Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print.
Intro
Welcome to another episode of the Can I Say This At Church podcast, so thankful that you're here. Before we get started in today's episode, I want to make a brief appeal to your patronage. This podcast is supported completely and 100% by you. If you have in any way felt moved or challenged or impacted or enjoyed what you've heard, please consider going to our Patreon page, you can find the link in the show notes. You can also find that link at our website, just click on the Patreon button. Your donation in any amount is so helpful and I am greatly appreciative for it.
My guest today is Jared by us little bit about Jared, he spent over a decade as a teaching pastor and Professor near Philadelphia. In 2013. He he launched the experience Institute with a friend of his Jared is also the co author of genesis for normal people with veterans. His work with veterans continues to today he co hosts a podcast that I can't recommend highly enough the Bible for Normal People. I had a blast talking with Jared about an inerrancy and scripture authority. So let's do it.
Seth
So, Jared, thank you so much for for taking the time this evening to be here.
Jared
Happy to join
Seth
Yeah, so I thought it would be pertinent to give those that are unfamiliar with with you just a bit of your background, a little bit of your story with ending with what it is that you do now.
Jared
Yeah, so I'll try to keep it really short. But I grew up in Texas in a Southern Baptist home and actually is charismatic and Southern Baptist. So my dad, very southern Baptist and my mom very charismatic. So my grandmother was a kind of itinerant, charismatic preacher. And yeah, and then actually, in high school, started going to a Presbyterian Church on my own. And then went to Liberty University, as one does, I guess, whenever you grew up in Texas, Southern Baptist, and so went to Liberty but was a I was a philosophy major. And then, all through this time had wanted to go to Westminster seminary. For most of my when I was a teenager, I wanted to go get a PhD in presuppositional apologetics, I wanted to get a PhD in being able to argue really well that Christianity was right, and everyone else was wrong, I was pretty pumped about that. And then I got to seminary and realized I really hated that whole idea. And at the same time, fell in love with the Biblical text, and realize that the Biblical text is a lot more nuanced than being able to package it really neatly, and then defend it, and argue for it in some systematic way. And, but that felt more rich to me and more creative. And I really, it changed how I live my life and kind of change how I perceived things, became a pastor, during that time, as well as a pastor for about 10 years. And then went to be a professor, I taught philosophy, primarily, some Biblical Studies at a university out west where my wife was from, and yeah, and so it's through that one of my professors was Peter Enns, at Westminster, and he and I got to be good friends, we are kind of going through a crisis of faith and more practically a crisis of losing your jobs over some things you believe, in some sense. Together, we are going through that at the same time. And so we were able to really connect and and ended up writing a book together Genesis for Normal People. And then a few years later, that sparked the idea to start a podcast, the Bible for normal people, so that’s what I do now.
Seth
I greatly enjoy that podcast,. I listened to one…I'm well behind. But there was one the other day that I listened to, and I think it's like Episode Four. And I think y'all are in the 30s Monalitry, and just and something I never heard, I also went to liberty. And that was definitely not in the coursework. So or at least nothing, I read.
I listened to it twice. And I was like, What is this? This has got to be made up. And then I started researching a little more. I was like, how have I never, why have I never, been told this?
Jared
When did you go to liberty?
Seth
I graduated in 2005.
Jared
Maybe too!
Seth
Okay. So yeah, so we must have seen Yeah, I was there when DeMoss was still ugly and one story and I graduated when it well, it was still ugly, but it was multiple stories.
Jared
We were there at the same time, we might have seen each other.
Seth
We may have, I was in the communications department…I don’t remember…is it Professor Beck? And that's probably not right. There was a bald, little, old, Man,
Jared
David Beck would have been in the religion department. Yeah,
Seth
I remember being horrible at that class. I did not apply myself in philosophy. But that was just that, that freshman sophomore level philosophy. The topic at hand, and I wanted to discuss biblical inerrancy or a literal interpretation of the Bible. Growing up, I'm also from Texas, grew up in Midland, Texas, went to a independent Baptist Church. I was I was raised that the Bible is what it is, and it is 100% true, and everything that it is, and if it's not in the Bible, it's sorry; it's just not true. Which didn't sit well then but I didn't know how to voice it. And, and so I was hoping maybe if you could give a difference of or is there a difference between biblical and inerrancy and biblical little literalism?
