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Grandparent Texts: How the New Testament Reads the Old (Gary Edward Schnittjer) · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm
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  Speaker 1: doctor James Spencer and I'm joined again today by doctor
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  Speaker 1: Gary Edward Snitcher, and we're going to be discussing his
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  Speaker 1: book Old Testament Use of Old Testament in Parallel Layout
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  Speaker 1: that is coming out later this year, but specifically today,
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  Speaker 1: we're going to be looking at the use of the
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  Speaker 1: Old Testament in the New Testament and how that really works,
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  Speaker 1: how we might think about it, and really dealing with
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  Speaker 1: not just the quotations, but some of the illusions there
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  Speaker 1: as well. Very similar to the conversation we had about
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  Speaker 1: the Old Testament use of the Old Testament last time,
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  Speaker 1: just applied into the New Testament and there will be
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  Speaker 1: some differences. So with that said, Gary, welcome back to
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  Speaker 1: the program. Thank you very much for being here.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks James, I really appreciate being here and especially having
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  Speaker 2: a chance. I tell my students all the time there
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  Speaker 2: is nothing wrong with the New Testament.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, it's great.
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  Speaker 2: So I'm happy to be able to look at that,
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  Speaker 2: and especially I think what in this particular area the
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  Speaker 2: it's a very strange area when you get into the literature,
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  Speaker 2: the study of the New Testament used to the Old
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  Speaker 2: it's it's amazing to me how I hate to say this,
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  Speaker 2: but for these past few generations, the Old Testament is
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  Speaker 2: the missing link in the in the research. And so
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  Speaker 2: it's a very very strange area of research where you
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  Speaker 2: have all sorts of bizarre things being said in this
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  Speaker 2: area of scholarship, especially, you know when once there's talk
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  Speaker 2: of our hermonutics and their hermaonutics, as though it's a
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  Speaker 2: hermautic unto itself, then all of a sudden, you know
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  Speaker 2: that things are just being made up. I mean, and
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  Speaker 2: that's that's not that's not a helpful way to go.
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  Speaker 2: And I think maybe the other area that some of
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  Speaker 2: your readers might listeners might be familiar with is there's
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  Speaker 2: always a search among the scholarship of the New Testament
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  Speaker 2: used to the Old four sort of a Second Temple
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  Speaker 2: exegedical tradition that might kind of do this and the failure.
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  Speaker 2: And there's nothing wrong with that, because that does have
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  Speaker 2: absolutely some influence on how things go. But the failure
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  Speaker 2: is to realize that almost all of the Second Temple
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  Speaker 2: Jewish exegetical traditions are coming forward out of the Old Testament.
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  Speaker 2: And what's very obvious from the New Testament is these
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  Speaker 2: authors are studying the Old Testament, and so of course
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  Speaker 2: we should expect to find similarities between Second Temple Jewish
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  Speaker 2: exegedical traditions in the New Testament. I mean, they're all
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  Speaker 2: drinking from the same kool aid in the Old Testament.
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  Speaker 2: And the Old Testaments are very rich resource of extra
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  Speaker 2: Jesus because the Old Testament authors for a thousand years before.
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  Speaker 3: The days of Jesus.
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  Speaker 2: We're executing earlier Old Testament texts, and so it's not
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  Speaker 2: the slightest but surprising then that both second Tempo Jewish
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  Speaker 2: exegetical traditions and the New Testament authors have similarities because
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  Speaker 2: they're studying how to interpret the scriptures by how the
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  Speaker 2: Old Testament scriptures interpret the Old Testament scriptures.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I found I discovered one of those when I
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  Speaker 1: was studying the Book of Hebrews. Hebrews seven and deals
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  Speaker 1: with a lot with Melchizedek, and you have these interesting
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  Speaker 1: way in which Melchizedek's name is handled. So he's the
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  Speaker 1: King of Righteousness, which is a play on the Hebrew
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  Speaker 1: and then obviously king of Peace, which is a play
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  Speaker 1: on his identification as the King of Salem. And so
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  Speaker 1: you have this word play between Salem and Shalom, so
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  Speaker 1: king of peace. He is without father and without mother,
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  Speaker 1: without genealogy. You know, these kind of ideas that are
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  Speaker 1: sort of drawn into Hebrew seven. And initially, if you
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  Speaker 1: look at that and you go, what in the world
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  Speaker 1: is the author of Hebrews doing with this guy? Like
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  Speaker 1: he's a referenced twice in the Old Testament, you don't
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  Speaker 1: get a lot of information about him. You know, he
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  Speaker 1: shows up in Genesis fourteen, it's on them one ten,
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  Speaker 1: and that's kind of it.
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  Speaker 3: Why is this guy such a big deal?
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  Speaker 1: And then I got to look at the Dead Sea
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  Speaker 1: scrolls eleven Q thirteen or sometimes called eleven Q Melchizedic,
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  Speaker 1: and you see the almost the exact same use and
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  Speaker 1: exa Jesus of his name that play on the names,
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  Speaker 1: the play on the genealogy, and of course they make
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  Speaker 1: Melchizedek into more of a Messianic figure who is to come,
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  Speaker 1: whereas Hebrews identifies Melchizedic in that order with Christ.
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  Speaker 3: So there are real differences, but you just start to.
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  Speaker 1: Realize exactly what you're saying, that these Second Temple sort
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  Speaker 1: of different traditions are sort of in the Ether. They're
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  Speaker 1: reading the Old Testament in similar ways, and there are
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  Speaker 1: trajectories within the interpretive matrix that make sense within that
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  Speaker 1: particular period.
