Q&A #1 - Deconstruction, Polytheism, Resources, Eschatology - Episode 013

## Introduction - Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel and today I am going to do my first Q&A episode. If you happen to have a question about anything I share in my podcast, or if you’d just like me to address something in particular, feel free to reach out to me on Facebook or you can email me at [email protected]. I do my best to not miss talking to anybody who reaches out…I did have a major issue with Facebook for a while which really, really irritated me for a few weeks where I couldn’t always see group posts or tags. But it looks like they’ve finally cleared that up. Thank goodness. There’s not often reason to celebrate Facebook, but…yayyy Facebook, I’ll give them credit for that. - I don't know how many questions I'm going to get through with this episode, but we will do our best. Some of them are a little bit shorter, some of them a little bit more involved, that I think require a little more in depth of an answer. But let's just get started. ## How Do We Apply Biblical Theology? - So the first question I’m going to tackle is a really important one—and it comes in slightly different flavors, but overall it hits on one central point. And that point is, what do we do when we grew up Christian, or have been in a particular Christian tradition or church for a while, and…we start thinking in terms of biblical theology, of studying the Bible in its ancient context. - I could probably do an entire episode on this topic. Because it’s an important one. And really, there’s a lot of subtle distinctions we could go into with this, because the fact is, there’s no one-stop-shop answer to this. It’s dependent on us, on the tradition we’re steeped in. A lot of people will call this process “deconstruction,” where there’s this sense that we have a worldview or narrative that has been constructed—by ourselves or also by others around us, by the moment and space we’ve been born into, etc.—and some of that construction, or maybe a lot of it, is faulty. So we need to work to deconstruct it in order to construct something new. Usually there’s a lot of undercurrent of “right” vs “wrong” in this kind of approach. Like, oh, I had that all wrong and I need to correct it. I need to build with entirely different blocks. I’m not a fan of that metaphor for most Christians. Now, the whole concept of deconstruction is its own topic…there are a lot of ways people talk about it and think about it and I’m not going to go too in-depth here because I want to focus specifically on the idea that we aren’t really “deconstructing” much—but we are deconstructing some. - And honestly…while sometimes the term “deconstructing” can be useful, I think a lot of the time it’s too broad and ill-defined. And a lot of times people go to deconstruct, but they never reconstruct. Rethinking, harkening back to my first episode, is a better way to look at it in my opinion. Because, deconstructing—that means you’re really doing a lot of work. And most Christian worldviews don’t need a lot of deconstructing—they need reframing at times. What we need to do is take an idea down from our mental shelves and turn it around to the other side to look at it afresh. We don’t always need new blocks, we just need to dust off the old blocks we have in order to get the prism angled with the light. - The other problem with the deconstruction idea is that it doesn't allow you to have an idea of reconstructing multiple times. Like with rethinking, you're supposed to be continually rethinking. We don't always want to be deconstructing and reconstructing, cuz that's a lot of work. It requires a whole picture of the building that you're trying to build and things like that. Whereas a lot of times it's just this one part that we need to rethink. We need to turn it around to a different angle and look at it from a different side. - So in our question here, what we are doing is finding that…the Bible talks about things in different ways than we are used to hearing in our church settings. There’s a certain level of Christianese that we are used to hearing and maybe we didn’t even realize that we don’t have a very good grasp on these words to begin with….and when we start getting into the biblical world, sometimes we find that, ohh, we didn’t know that word at all! Or maybe what we knew about it was quite truncated and not at all reflective of the richness of the language in the Bible. - Let’s look at a quick example, the word “garden,” for instance. Now, if you’re in America or you’re in England or somewhere else, you might have different pictures of what a garden is. In my context, a garden is a lot of work. It involves vegetables. If you’re not cultivating vegetables in your garden, well that’s weird—don’t you like vegetables? You plant a garden and you ought to come out at the end with bushels of zucchini and tomatoes, right? Sometimes you can have things other than vegetables in a garden, of course. You can put flowers with your vegetables, and of course grow fruit and things. And sometimes I could even concede the idea of a flower garden—a garden of cultivated flowers, right? - Well, if I were to go somewhere else, a garden might be something entirely different than what I’m thinking about here. What I call a yard is otherwise called a garden somewhere else, in England and other places. In my American garden, I don’t want grass. In a British garden, I do hope there’s some grass, right? - Well then we get into the Bible and which is it? Is the garden in Gen 2 a place that grows vegetables and fruit, or is it a place where you largely sit and enjoy the great outdoors because it’s got colorful flowers and wonderful trees and bushes and maybe you’ve got some yummy things to get in there, as well? Or might it be both? Or something beyond both? What did Jesus say to the thief on the cross next to him? “Today you’ll be with me in paradise…” Paradise…the Greek word there is used for the garden in the Greek translation of Genesis. It’s used elsewhere, too. Does Jesus mean that later on that day he and the thief would be busy doing some weeding, planting some flowers, or just sitting under a lovely oak tree drinking earl gray tea out of fancy teacups? Or is there some meaning beyond all that? - Now, the word garden isn’t really that theologically packed with meaning, like the word “grace” or “atonement,” but you see my point here. If we don’t quite grasp the word “garden,” do we understand these core concepts of theology? - And once we get to that point, where we think—oh my, I don’t even know what the atonement is!!