Jared 6:54
Yeah, I think technically, those would be different in the sense that biblical inerrancy is the belief that the Bible is true, and all that it affirms. So that that usually is the way that it's described. Now, they've added that kind of ending there a truth in all that it affirms. So we need to know, what is the Bible actually affirming, and then we would say it's true in that way. And so that's Inerrancy. Literalism is actually a hermeneutics or it's a way that we approach the text. So it's a how we read it, and you could read it literally. And it could be true, or you could read it figuratively, and it could be true. So when we say things like, God is a rock, we don't take that literally, we take that figuratively. And it's true that God is a rock and the way that the Bible is affirming that the way that it is attempting to say that and so even if you're inerrantist, you would say that a lot, maybe many, I would say many inerrantists just wouldn't read the Bible, literally. So it doesn't go hand in hand, if that makes sense. So there are so many scientists who would say that Genesis 123 was meant to be read as allegory, or it wasn't meant to be literally how the world was created. But there are inerrant in the sense that they're saying, but what's true in the way the Bible's affirming it, meaning the way it was intended to be read was figuratively as mythology or as a story. And so that's true in the what it's trying to affirm there. Does that make any sense?
Seth
It does, I actually wrote down because I knew that you'd written that book, and so I wrote down a few Genesis questions, and you brought it up, so I'll just go into it. Um, I spoke with another friend that's currently graduating from Liberty, although externally, and we've gone round and round on it has to be six days, evolution is not anywhere close to true. And so when I pressed him on, well, why does Genesis one not work with Genesis two? He tried to make the case that no Genesis one one is the macro version of creation, and Genesis two is just a zoomed in version of day six. I was like, Well, how are what? That doesn't make any sense. It just so how do you?
Why do people read it that way?
Jared
Yeah, I mean, it really is what we would call I think, I don't I don't remember what the term is. But I think it's called like the hermeneutical spiral, right? So we always, when we're reading the Bible, we're always coming at it with preconceived ideas of what it's supposed to be. And hopefully, the you know, the Bible also challenges those preconceived notions. But we're always kind of a chicken and the egg, right? So I'm always coming to the Bible with a framework of understanding that I've been taught since I was a kid, or that my pastors taught me or my parents have taught me about how I'm supposed to read this book.
And then I'm always going to read it that way. But there may be instances, right, you may be able to point to some instances in your life where it doesn't work. It's sort of like a glitch in the matrix, right? You're like, wait, wait, that's not that's not working. So then you shift that model a little bit. And now you read the text that way, but it's always this back and forth, where the Bible is shaping how we read it, and how we read it is shaping the text. And so, you know, for Genesis, often we've been taught, if you grew up in traditions like we did, that it has to be x y&z it has to be literally true, it has to be historically accurate. And so you will do a lot of things and go through a lot of phases and mental gymnastics to make sure that it upholds that model.
And so then, you know, over time, what we learned, right, this guy named Thomas Koon wrote this book on paradigm shifts in scientific revolution. And basically what he says is, eventually, you have enough data that doesn't fit the model anymore. And then you make a, you're sort of forced to make a radical shift and how you read it. So that was sort of how it happened for me with Genesis where, you know, things like, there's clearly two creation stories, and they don't match one has the order of creation, one way the other has a different way, how men and women are men and women are created are different in those texts, in the Hebrew, they use different words for God in those two creation stories. And so you can kind of get away with one of those things like you could explain one of those things away. And first, for a lot of people, they could explain all of it away, like your friend, right. So there's, it's compelling, that's a good explanation for him or her. And, you know, that make sense? About It requires a paradigm shift. Like the data is just not making sense anymore. I need a new model to make sense of everything that's going on.
Seth
So is that what it was for you then was it Genesis or was it something else that made you I guess, the things that up to where you had to shift away from, from where you were?
Jared
Yeah, I think Genesis, Jonah….
Genesis, and Jonah probably would be the two texts that Yeah, created a paradigm shift, shift for me in, in, in seminary, we went through Genesis 1-3, verse by verse translating the Hebrew. And so every day, we were just slogging through that thing, one word at a time. And yet through that there was just a lot of my eyes were open to a lot of things that were going on in the text.