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  Speaker 2: Because they're well, they're coming out of the Old Testament.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, the Author of the Hebrews is a great example,
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  Speaker 2: because when he's interested in Genesis, he doesn't quote Genesis,
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  Speaker 2: he quotes Psalm eight. When he's interested in the Wilderness,
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  Speaker 2: he doesn't quote Numbers or Exodus, he quotes Psalm ninety five.
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  Speaker 2: When he's interested in Melchizdek, he's going through the grid,
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  Speaker 2: so to speak of someone ten. When he's interested in
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  Speaker 2: tabernacle sacrifices, he's in the Psalms. When he's interested in
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  Speaker 2: the Covenant, he's in Jeremiah. So we find that he's
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  Speaker 2: the Author of the Hebrews is navigating Torah, which is
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  Speaker 2: what he's really interested in, but almost never quoting Tora,
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  Speaker 2: because he's looking at how Tora was executed throughout the
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  Speaker 2: Old Testament.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's sort of a mediated look at the Torah
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  Speaker 1: through that you slightly later tradition that's really faithfully trying
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  Speaker 1: to understand and reflect on Torah, which is kind of cool.
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  Speaker 3: He's almost cheating and using the commentary.
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  Speaker 1: Doing what we tell students not to, right, don't use
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  Speaker 1: the commentary first.
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  Speaker 3: Go back to the real source.
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  Speaker 2: But I think that that's why there's so much similarity. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: and so in other words, there's nothing wrong to it's
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  Speaker 2: helpful to look at Second Temple Jewish literature. The mistake
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  Speaker 2: is when we don't look for the precedence and the
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  Speaker 2: things that are coming out from the thousand years of
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  Speaker 2: execuses in the Old Testament itself, which is what the
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  Speaker 2: exegetical traditions we're studying, what the New Testament authors are
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  Speaker 2: studying during this period.
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  Speaker 3: Agreed.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you do a little bit just as we
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  Speaker 1: think about again Old Testament use in the New We
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  Speaker 1: obviously have clear quotations. But you wrote a piece for
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  Speaker 1: Currents and Biblical Studies on this long lost grandparent text
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  Speaker 1: of the New Testament, not parent text, but grandparent texts.
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  Speaker 1: And I found this really compelling. I thought it was interesting.
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  Speaker 1: I love the framing of it. So I'm wondering if
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  Speaker 1: you can kind of walk us through that a little bit,
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  Speaker 1: and then we'll talk a little bit more, just specifically
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  Speaker 1: about how the Old Testament is used in the New.
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  Speaker 2: Sure. So, what a lot of us are familiar with,
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  Speaker 2: especially through the studies of the New Testament. Use of
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  Speaker 2: the Old is what I call horizontal context, so that
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  Speaker 2: the scholarship isn't just looking at the verse, but looking
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  Speaker 2: at the surrounding paragraph in chapters. And I call it
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  Speaker 2: horizontal context. But what hasn't been done enough is what
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  Speaker 2: I call vertical context. And this runs both directions, but
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  Speaker 2: a downward vertical context is the deep context. That is,
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  Speaker 2: over eighty times the New Testament authors are quoting or
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  Speaker 2: alluding to an Old Testament text, that itself is alluding
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  Speaker 2: to an order Old Testament texts. We were just talking
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  Speaker 2: about examples in Hebrews. And so when a New Testament
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  Speaker 2: scholar goes down and stops and just looks at the
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  Speaker 2: horizontal context of the seid a verse, that's not good
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  Speaker 2: enough when that versus citing us still earlier verse. We
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  Speaker 2: need to go down the horizontal con sorry vertical context
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  Speaker 2: further to the deep context, because that's really what's in
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  Speaker 2: view that that's what's driving I call it progressive revelation forward.
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  Speaker 2: The advancement of revelation is that original donor text that's
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  Speaker 2: being interpreted again and again in the scriptures.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, do you see that in something like you know,
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  Speaker 1: the proto of Bengelian in Genesis three, right where we
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  Speaker 1: see the serpent's head being crushed by the son of
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  Speaker 1: Eve versus what we see in Romans. I believe it's
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  Speaker 1: fifteen or sixteen. I'm blanking on the exact verse. But
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  Speaker 1: where the church now takes that role and they're supposed
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  Speaker 1: to crush the.
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  Speaker 3: Serpent under the head.
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  Speaker 1: I've always sort of looked at that and said, you know, yes,
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  Speaker 1: this is sort of a gesturing forward in Genesis three,
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  Speaker 1: maybe to a Messianic figure of some sort, but we
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  Speaker 1: really can't then stop it at Christ when in Romans.
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  Speaker 3: Sixteen it's being applied to the church.
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  Speaker 1: Is that the sort of vertical depth you're talking about?
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  Speaker 3: Or could you give a better example than that?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, that's a good example of what we
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  Speaker 2: call the what I call I think people usually say
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  Speaker 2: the one and the many. I'd like to talk about
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  Speaker 2: the individual versus the collective. And so there's that constant
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  Speaker 2: interchange between the individual and the collective. And there's many,
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  Speaker 2: many examples of that. The one you just cided as
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  Speaker 2: a good one. But where let's say, Isaiah fifty five
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  Speaker 2: is quoting from the Covenant actually an interpretation of the
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  Speaker 2: Dividic Covenant in David's last word in Second Samuel twenty three.