—then we start doubting all of our foundations and gosh maybe we haven’t figured anything out….maybe we don’t know anything at all!! And…how do I trust my pastor? Can I trust him? How do I know? - Yeah, that’s an important question! When we start learning biblical theology, there’s a tendency to not understand how we now connect to the Bible when we acknowledge that while it is written for us, it was not written to us. That means that we aren’t the original recipients, the original hearers of the message. So how do we remain grounded in our church and in our current lives when we have this wide disconnect? How do we remain confident that the message we are hearing from the pulpit, or the teachings we are hearing in Bible study…how do we know those are “biblical”? And we want to read the Bible and apply it our lives, right? How do we do that when we feel cast adrift like this? - Well I’m here to tell you that there’s nothing new in feeling like that….that you aren’t alone in that kind of panic you might have. We can take a deep breath and we can realize—God’s message still exists for us today. That means that it has an intense level of longevity that we can’t even comprehend. And it means that even though we do get things wrong—we all get things wrong, right?—our core foundations of the faithfulness of God is, it’s really, very, very strong and something we can anchor ourselves to, even amidst the chaos of all of our questions and our doubts. - So, the thing is…we are so used to reading the Bible through the simplified lens of the systematic theology of a tradition, right? Systematic theology has, in theory, already done a lot of the work of taking the text and filtering it into something…approximating application in some sense. - Let’s take the word “sin,” for instance. We know what that means, right? It’s “missing the mark,” right? We get this sense that there is one word that the Bible uses for what we call “sin.” - Let me read from Wayne Grudem’s *Systematic Theology*: - We may define sin as follows: **Sin is any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude, or nature.** Sin is here defined in relation to God and his moral law. Sin includes not only individual acts such as stealing or lying or committing murder, but also attitudes that are contrary to the attitudes God requires of us. *Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House, 2004), 490.* - Okay, so sin is…well, it’s missing the mark according to God’s moral law in act, attitude, or nature. - What do we see when we try to see “sin” in the Bible? - We immediately come to a problem…there’s more than one word that we translate as sin. And those words are used in different ways and don’t have anything to do with God’s moral law sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to pull this all apart and suggest that these words aren’t used to refer to moral behavior in relation to God’s will. But it’s not a one-to-one correspondence and there’s a whole lot of subtlety and other things going on here. - Judges 20:16, for instance: - Judges 20:16 (ESV) 16Among all these were 700 chosen men who were left-handed; every one could sling a stone at a hair and not miss. - We aren’t going to translate that word “miss” as the English word “sin,” right? But a form of the same word is used in Leviticus and elsewhere to refer to certain types of offerings, or purification rituals. And it is used in places like Gen 13:13 to refer to the men of Sodom, who were “great sinners against the Lord.” - Genesis 13:13 (ESV) 13Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the LORD. - Well, we, okay, so we aren’t going to dig too deep into this idea of sin and what it means—yet. - But my point here is that systematic theology has taken complex and nuanced things in the Bible and wrapped them up into one neat little package for us that we can then apply to our lives quite easily—oh we’re sinners, and all the associated ideas that come from there. - This reminds me….in one of my fb groups recently, someone told a story about a director in some after-school program I think it was. A child came up and said he wanted to accept Jesus and the director said—I don’t know if this was said to the child directly or just to someone else—but the director said, the child wasn’t ready to accept Jesus because the child had not yet simultaneously accepted his own sinful nature. The child, who was I think in third grade or something, said he didn’t think he had done anything wrong and wasn’t a sinner. - So, the director thought, well, if you don’t accept your sinful nature, you can’t accept Jesus. And this is, this is common theology—that the accepting of Jesus means accepting that we are sinful and in need of a Savior. Now, I’m not going to say that this isn’t the state of things—but, the gospel isn’t that we are sinners, the gospel is that Christ is King, that he came into creation for us, that’s the gospel. Fixing our sinful nature and whatever else related to that, that’s an outpouring of results of the gospel, right? It’s not the gospel itself. There’s kind of a disconnect in how we often think about this. And, I mean, so Israel wasn’t like, oh we need YHWH because we’re so