Seth
I read a quote from it's probably a bad quote, but or paraphrase quote from Walter Brueggemann, and you talked about it a minute ago, he said that something along the lines that any passionate interpretation of Scripture and and I would hope that that's how everyone reads it is going to be shot through with my own self vested interest. And so how, if I'm reading it that way, and I'm allowed to read it that way, how do I make sure that what I am thinking I'm reading? Is anywhere close to correct?
Jared
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of things. One, I think that's the really importance of what I would call theological humility, and openness to understanding we could always be wrong, and reading the text in community. So you know, I'm reading right now Gaffney’s, introduction to a womanist biblical interpretation. And she's has a different take on some of these texts. I'm learning from her learning from my Sunday school class, every Sunday on learning from my faith community and my pastor, I'm learning from conversations that we have on the Bible for normal people. So being in community is really important. Because if it's just me, and Jesus, and me and my Bible, and I can make it means whatever I want, right? And that becomes a dangerous way of reading the text. But if I'm open to that accountability from my religious community, where I've say, Hey, tell me if I'm really off base here.
And another way of accountability is church tradition. So there's a huge library of how Biblical scholars, church fathers, monks, the Patristics read these texts, and I always like to sort of try to trace some lineage back to the church fathers or, you know, finding it somewhere and saying, Hey, I'm not out. I'm out to lunch on this. I'm not doing it for my own ego. This seems like a valid way of approaching things.
Seth
Was, circling back to that was, was a literal, quote, unquote, the way Liberty would read. Well, I that's liberty is not a monolith. But you know what I mean, I'm would infer that the scriptures have to be read. Was that always the case? Up until even my great great grandfather, like, was there a time and in recent memory that people were like, no, it is fine that he thinks that and she thinks that and any, we're both still good?
Jared
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, I mean, there's always been heresy a right. So we always want the often been very politically charged in those senses. But as far back as, in the fourth and fifth centuries, the early church fathers and I forget which one, they would have basically said, the literal reading is the most infantile reading, that's, that's the most basic of readings, we really want to move beyond that, and he would talk about there's several levels of reading several figurative levels, several symbolic levels of reading, and those are more rich, that's where we really find what it means to be the church in that reading.
So that would have been more probably of the common way of reading it more symbolically or more. And frankly, I think the New Testament does that with the Hebrew Bible. I don't think the New Testament reads the Hebrew Bible literally, in that sense. So when Matthew quotes Hosea and says, “out of Egypt, I've called my son,” I don't think Matthew is following what we would call a literal, historical, grammatical interpretation of Hosea. It would have been ripping it out of context and apply it to the life of Jesus trying to make sense of reinterpreting it for this theological moment. So we have it in the New Testament, we definitely have it in the church fathers. We have St. Augustin saying things like I forget what I should have brushed up on my Patristics. But you know, saying things like, Hey, we're going to come up against different interpretations. So pick the one that's most likely to lead to you loving your neighbor. That's probably the more accurate interpretation, which I love.
And then you have John Calvin up and even to the, you know, 16th century, who says things like, you know, the way God speaks to us, he speaks to us like a baby. He's listening to us. I mean, he, so he's going to accommodate himself to how we understand the world, which would be in our own context, which easily lends to things like understanding Genesis, in the context of the ancient near East, that God's not talking over people's heads and bringing in 21st century science to these ancient people who would have understood none of it. Yeah, I find that to be, you know, CS lewis's word, chronological snobbery. I find that to be like a lot, a little snobbish of us to be like, Oh, yeah, well, the church couldn't read Genesis, right for 2000 years until we had the science.
That's a long way of maybe answering that question. But I don't. I think our modern way of reading the Bible really comes in the 20th century with the Scofield Reference Bible. And the modern is debates between Princeton Theological Seminary and some other constituents where they define themselves as fundamentalists. And that's where the modern evangelical movement comes out. And, and that cements the quote, by, but for hundreds of years before that, that wouldn't have been, it wouldn't been exactly that way.