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  Speaker 2: And so that's a really powerful example because he's citing
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  Speaker 2: the Davidic Covenant, but he says, y'all says you plural,
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  Speaker 2: it's to you collectively. And so then there's a sense
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  Speaker 2: in which, of course the Davidic Covenant is an individual
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  Speaker 2: covenant to David in his dynasty, and it refers to
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  Speaker 2: these davidict messiahs. But then there's a broader sense in
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  Speaker 2: which no, no, no, the king is Israel, the King is
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  Speaker 2: the covenantal people. Yeah, so when we see Second Chronicles
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  Speaker 2: chapter six site Isaiah fifty five, or we see Paul
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  Speaker 2: cite Isaiah fifty five, they're both taking advantage of that
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  Speaker 2: collective sense, so that what Christ does comes over into
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  Speaker 2: the Son of God the Church.
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  Speaker 3: I see, Yeah, no, that's helpful.
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  Speaker 2: So I think though maybe an example of this vertical
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  Speaker 2: context might be something like Zachariah nine to nine, where
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  Speaker 2: the donkey is coming. The king is writing a donkey
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  Speaker 2: into Jerusalem, and so there's a very distinctive donkey language
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  Speaker 2: in that, so that the kind of the mother text,
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  Speaker 2: so to speak, or the grandparent text, is the blessing
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  Speaker 2: of Judah in Genesis forty nine. And so if in
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  Speaker 2: Genesis forty nine, the Judah King comes into the vineyard
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  Speaker 2: and ties up the donkey to a vine of all things,
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  Speaker 2: you know, there's no old West tumbleweed's going by. It's
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  Speaker 2: a very lush place. Where where else you're going to
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  Speaker 2: tie a donkey up?
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  Speaker 1: Right?
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  Speaker 2: And what the what Zachariah does is he he kind
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  Speaker 2: of gives a vision of Okay, if the Judah King
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  Speaker 2: is in Judah in the vineyard with a donkey, what
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  Speaker 2: happens before that? So he creates a prequel of the
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  Speaker 2: king riding a donkey into the city. But what's really remarkable,
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  Speaker 2: you know? You have that. So that's the parent text
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  Speaker 2: and the grandparent text, if you will. And then the
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  Speaker 2: child text is all the citations in the New Testament.
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  Speaker 2: But what Zachariah does is he has the control text
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  Speaker 2: back there in Genesis forty nine, the promise of the
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  Speaker 2: Judah King, but he mixes it together with what we
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  Speaker 2: call Isaiah sixty two eleven, daughter Zion, see here comes
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  Speaker 2: your king righteous. But then maybe the most remarkable thing,
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  Speaker 2: and I hadn't noticed this until Mark Bodis commentary on
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  Speaker 2: Zachariah came out. But the king is saved riding on
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  Speaker 2: a donkey, saved passive, and so it's a very remarkable thing.
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  Speaker 2: But digging around just a little bit, all of a sudden, Wow,
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  Speaker 2: it's the song of David where he talks about that
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  Speaker 2: the humble are the ones that you have saved. And
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  Speaker 2: so you find the very same language out of David's mouth,
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  Speaker 2: of all things, and so we can see that, you know,
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  Speaker 2: there's the main interpretive blend between Isaiah sixty two and
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  Speaker 2: Genesis forty nine, but then there's these minor themes that
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  Speaker 2: really enrich it in a really surprising way, where we
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  Speaker 2: have this humble saved king coming in on the donkey,
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  Speaker 2: and of course the gospel writers use this in very
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  Speaker 2: remarkable ways. It's not quoted in Mark, but we find
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  Speaker 2: right this is a prelude to Jesus coming into the
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  Speaker 2: city talking about how the the vine growers beat up
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  Speaker 2: the sun and kill him and toss him out of
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  Speaker 2: the city, and then he is crucified as the king
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  Speaker 2: of the Jews. So it's just really remarkable how the
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  Speaker 2: the deep context drives forward and provides such a rich way,
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  Speaker 2: theological way for the New Testament authors to present the
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  Speaker 2: Gospel of Christ.
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  Speaker 1: What I find fascinating about all of that, aside from
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  Speaker 1: all the different interconnections, is if you think through, you know,
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  Speaker 1: if you thought through your big ten texts in the
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  Speaker 1: Old Testament, that probably doesn't make the list, right. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: you know, Genesis forty nine is not one that we
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  Speaker 1: spend a ton of time on, and you know, Zechariah
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  Speaker 1: is is sort of not a book that most of us,
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  Speaker 1: you know, we spend a whole lot of time on.
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  Speaker 1: And yet that scene of Jesus riding in on the donkey,
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  Speaker 1: I mean have a whole Sunday dedicated to that, right,
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  Speaker 1: And so you have the New Testament authors really picking
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  Speaker 1: up these fairly nuanced, sort of Old Testament texts and
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  Speaker 1: understandings that are by no means like these big major
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  Speaker 1: ideas that we would necessarily see in you know, when
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  Speaker 1: we're reading the Old Testament. They're pulling these little strands
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  Speaker 1: together in pretty intricate ways and then showing how Jesus's
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  Speaker 1: life is the extension of that patterning.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're right that our favorite texts in
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: the Bible are different than the biblical author's favorite texts, right,
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  Speaker 2: because some of the ones that we really don't spend
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  Speaker 2: much time and they go to again and again. And
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  Speaker 2: the way it works is the more that a text
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  Speaker 2: is executed by authoritative exegetes as scriptural authors, the more
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  Speaker 2: it has to offer. So it's not ever depleted. It
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  Speaker 2: actually builds up in theological and exogenical connotations that later
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  Speaker 2: biblical authors can take advantage of in more and more
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  Speaker 2: subtle ways. They can do bigger things with less work
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  Speaker 2: as the advancement of revelation moves forward. Yeah, so that's
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  Speaker 2: one one case where we kind of go down from
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  Speaker 2: right to Zachariah down to Genesis. But there's other cases
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  Speaker 2: where this vertical context we call it a trace.
