Thinking Christian.
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: Take Care.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: Just want to take a second to thank the team
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: you'll find dozens of other faith centered podcas cast in
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: and more.