Seth
You touched on it a minute ago. So why then do I guess, fundamentalist evangelical Christians to use probably a poor term, why did why did so many of my peers try to force the Bible to be a medical text or a history text or science text? When it has… I mean, I don't think it has any business being that considering they thought the earth was flat there. They didn't know what germs were, you know what I mean? Why do they Well, if you
Jared
Well if feels really, really good to have it, right? I mean, I, I really liked being an evangelical, and I really liked being able to read the Bible that way. I felt really safe. We had all the answers. It was all right there. And so there's not a lot of uncertainty, there's not a lot of risk involved. And I think as humans, we were really drawn to that. We like a God that plays it safe and gives us this rulebook. And if we just follow the rulebook, if we just followed a, b and c, we would get to D and F and it's very compelling.
Seth
It is easier. I will say, the last 10 years, basically, since I left Liberty, and became a dad, I started reading things differently. I think it's odd how, at least in my case, having kids makes me view divinity differently, especially when you think of God as a patriarchal kind of being. So what would you say to people that say, well, if if you take away the historical accuracy of Genesis, or you take away the historical accuracy of Jonah, which I also, to me, that's always been a metaphor, and you talked about infantile it, it makes sense to explain it. No, he was in the fish's belly to a six year old, but you and I both know, it's just not going to work. Um, I think it's, I think it's a good metaphor. It's not a right. It's more of a parable, I think, but I'm probably wrong. I don't know. Should
Jared
I'll just plug the I did an episode on Jonah on the Bible for Normal People, and it's a fascinating book. I love the book. I think it's so rich and illustrative and I think it's a I think it takes away from that when you try to read it literally.
Seth
Talk a little bit about that. Well, not a whole podcast first version, but um, yeah, I haven't asked probably after the Mona Larry episode. And that's again, as far as I've been.
Jared
Yeah. So I did a solo podcast on that just because I do I love the book. And I follow the themes of the book about Jonah's descent, and how poetic you know, chapter one, we have this…it's just a great illustration of how little literary these Biblical books can be. So Chapter One is the Deconversion of Jonah, and the conversion of the pagans. So we begin with Jonah being told to stand up and go, Arise and go, and instead he arises and flees, and then the word “urad”, which means to go down, and Hebrew is repeated again and again. And again. Because when Jonah disobeyed God, he goes down, and he goes down to Joshua, he goes down into the ship, he goes, you know, God, he goes down to Joshua, then he goes down to the boat, then he goes down into the boat, and he goes to the bottom of the boat, then he goes to sleep, which is like a metaphorical going down further, and then he goes out into the sea and gets thrown over. So he's still going down. And then he goes down into the belly of the fish. And then he goes down to the bottom of creation.
And we start getting really poetic in chapter two, to the point that that I would argue he gets shut out of creation. So it's reminiscent of Psalm 139, which says, you know, “where can I flee from your presence?” And in there Psalm, it's this really comforting song of Where can I go from your presence everywhere you are there? Well, that becomes a nightmare if you're trying to run away. So Jonah becomes this like Alice In Wonderland nightmare, of what happens if you want to flee? God? Will if God is everywhere, you have to die. You have to be shut out of creation. And so Jen, there's Genesis language thereof of creation. And if you don't read Genesis, understanding how the ancient near east thought of the world, then that poetic part of Jonah makes no sense. And you can see different translations trying to make sense of like seaweed wrapping around my head and how is Jonah seeing all these things from the belly of the fish? And there's this ancient rabbi, Rambam maybe, says that will the he could see through the fish's eyes, right, because he would they were trying to be literal about them.
But anyway, you know, so there's this, there's this going down, and he gets shut out of creation. Chapter Two is actually a pastiche. The prayer of Jonah is actually just a bunch of songs knitted together. So you could actually there's about 15 songs, and he just takes parts of them and puts them in Jonah's mouth. And the prayer is actually just the Psalms that he's reciting. And that's to tie Israel’s story into the story of Jonah. Israel is Jonah. That's really the point here. And, and so the Psalms, you know, did Jonah literally just memorize all these songs and pray them in the belly of the fish? Well, that's missing the point.