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  Speaker 3: So that.
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  Speaker 2: And I just want to use a clear example to
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  Speaker 2: not be confusing. And I know you're one of your professors.
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  Speaker 2: Greg Biale did a lot with this. He talks about how,
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  Speaker 2: you know, there's this text that the New Testament quotes,
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  Speaker 2: and the New Testament doesn't quote the other Old Testament
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  Speaker 2: texts that quote it, but they're actually controlling what's going on.
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  Speaker 2: So for example, in as we're chapter one, there's some
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  Speaker 2: the people are coming back to the land, and so
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  Speaker 2: there's this typology of the First Exodus that's sort of
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: in the background as that people come back in a
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  Speaker 2: new Exodus to Judah. And what the author of as
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Reniam I does not do doesn't bother quoting Isaiah and
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  Speaker 2: the New Exodus, and so we kind of have the
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  Speaker 2: same thing going on in the New Testament. The New
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  Speaker 2: Exodus of Isaiah provides this sort of way of using
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  Speaker 2: the original Exodus typologically. And so there's just this reading
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  Speaker 2: of Jesus the Messiah right up against Torah. And we
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  Speaker 2: call it a trace because we can't prove that it's
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  Speaker 2: really Isaiah on the mind because it's not quoted, but
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  Speaker 2: it's really a control text or a control set of
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  Speaker 2: texts that sort of is part of that vertical context.
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  Speaker 2: And maybe it's I don't want to get too carried
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  Speaker 2: away with this metaphor, but it's like if there's the
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  Speaker 2: grandfather text and then there's these uncles and cousin texts
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  Speaker 2: out there, if.
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  Speaker 3: You will no, I mean it makes sense.
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  Speaker 1: It feels like to me the traces are almost like
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  Speaker 1: an extension of the horizontal context. So when I think
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  Speaker 1: of it, I almost think of it like Saturn, the
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: planet Saturn. You have the core planet, and then you
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: have the rings that are going around it, and these
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  Speaker 1: other texts that are sort of surrounding the planet, or
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: are those texts that are flipping around and they make
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Saturn what it is now, there's obviously a near context
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  Speaker 1: in which all of those passengers are used, and.
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  Speaker 3: We want to pay attention to that.
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  Speaker 1: But the reality is that we can't get so caught
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  Speaker 1: up that we get myopically focused only on the six
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  Speaker 1: verses that surround this thing. There has to be a
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  Speaker 1: recognition that there's an interpretive trajectory in the Old Testament
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  Speaker 1: that's using this theme, these verses, these ideas that are
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: swimming around that's being pulled across into the New Testament.
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  Speaker 1: And to your point, we have to be careful with
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  Speaker 1: that because if it's not quoted, it's easy for us
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  Speaker 1: to import something that maybe isn't there. And so I
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  Speaker 1: think there's a sense in which the sense making sort
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  Speaker 1: of is this coherent? Does it make sense? Maybe a
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  Speaker 1: good question is is it plausible? You know, is probably
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  Speaker 1: where we land on a lot of those trace texts.
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  Speaker 1: Is that a fair assessment in your mind?
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  Speaker 2: I think so, and I think you're getting it. The
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: more important thing, and if I were to summarize back
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: to what you're saying, if we're to understand what the
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: New Testament is doing with the Old, we really really
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: need to know the Old Testament, because that's what the
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: New Testament authors, that's what Christ, that's what these teachers
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: are doing. But we can also, I guess, be helped
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  Speaker 2: by analogy in more subtle and difficult ways. So let's
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  Speaker 2: say we were just talking about I can use an example.
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  Speaker 2: In the beginning of Mark one, two and three, he
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  Speaker 2: cites Isaiah, but then he's really doing Malachi, who's using
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  Speaker 2: Isaiah and really doing something with Exodus twenty three, twenty
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  Speaker 2: and twenty one. Yeah, and so there's this So it's
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  Speaker 2: this rich vertical context, but there's so many views of
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  Speaker 2: why would he say Isaiah says, but then kind of
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: blend together these various.
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: Texts, imlay and yeah, yeah.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: The top two views are well, it's a mistake, that's
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: one view, and the other top view is well, this
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: is this second Temple Jewish thing, right, Well, okay, those
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: are fine ideas, but this happens in the Old Testament. So,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: for example, in Second Chronicles thirty six, verse twenty one,
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: the chronicler cites Jeremiah, but then blends the seventy years
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: of Jeremiah with what we would call a passage here
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: in Leviticus chapter twenty six. So he's he's citing one,
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: but really his U U and I guide us with
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: the seventy years. But really it's the covenental language of
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Leviticu's twenty six, which is playing the bigger role in
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: the destruction of Jerusalem there and so this and this
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: is a particularly important text out. That's why I wanted
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: to bring this up. Is this fulfillment formula there in
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Second Chronicles thirty six, verse twenty one. It's maybe, uh,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: let's just pretend Mark was written first, and so he's
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: this very iconic beginning. Well, it seems like Matthew might
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: have caught wind of this, because when we look at
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: the fulfillment formula in Matthew, he's, yeah, I'm gonna read
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: this sea from from the Bible. I mark this ahead
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: of time. Okay, this is Second Chronicles thirty six, twenty one.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: He's using the word fulfill not as a call but
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: a pel So it's that's what you have to do
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: to fulfill a word, not just a time, but to
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: actualize a word into reality. So the chronicler says, to
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: fulfill the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Let me follow this right up with Matthew chapter one.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: said through the prophet Matthew chapter two, and so it's
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: fulfilled what the Lord said through the prophet. Here Matthew's
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: kind of coming right off of this. That's okay, yeah, no,
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: that's that mixes it up because I'm going on on
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: and on with this boring converce.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: But no, no, you're good talking about grammar.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: But the shift to the pl is so significant. But
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: that's all of a sudden. What we see Matthew doing
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: is he's talking about fulfilling a word, and he's he's
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: looking at it right off the same sort of plane,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: if you will, as what we saw in the beginning
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: part of Mark. Mark's not using that language, but Matthew
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: is coming along and using the language from the same place.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: And just to give everybody at home, the cow and
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: the pl or forms in Hebrews, so you can think
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: of him as different forms of the same word, and
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: when they're in that particular form, they can take on
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: a different meaning. And so for instance, there's another form
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: called the hithhil, and the hithil often has more of
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: a forceful, assertive or causative sort of nuance to it.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Not in every case, you don't want to stare type
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: these things, but just give an example. The pl has
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: that same sort of strengthening to it. But in this case,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: what you're suggesting is that the cow, which is sort
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: of the base form we could think of it as
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: in Hebrew, is really talking about the fulfillment of an
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: act doing something, versus the pl, which has the nuance
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: of actually getting something done.