You do that because you're trying to tie his real story into Jonah's story. And then, anyway, he goes down all the way. And then the climax of the book is chapter two, verse four, I don't know if that's in English or Hebrew. But in chapter two, verse four, it says, and then God raised my life up from the pit. And as the first upward, we have since the very first verse, when God says, Arise, go up, get up and go. And instead, he went down, and then God raises his life up from the pit.
So there's a redemptive, climactic moment, which I think is what Jesus means when he says, the sign of Jonah, just like, Jonah was in the belly of the belly of the fish three days, so will I be?
Well, it's because this is really impactful, redemptive moment in the Jonah story that Jesus is talking about. And anyway, then we have the creation language, he spits him up on dry land. And just like in Genesis, there's a new creation, Jonah's a new creation, and then we have what seems like Sukkot, the celebration of Sukkot happening at the end of the book, because there's a booth there all of a sudden, out in the middle outside the city.
Seth
But I mean, the difference is the way that a literal, a fundamentalist would read the Bible is no, this is legit. He's in the belly, we're doing this as opposed to when Jesus is talking to people. They would know what it meant, because they would they wouldn't know the same way. I said that the room is, you know, that shirt is cool, that they would know that I don't…you know that. I don't mean cold.
Jared
Sorry, I went off a little Jonah rant there.
Seth
I'm actually I'm gonna have to read it now. Because I don't know Jonah that well, and you're actually…I have my laptop up on a stack of six Bibles to get you up to level off the coffee table.
So I have many different versions to go with one of which is a Scofield, which was given to me. Unfair question, what's, what's the best translation of the Bible, very unfair.
Jared
Yeah, I don't know if there's a best, I think both using multiple translations is often helpful, because you can see the decisions that were made. And you can ask the question, why would they translate it this way? I use the NRSV for my New Testament reading, and I actually use the Jewish publications to society, the JPS Translation when I read the Hebrew Bible, and so those are the two the two that I use.
Seth
So and this, this might not…if this question is wrong, just will do one of those things you were talking about earlier
Jared
There are no wrong questions
Seth
Well, it might, I might be overthinking it. So one of the things that's bothered me for the last year or so is, is is second Timothy 3:16. because that's what you hear a lot when you start questioning in Aaron see are literal interpretations where it says, you know, All scripture is God breathed, and etc. And so here's my rub.
There's a bunch of guys that get together, get some lunch and decide that scripture is in it. And they make sure that they include that this one book of this one verse that says that the Scripture that we said is in the Scripture is definitely in the Scripture. And trust me, it's in the Scripture. And I don't know what to do with that.
Jared
Well, interestingly, that when that was written, there was no New Testament at that time. So that would have been letter, right? So second, Timothy would have been a letter. So when Paul writes that letter to Timothy, he's clearly not talking about the 27 books that we have now as the New Testament, he would be talking at most about what we would call the Old Testament. Oh,
Seth
So the New Testament is up for grabs, then?
Jared
Well, in that verse, it couldn't possibly be talking about the New Testament, because there was no New Testament when Paul wrote that letter. Like, it's literally just a letter at that point. There is no other books necessarily, I'm there may have been a collection of writings that have been passed around. But certainly it wouldn't have included books after Second Timothy that were written after because they wouldn't have been in existence yet. And we do a lot with that verse. Because the word I'm pretty sure you're stretching my memory here, but I'm pretty sure the the word there for scriptures is just “the writings”. It's not any special term of saying these holy, sacred books that are in our canon, they're just the writings.
Seth
So would that apply to everything? The Intertestement writings, the Apocrypha, would it apply to the Gnostic stuff?
Jared
Well put Catholics brothers and sisters would think so. Some sense and maybe our Eastern Orthodox as well. And so they have, you know, our Catholic brothers and sisters have different books. In some sense, they would be called, of course, Protestants would call them deuterocanonical. Yeah, not really canonical, just dueterocanonical.
Seth
Embarrassing, Fun Fact is, I found out that the Catholic Bible was different than my Bible, when I downloaded the Bible app. And I was like, sure, give me the Catholic Bible. And I start scrolling through, I was like, wait, why? These aren't in the right order. And I was I was genuinely, genuinely confused. Still, still probably am.
Jared
(mixed with laughter) nice.