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: That's been said is that.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And especially the call form, the vanilla form
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: yes of fulfill Malt is used to say a duration
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: of time. So that's what Daniel he's thinking about.
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: The seventy duration of time, got it?
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Whereas the pl, which is a more intensive it's it's
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: it's rare for that word to be used in fulfill.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: It's only about five times in the Old Testament, two
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: of them and then two are parallel. But there we
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: have a word isn't separate like so it's not like, Okay,
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: here's a protection, here's a conclusion. Because it's God's word,
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: it initiates the reality of what it speaks about. God's
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: prophetic word binds reality to itself, so that because of
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: what he said has to come to past if you will,
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: it is enacted into reality. And so the pl catches
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: that sense, I sit, an actual word can be fulfilled,
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: it can be enacted into reality.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, that's really helpful, and I think it makes
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: more sense of the Metheian use of fulfillment, particularly when
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: we get into the odd ones in Matthew, which we
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: get probably turned to. So there are a lot of
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Old Testament quotations in the New Testament that are relatively
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: transparent to understand. Right these are what we normally think
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: of as maybe rightly or wrongly, here's a prediction, and
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: then there is a there's this moment where we see
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: that prediction worked out in a very specific way. And
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: I think that's overly simplistic, but a lot of times
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: we can see those things and they're a little easier
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: for people to grasp. The reality is that I think
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of times what we're looking at is more
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: of a patterning that's coming into focus as we get
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: into the New Testament, and that's what opens it up
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: to something we talked about at the beginning of the podcast,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: like the Hoseiah quotation in Matthew, which is difficult to
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: even understand as a prophecy other than it comes out
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: of Hoseia.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: So maybe we can talk through that a little bit.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's a really good example. That's probably
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: the textbook example that a lot of people go to.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: And I think that, I mean, you said it. We
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: can imagine somebody buys a new Bible and there's a
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: page in this new Bible with Versus in the left
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: column and Versus in the right column, and it was like, wow,
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: it's an incredible page, and it really brings a lot
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: of comfort to the reader to know that everything lines up.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: And as long as the reader doesn't look those verses up,
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: everything's okay, everything's great. Yeah, it's when the reader starts
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: to look things up there like there's something wrong with
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: my Bible. And you know, how come it's like this
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: because there's actually very few that line up the way
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: we want them to. And even those, if we prob
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: a little deeper, like we were just talking about Zacharian nine. Well,
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: that that's poetry in this, so it only there's a
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: poetic shaped reality that makes it work. It wouldn't have
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: had to quite be that way. So when we look
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: back at jose eleven, he's Josea is looking backward at
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: the Exodus. I mean, you're alluding to that. There's no
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: prediction there at all, But he kind of mixes the
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: language what we would call Deuteronomy chapter seven, verse eight,
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: which begins, but it was because YAHWEH loved you Israel
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: and so on, and brought you up out of Egypt.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: And so what Joseah does is mixes that with well,
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: this is what most people think anyway. I think it's
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: probably right that in Exodus four that I know that
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Pharaoh is not going to let my son go, so
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: I'm going to kill his son because you'll let my
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: son go. So jose sort of mixes together this this
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: loved Israel with my son. But what troubles I guess
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: us when we look at Joseiah is he's looking backward,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: and so there's no prediction there. So where does Matthew
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: get off saying? So this was to fulfill what was
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: said by the prophet, and I just read that a
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: minute ago, which Matthew practically takes right out of Second
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Chronicles thirty six. Right, Well, Matthew is not only using
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: the fulfillment formula in a Chronicles like way. When we
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: go a little bit further into Hosea, we realize, oh,
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Joseiah is often going backward and typologically reading historical facts
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: coming forward. So in Hoseiah chapter twelve, he does this
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: very thing with Jacob's life, very famously goes through a
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: series of allusions to Jacob, and there's no prediction there.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: This is a narrative about this ornery guy who kind
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: of deceives people and wrestles with people and so forth.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: But Hoseiah reads that forward and talks about how these
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: people who at Bethel are worshiping this idol of their God,
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: they need to find Yahweh there. And so what Hoseiah
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: is doing is he's, or we'll say, Matthew Matthews reading
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Hoseiah in a very Hosea like way, somebody who's this
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: prophet who's looking at historical narratives with no prediction but
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: seeing how these teachings reach forward. And Matthew's doing he's
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: he's reading Hoseah with the grain, so to speak. He's
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: doing with Hoseah what Hosea does with Hoseiah.