So we just went through the whole, you saw it everywhere, the five hundredth anniversary of Luther. And I know Luther had issues with specific books in the Bible. So from what I understand the whole Protestant Reformation was getting away from the the Vatican, or the pope being the only person that could tell me what scripture meant. And the thing that I've come to realize is, is I think, and there's is there an argument that says that we have, at least in western Christianity, replaced the pope with the books of the Bible being what they are? And this is, this is what it is sit right with it?
Jared 29:41
Yeah, I think and I wouldn't say it's even the western Christianity or Protestants. I think it's Evangelicals in particular, because like the Wesleyan tradition would have what's called the Wesleyan quadrilateral. So they would say they their faith is built on these four anchors. Scripture is one tradition, reason and experience, and that that's where their faith is built on those four. And I would say most Protestant traditions would have something similar to that.
I think Richard Rohr calls it the tricycle, he would have three, their tradition, experience and scripture and combining reason and experience there. But so what happened I think within evangelicalism isn't in a way to in a way, we sort of cut our legs out from under us in some sense, because we kept saying, well, we have to put all our eggs in this one basket. The problem with that is now if you find any thing, unsettling with that one basket, you're in trouble. You just spent 100 years talking about dismantling the other three anchors you could have been using as helpful ways to guide your faith.
So I think I would question I don't think it's in the Western Christian faith or Protestantism. I think it's evangelicalism specifically, where we sort of put all of our it has to be just this one book because it's infallible and our traditions are fallible, and our experiences can be fallible, and reason can be felt whoops. We can only interpret the Bible through our own experience and our own reason and our own tradition.
So like, now, we just spent 100 years talking about how those were reliable. That's the only way we can approach the Bible. There is no God's eye view of the Bible. There's no context-less way I can read the Bible. I can only read it as a you know, white American male who grew up evangelical Southern Baptists charismatic Presbyterian in 2017. I can't read the gods-eye version of the Bible.
Seth
Do other and you might not know do other I guess countries or faith cultures struggle with reading the Bible this way. So say it's red in new China or Japan or Australia? Do they struggle the same way that that our our membership and our church bodies seems to with this argument about about this? Or are they just not even on the radar?
Jared
I can't speak for all cultures but I do know in the UK an errand see would have not been that's not really evangelicalism in the UK would look really different just because they're not so caught up on an inerrancy as a important; that and again, most worldwide faith, although evangelicalism is really exploding in certain parts of the world, you would normally find Catholics or Episcopalian, you know, the Anglican Communion. And they wouldn't put nearly the emphasis that we do on things like inerrancy, or even the Bible, again, they would have that three legged or four legged stool on which they would rest, which I think is, is probably a lot healthier.
Seth
Sure a couple of just quick questions, and then I'll give you back the rest of your evening, I promise to be as brief as possible. So what so I polled friends on Facebook, on the on the Twitters, on all the places, and I asked her some of their questions. And I promised that as someone that knew more than me, doesn't mean you know the answer. But that's, that's okay. And so someone basically said, Well, you know, Seth, if you're questioning this, it means that you don't have faith in the Bible, that you're you need the Bible, and by the Bible, I think they met Jesus and something else. And so how would you respond to someone saying, you know, you're needing something else to crutch up or prop up the Bible to have some form of a faith?
Jared
Hmm. I mean, I usually what I do is, I would ask a lot more questions to try to understand. But if I can make assumptions, I think I used to get that question a lot. And I think the assumption there is that there's the idea that we can read the Bible purely, that there's a pure way of reading the Bible. Right? And it's just, it's clear, it's plain. And so, you know, I used to get the argument, well, I don't interpret the Bible, I just read it. Well, what do you think reading is?
Seth
I mean, yeah, you can't not.
Jared
Right. And so you know, that's the idea of, yeah, you can't just have the Bible because unfortunately, we're human beings, and we're trapped by our language. And when you use language you're interpreting. If you read the Bible, in English, you're not only interpreting, you're interpreting someone else's interpretation, because they had to translate it and they didn't make choices. Because not every word is exactly transferable.
If it was just be the same language. So yeah. So I don't think you can escape, it would be nice if we could escape those problems, a chance challenges. But by just kind of putting your head in the sand and pretending they're not there, I wouldn't call that being more faithful, I would call that maybe being more blind to our own; I’d much rather put our put our presuppositions and put our biases and filters out there. And then have those be shaped over time to be more faithful maybe, to how we how we see Jesus interacting or living or things like that.
Seth
Sure. Something else that someone gave me is the scriptures have to be inerrant, because Jesus attributed Genesis 2:24. And he said that these were the words of God. And so because he said that Genesis was the word of God, it has to be taken, literally. And I'm not even certain that that sentence makes sense. But that's a quote.
Jared
Hmm.
Seth
And I don't know where he said it, he attributes it, but basically saying, you know, this creation story of, of here is, is the word of God. And, and so, but,
Jared
well, one, I would, I'm curious as to where Jesus quotes that and calls it the Word of God…I think too, though, I think the real assumption is that if it's the Word of God, it has to be an errand.
Why do we make that assumption?
Seth
Yeah, I yeah, I don't think I do. But I'm, that's just what they asked.
Jared
(Playfully) no, no, Seth, you need to answer it now. You can do it.
Seth
My last question. And well, now I have two so something that bothers me is is in is in Kings and Chronicles, and someone else asked as well. In one of them, God takes a census of everyone. And the next one is King David. So it doesn't make any sense. I mean, from what I understand of kings and Chronicles, they're basically overviews of the same time period. Correct? So that seems to be fairly, somebody did not edit that well.
Jared
Well, no. Okay. So I, that's where my atheist friends would say, they'd say, Oh, this, you know, when I was in seminary, read these guys who, who would say things like, Oh, these were just sloppy editors. And that would have been more of an argument in the, you know, early 20th century, or whatever these Biblical scholars are, who have so much smarter than these Biblical editors who were just sloppy. I mean, who puts one creation story right next to the other one when they don't even agree, right?
Well, first of all, you're missing the glaring point, which is we have four gospels that are stacked back to back to back to back, and they don't agree, either. I don't think that's sloppy editing. I'm much more interested in why do these authors put these books back to back to back to back? Why do they put these two creation accounts back to back? I don't think it's sloppy editing, I think it's intentional. I'm much more interested in the question of why why would they do this? Because I don't I, you know, that's what I think. I think you fall into the trap of, of calling it sloppy editing, or whatever you would want to do.
And so for me, the more interesting question is what's going on in the community or in the author that leads them to rewrite the stories or to change these details? And for Kings and Chronicles it's very interesting that a lot of modern Biblical scholarship at this point would say, well, they're written for two different communities at two different times for two very different purposes.
And so, like, have you ever read two histories of the, of American history or if you go back, like the histories of the Peloponnesian War, or whatever these are, you're never going to get two accounts that are identical, right? One because you just can't, but to this not even in the ancient world, why would you want to do that? That's boring. You would want to shape it according to some agenda. What's the point? Why does this matter?
And so Kings is written to answer the question in the exile. Why are we in exile? Help me explain how the chosen people of God who are supposed to have a king on the throne forever, or an exile. Explain that to me. And the king, the authors and editors of the king, as you know, saga, are explaining that.
So if you read kings, the kings are all terrible. They're awful. They're so bad. And in fact, in that one, King Manasseh is the worst of the worst. He's scum. And at the end of it, he doesn't repent. And so it's answering the question for the community.
Well, here, it's because we got scumbag kings, of course, that's why we're in an exile. Chronicles is written, post exile. And these people have come back into the land, and they're wondering, are we still God's people? Are we still connected? Like, or are we cast off forever? Which, if you want to connect the ancient world to the modern world, in that context, you use a genealogy?
Well, lo and behold, Chronicles begins with, like, the most boring section of Scripture, like 40 chapters of genealogy, right? It's just why it's because the questions that communities asking are very different than the questions of the exile. And so in Chronicles, Manasseh‘s story ends with repentance. Kings, Manasseh doesn't repent, Chronicles, Manasseh does, I'm not interested in the question of, Oh, these are sloppy, ancient editors who didn't know what they were doing. There's just too much interest intricacies of the Bible for me to think that's compelling.