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I think
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: even some of the more straightforward ones. The one I've
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: worked with the most and the people tend to ask
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: me to ask me about the most is the virgin birth,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: you know, Isaiah seven fourteen, and I think you have
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: something very similar going on there that that Matthew is
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: not looking at this as if there's a you know,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: the way it's normally thought through is there's a sign
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: that makes sense, you know, in the context that's given
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: to a Has, and then there's a this is a
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: further sign, sort of a you know in Christ. My
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: reading of it is, you know, one of the worst
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: things you could possibly get when you're going into war
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: as a baby and so and so for a HAS,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: it's like, here's your sign, a HAS, You're going to
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: get a baby.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: And the bad thing about this baby is that it
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: ain't gonna help you fight, like you're done.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: But the good thing about the baby is that it's
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: going to grow up, and so all is not lost.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Like the baby represents no help in the presence but
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: hope for the future. And I think that Matthew is
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: playing with something like that when he cites the isaiahsm.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Fourteen and the virgin birth. Is that what we're supposed
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: to conjure up almost is that look at this vulnerable
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: child who is now the hope of the world kind
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: of idea. But it's not a one to one that
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: whole conversation about al Mah, which is young woman and
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Hebrew and doesn't necessarily connote.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: Virgin, at least in my reading of it. And then
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: you have the more.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: Specific word for virgin use in Greek in Matthew. This
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: is very confusing for people because if we read fulfillment
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: in terms of it was said back here and it
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: needs to be completed up here, now we have a
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: misunderstanding of how that can come over and the ways
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: that the New Testament writer.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: Is really using that. So I don't know whether you
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: want to comment on that too, but it just.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's exactly the point about fulfillment is
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: sort of we're we have a certain prediction fulfillment sort
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: of mechanism in the English language, and so we would
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: look at Hoseiah at eleven one there's no prediction here,
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: so how can it be fulfilled?
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: And it's a little bit different. There is actually a
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: prediction in Isaiah seven, but it's that's another one of
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: these ones where I think one of the things that
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: helps us is it's to y'all. Right, it's a signed
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: to y'all. It's not a sign to you personally A has,
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: but to y' all the collective that A has represents.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: And so then there's something bigger that we can see
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: even as but I don't want to trouble your readers,
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: but as the editor of the Book of Isaiah put
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: together what we call Isaiah eight through ten right on
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: the back of Isaiah seven, then all of a sudden,
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: we're reading this am Manuel together with the child that
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: is come for us, and so there's this bigger reality
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: for y'all. Then maybe just the trouble of sign child
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: for a has personally you brought up really well.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that's a great way to
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: think of it, you know, when we think about this,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: because I do think the prophecy fulfillment sort of a language,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: especially in English, conveys something very very specific, and I've
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: always sort of opted to talk about that patterning that
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: comes across it's it's very clear to what you'd read
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: in like the Book of Hebrews, the copies and shadows,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: that these are gesturing forward to something more, but not
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: necessarily one more thing. Now they find their ultimacy in Christ.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: But you can watch that advance toward Christ, and you
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: can see even that you know it takes on now
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: that even Christ is the substance. It's not as if
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: these things have lost complete meaning.
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: And so you have that sort of beautiful patterned progression
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: moving forward.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: And that's the way I've tended to think about prophecy
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: and fulfillment, or at least try to help people understand it.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: A little differently. But I'm wondering if you have a
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: better way.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: No, I think that what we might want to do
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: is expect sort of a richer and more dynamic sort
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: of when we go back to the Old Testament, expect
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: more of it. So even in Matthew chapter two, a
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: little further on, there's the quotation of from Jeremiah thirty one,
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: where after the slaughter of the Bethlehem children, Rachel refuses
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: to be comforted. Now we go back to a text
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: like that, though there's this again grandparent texts waiting for
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: us because what Jeremiah's doing when he says he's being
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: a little bit poetic here, right, Rachel's weeping for her children.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: He's talking about this exile moment, and she's refusing to
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: be comforted because they are no more. Well, that language
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: is out of Genesis, and so we have this. It's
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: Jacob who, when he sees the bloody coat, refuses to
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: be comforted. And it's the children who remember that Jacob says,
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: my son is no more. So there's this really something
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: rich going on with uh. We think of Bethlehem, right
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: is where Rachel dies, and she's being her typical selfishself. Right,
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: She's she's not crying. She's crying not because she's going
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: to die, but but she well because she's going to
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: excuse me. But she names her child after this not
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: a good name, because she always gives children, right, Joseph
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: is I hope I have another kid? And Benjamin is
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: well Benny by child of my like, she's not worried
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: about the kids. She's giving the kids names about her
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: contest with her sister Leah. But anyway, that the point
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: here is that we shouldn't have like this checklist thing.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: And I think that that that page in our Bible
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: with the things on the left and right, attempts to say, okay,
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: here's another one check the children are weeping, there's a
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: fulfillment of Jeremiah thirty one. Well, I think we need
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: to be invited backwards and say, there's something really rich
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: going on here. This is a very surprising thing that
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Jeremiah did by naming Rachel, which is the perfect tag
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: for this bethelhen trouble later, but then actually referring to
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: the morning of Jacob for a son that actually wasn't
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: lost yet, a son that he was going to get
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: back one day. So I mean, there's a real richness
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: that we cut ourselves off from when we're worried about
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: just checking the box of prediction fulfillment. And again, it
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: probably only works that way when we make these pages
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: and study Bibles. It doesn't actually work that way in
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: the Bible.