I'm more interested in why would they make them different? It's because they're writing to different audiences for different reasons. And so now I read Kings through that lens of Oh, this is a community of people who are trying to understand what's happening to them. They've been promised this. They have this promise that seems to be getting broken at this point. How do we explain that? And then Chronicles, we come back, and we're wondering, what's the left of all this? Yeah. Are we still God's people? So anyway, not going that rant?
Seth
No, that's good. I like it. I'm in fear of another. And I do have another question. It's something that struck me today in research for a future interview about whether or not Mary's a virgin, which is a huge question. I'm not going to ask you that.
Jared
Thank you.
Seth
But in the book, in the book, he says that scripture, there's very little basis for Mary being from the, you know, from the line of David, and it's actually Joseph that is, and I haven't finished the book. But what would you do is because that seems like a big crucial if it's, it's a view on the incarnation, but how, how can that now that the blinders have been pulled off? And I've reread a few pieces of Scripture? I'm like, Yeah, well, okay, this is, well, there went Christmas. So how does? How does? How can someone like me research that in a way that, that that that doesn't take away something that adds to the conversation?
Jared
Once we go into the New Testament, I've been over my head a little bit.
Seth
So Me too.
Jared
So my background is in Hebrew Bible. So. But I would say, I think the more important things are to to, to be open to saying, if God wants to write a book, God can write it any way that God wants. And so questioning those assumptions of why do we have Why does it have to look like this? Why can't kings and Chronicles have different agendas? Why can't Jonah be a parable? Why can't Matthew right, so there's this story, and I forget who it was, I should know this. But someone wrote a book in the 80s, that basically argued that Matthew was midrash, that it wasn't meant to be a historically accurate, but as for the Jewish community, and its really connecting Jesus to his historical roots, and to his Jewish roots. And its really midrash, it's mythological in a lot of ways and gotten, he gotten a lot of trouble for that.
But, you know, I'm more interested in those questions and just saying, well, this is the book that we have. And faith really, for me is saying, this is the book that God would want us to have. Not trying to make it into another kind of book that we wish God had given us. And so that's what I felt like, I felt like a lot of my upbringing was using all of this energy to clean up the, you know, like, put lipstick on the pig.
And so it's like, we're just trying to present because we're embarrassed by this Bible. And so I can't talk to my atheist friends about a Bible that has two different accounts and changes some historical details in it. Why would I, instead of embracing the book we have, and then diving into the intricacies and the beauty and the interesting curiosities about this whole thing and asking those questions of why is that there? I wonder? And most of the time, when I asked that question, I end up with a very satisfying answer. Like, Oh, that makes sense.
Jared
I will end there. So give you a chance to plug whatever you'd like to plug. I would, I would recommend people greatly check out the Bible for normal people have been enjoying it. recently found about a month ago, it was recommended from a friend. I'm a little upset that it's the only Bible ordained podcast on the internet. I don't know that I'm qualified to have that qualification, but there certainly must be others.
But where would you point people to, as they, as they, as many of our generation is, is questioning things? Where would you point people to? And then how can they can they reach out to to people like yourself?
Jared
Yeah, so we definitely, I would point people to the podcast, the Bible for normal people. The goal, really, is to take top biblical scholarship and break it down for everyday people. So we get some of our nerdy friends, PhDs at Harvard, and Duke and these places and just ask them to explain in everyday language, how should we read the Bible? What is it? What do we do with it? And yeah, so we'll be launching Season Two of that here shortly. And in addition to that, you know, we have a Patreon community patreon.com front slash the Bible for normal people, we have a slack group with about 200 people in it. And they're just having conversations every day back and forth about these question that they're wrestling with, you know, for us, it's about having a community and by us, I mean, Peter Enns and myself, my co-host, having a place where it's okay to ask these questions where we can do that without risking our community of faith, or our friendship, or families where if we bring them up, we might get ostracized, or at least get that raised eyebrow of now you're kind of suspect for having these doubts and questions. And so definitely the Bible for normal people. So Pete Enns writes a lot of articles, again, with this audience in mind, so definitely check those out.
Seth
Fantastic. Well, I will, I will include those links in the show notes. And again, thank you for the time.
Jared
Yeah, absolutely.
Outro
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