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: It does.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: I think you bring up a really excellent point, because
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: I think it cultivates a wrong orientation that becomes problematic
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: when we hit certain texts.
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: So I'm thinking specifically of one Corinthians.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Seven and the way that Paul uses the creation there
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: to talk about man being made in God's image and
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: being the glory of God and the woman being the.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: Glory of man.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: And you just sit back and you're like, well, Paul,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: weren't you know all men created in God's image, male
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: and female?
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: He created them? Like what are you doing there?
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: And if we're so stuck on the cross reference, like
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: it goes from here to here, that's a real tension point.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: If we're willing to let Paul be more poetic as
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Jeremiah as being more poetic, as joseas being more poetic,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: as Matthew's being more poetic, if we're allowing him some
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: freedom to do with this text something that.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: Is drawing for the whole tradition, not just.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Going back and citing one particular verse or trying to
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: deny one doctor or another.
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: It gets a little easier to reach.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: It's not like we it's not at all smooth out
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: and there's no other problems, but it does allow you
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: to make some more sense of those texts, as opposed
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: to saying, well, it has to be this way because
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Paul's saying it about creation, and there's a creative order,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: and so obviously this is just what it is. That
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: First Corinthian seven passage is one that I've I've studied
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: a little bit more than most, and you just sort
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: of have to go with Paul a little bit. You
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: have to trust that he's you know, what he's doing
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: makes sense to him because a very difficult text. But
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I think the cross referencing and that
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: sort of strict prophecy fulfillment or you know, this notion
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: that if he's quoting a normative text in the Old Testament,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: it's obviously you know, sort of sanch Or Sagington the
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: New I think those sort of tendencies need to be
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: exploded a bit.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that you're doing something really great.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: I appreciate that you bring me onto your pro today
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: to talk about New Testament Extra Jesus, because I think that,
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: like this book, Old Testament use of Old Testament in parallel,
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: it's obvious to people in Old Testament, And if there
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: is such a thing as people interested in the Old Testament,
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: it's obvious what it's used for there. But what's really
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: important and not done enough is how the Old Testament
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: enriches our understanding of the New Testament. Because this is
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: the go too. This is where the New Testament authors
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: lived as teachers, and so they're not doing something weird.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: It's only weird if we don't understand the Old Testament.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: They're doing very straightforward exegetical theological maneuvers within the framework
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: of the Old Testament that has been going on for
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: a thousand years before their days, and they're they're bringing
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: that forward to the glory of God. You know, for
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: us in the Church, we just chopped the New Testament off.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: Then it seems very strange because we're trying to say, well,
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: how does this early church writings relate to my life
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: here in the modern world. Well, we need to connect
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: ourselves back into the vibrant biblical framework that you know,
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: we might call it the Bible of Jesus that comes
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: forward into the Gospel of Christ.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: Maybe one last question before we end here. But one
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: of the things that I've noticed is we do you know,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: as I see people doing Old Testament use in the
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: New there's a claim that says, well, the New Testament
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: writers can do this because they're the New Testament writers,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: But it isn't a methodology that we should adopt. You
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: I think you may have referenced this at the beginning
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: of the episode when you're talking about their Hermi Munich
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: versus our hermon Mudic. I think this is probably part
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: of what you were referring to, but maybe not. But
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: this notion that while they were inspired, so they can
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: do whatever they want. So when Paul does the play
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: and Galatians, you know, the Child the Promise versus the
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Child of the Flesh, and does the whole Hagar versus
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: Sarahi thing, you know, it's like, that's something Paul can
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: pull up. But we should really stay away from those
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: exegetical gymnastics, like we're gonna pull muscles all over the place.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: How do you think about that? And our need to
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: have a degree of rigor in the way that we
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: look at the text and understand the text, but also
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: a degree of play a looseness to it so that
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: we're not missing things that we really should be connecting.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I have a little book that I put out
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: as a co author book with a New Testament guy
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three or twenty twenty four. I don't
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: remember well how to study the Bible, use of the Bible,
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: and it's trying to reframe this whole thing that it's not.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: We can't just do the New Testament use of the
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: Old or we come up with this all this weird stuff.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: We have to work in the framework of the Bible's
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: use of the Bible, because that's what the New Testament
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: authors are doing. They're not doing something new, they're not
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: doing this one off. And so the claim that we
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: make there and that I make, is we just use
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: plain sense, execess plain sentence reading. That's what the Biblical
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: authors did, That's what we should do. And it's when
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: we start getting weird because we've cut off the Old
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: Testament that we have problems. So one good example is
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of use of this term by New
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: Testament use of the Old scholarship census plentier, which just
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: means fuller meaning yes. And so the whole point of
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: that is the Biblical authors don't know what they're saying
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: because there's a fuller meaning that God has in mind.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: So the Biblical authors are saying one thing, but God
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: has in mind something else, and he has this fuller
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: meaning that we can only see in retrospect. But really,
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: the even the better versions of that site, well, the
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: fuller meaning is the full conon of the Bible. Well, okay,
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: but no Biblical author, no New Testament author, had the
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: full canon. So that is to say, no Biblical author
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: understood what they're talking about.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: So it's crazy.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: And so I think just to to say, when I'm
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: saying plain SENSEX to Jesus, to be fair and to
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: kind of go with what you're saying. I don't think
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: that I would just want to say we need to
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: be looser. Right. It's not that we're playing fast and loose,
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: but that is, we need to read the Bible the
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: way the Biblical authors read the Bible. We need to
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: treat the Bible the way they did. And so we've
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: looked at a few examples in this episode. Come to
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: hose On, Hosea's terms, come to Chronicles on Chronicles terms
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: come to Matthew Mark, and I think those are the
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: main pastor of Hebrews on their own terms. And so
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: it's not a looseness relative to say the rules of
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: plain sense. It's plain senses, reading with the grain, reading
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: Joseiah the way Josea reads scripture. That's plain SENSEX of Jesus.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: So I think I think you're kindred, but I just
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: in my classroom. I'm not telling my students, Oh no,
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: just do whatever you want. I mean, that's not what
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: I'm saying. I'm saying, study the Bible and do what
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: they do.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was interesting, I will say when I taught hermaonutics,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: you know, we often we can define hermaeutics as the
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: art and science of Biblical interpretation, let's say. And I
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: would almost always start with the art, and I'd try
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: to help them understand because I found when I was
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: teaching them the science of it, sort of the more
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: structured pieces they had trouble getting out of that. But
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: if I could go to passages that demonstrated the art
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: of this that you know, you're not just looking at
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: the primary colors and isolation, you're actually seeing a full
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: painting done and going, look, this is what we can.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: Create, they caught it a lot better.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: And then they could understand why they're using the techniques
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: that they're using because they have a vision of what
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: they're getting to. And passages like that with you know,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: Paul Galatians, or even some of the things in Revelation,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: you know, Hebrews.
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: The way they're using these.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: Old Testament texts was just fascinating, and I think they
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: hope they caught a glimpse of what that art really is,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: which is, as you're saying, a real deep understanding of
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: the Old Testament and growing and deep understanding of the
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: Old Testament to understand the New Testament.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and I think that to your point then
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: it's it might seem like a looseness compared to yes,
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: sort of the sort of rigid approach that we might
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: take as we're trying to be conservative and faithful to
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: the text, but we're using we're imposing modern logic on it.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: We're not getting into the literature of the scriptures and
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: seeing that logic move forward. And so so it's in
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: plain sense, Exe Jesus, but in respect to what God
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: has been pleased to reveal by the Spirit of God.
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: We had Norman Wurzba on the program and he talked
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: a little bit about mastery in the two different senses
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: of the word mastery, and it just strikes me that
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: this is sort of what we're both talking about. But
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: you know, there's a sense of mastery where we can
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: have a dominating relationship, you know, we can force something
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: on someone else. But his understanding of mastery was what
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: you do when you try to learn the guitar, right,
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: you approach the guitar, and this guitar is capable of
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: making this amazing music.
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: In your role as gaining mastery of.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: It is to learn how to do that, use it
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: on its own terms, and be really really good at
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: it so that when you play music, people actually want
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: to listen to it. And it seems to me that
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: that is the sort of thing we're kind of talking
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: about with the Old Testament with a New Testament, that
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: the development of mastery is a working with the text
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: and drawing out from the text what's already there so
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: that everything makes more and more and more sense and
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: we really do understand than what it is that the
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: text is trying to tell us. I think that's a
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: playing an instrument. You kind of get that idea of mastery.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: And I think if we viewed not that I want
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: to view the text as an instrument, but you get
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: the analogy, that's the same sort of mastery we're trying
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: to develop over the text.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we have to conform ourselves to the rules
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: of the game, so to speak. Yeah, because you know,
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: we all cringe when somebody's picking up a violin and
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: a bow for the first time. Okay, but you know,
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: you go to a symphony with somebody that does it
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: as a career and you're like, it's incredible. You can't
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: imagine how does what's the difference? You know? So it's
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: it's I remember it was a faculty meeting back in
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: the nineteen nineties and the physical ed professor he was
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: trying to make an illustration, and so he was claiming
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: in the faculty meeting that he could play one note
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: of the piano just as well as this world class
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: musician that we worked on a faculty with. And I'm
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: sitting there as a young faculty member saying, no, you couldn't, Like,
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: I don't think you could play one note on the
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: piano as good as this world renowned musician. You're comparing
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: yourself to it. Because he was just making an illustration,
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: try to break things down, and I agreed with his
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: larger point, just I disagreed with no. I mean, there's
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: there's there's something really wonderful about somebody that has that
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: kind of master that you're talking about.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: I agree, I agree, Well, Gary, this has been fantastic.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: These are the kind of conversations. I love I love
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: trying to get at what the Bible means and how
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: we understand what the Bible means, and so really appreciated
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: your work in this area, and this has been a
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: great conversation.
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: So thank you very much for being here today.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me on for these several things.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: And I guess I guess it's time for me to
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: move out of your studio now we wrapped.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Up, Yes, it's about that time, but you're always welcome back.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: So thanks very much for being here for these series,
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: and thanks very much for the work you're doing. Check
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: out everything Gary does. You can find him. I'm gonna
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: to send you to his Carpenter's student website.
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: So it's Carpenter's student dot Substack dot com.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: Well student dot com, Carpenter's.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: Student dot com, my apologies, Carpenter's student dot com.
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: So that's two s's in the middle. Carpenter's plural student
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: starts with an S.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: That link will be in the show notes, and we'll
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: have links to Gary's book as well. I think once
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: this episode airs, this book will at least be available
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: for pre order, if not available for actual order. It's
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: a two volume work but you can also find a
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: lot of other Gary's works here and we've got those
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: links in the show notes in Amazon and so just
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: encourage you to check out his work at Carpenter's student
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: dot com as well as his books that are available
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: and those links are in the show notes. So thanks
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: everybody for being with us, Thanks again, Gary for being here,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: and we'll see all in the next episode of Thinking Christian.
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: Take Care,