sinful. No, they wanted YHWH because he was the sovereign Lord, first and foremost. And oh by the way, in order to get to close to the sovereign Lord, we need to deal with all this uncleanliness and unholiness you guys have. - So, you see, in this case systematic theology has wrapped things up neatly, now we can apply it to our lives, and well, if someone can’t see how that applies, then they’re just wrong, they need to see it this way first before they can accept any other truth. - That’s it’s…backwards. We first need to see God and who he is, we need to look into his revelation and see what it says. Maybe in the end we’ll come out with the same ideas we had to begin with, the same application points—but maybe not. Maybe we’ll come out with something a little more nuanced and layered. - The problem with systematic theology is that….well, it’s not always right. That’s gotta be obvious with how many versions of systematic theology are out there, right? And how do we know when it’s right and when it’s off? And the other point about systematic theology is…it was developed in its own context, which often is the context of the Reformation or something. It’s not the modern context. It’s not your own life’s context. See, the fact that we don’t always understand something like grace or atonement or sin or imaging is that we are simply unaware that there are other contexts or understandings. - So, what do we do when we suddenly find ourselves in the position where we need to critique our current situation? How do we navigate that in a way that’s faithful to the Bible and which will also, hopefully, not create too many breaks in our own relationships and places that we are at right now? - To answer this in part, I’d refer back to my first episode…there are reasons we fear looking into things and critiquing what we’ve always thought or been taught. - I’d also suggest you turn to the Scriptures. Do we have examples there of people having to sit with the discomfort in gaining new perspectives that might cause them to break with what they believed or what tradition has said to them before? - Yeah, I think that we’re on solid ground to say that there might be a few examples! Take Paul, for example, or, really, any Jew of Jesus’ time. We have Moses who no doubt had to all kinds of things that went against the grain of how he grew up in Pharaoh’s court. Abraham who had to leave his context. - And what matters in each case? What matters is God, following him, knowing that he is the faithful one. Knowing he can repair and replace any heartbreaks we have, that he is bigger than any of our doubts or concerns. - This answer is a bit of a cheat, though, I admit. Because…it really is hard to sit with the discomfort of not really knowing where you might stand on things, of keeping an open mind and heart and admitting that sometimes we won’t get a firm answer—at least maybe not for a while and maybe not ever in this life. And we’ll have seasons in our lives where this is more the case than other times, where we might have long periods of time where we might feel we are drifting in a sea of information and ideas and questions. - This is why it is vitally essential to remain grounded in some construct with other believers. Because we are a body, a community. Don’t believe everything your church says, but you can’t find a new place to land that seems any better? Well, sometimes it might be better to accept the mistakes of others in order to be lifted up in the love of Christ with others. And if you really can’t stand to do that—well, make sure you’re surrounding yourself in other ways. Read books by Christian authors. Watch solid content on Youtube or join social media outlets—there are a few good ones out there, though you might need to really search. Be aware of what you are surrounding yourself with—because it matters. We all ought to be exposed to opposing viewpoints and new ideas—but if it gets to be too much, shut it off. Turn elsewhere to be renewed. And we can realize, too, that differences do not mean we cannot all worship together. - In studying the Bible, we might focus on what the Israelities believed in the OT and how that contrasted with their neighbors, or how the Jews of Jesus’ time thought in comparison….but through it all, the common thread is God and his unchangeable character. So no matter the differences in the culture or structure of thought—it’s God we are always looking for inside of those things. - All right. So, I need to wrap this question up, but one more thought…once we see how ripe the fields are for studying intellectually, sometimes we forget about just reading the Bible devotionally. So, let’s make sure we’re doing that. And remember, we are all on paths of discipleship. And sometimes it’s a path through the desert and sometimes it’s a path where you are on that high mountaintop where you get to see the beauty and goodness of it all and you get that sense of emotional rejuvenation. But either way, we are all on this path and these are all places we have to traverse sometimes. ## Did the Israelites go from polytheists to monotheists? - All right, so…moving on to our second question for this episode, we have this: In college years ago, I heard about the idea that the Israelite’s religion evolved from polytheism to monotheism. It looks to me like you’d disagree with this, but the professor made it seem like such a sensible idea, and when I look at all this parallel literature, I really can see a point there, so maybe could you talk about that? - All right, so that’s a really good question because you’ll see this kind of argument all over the place. And I’ve touched on it before….and this is why I’ve been getting into the actual texts of the ANE, to look at what pagan cultures said. That’s not hard to do for ourselves. We can see what they all believed to some degree in these mythological stories. - Now, let’s do some thought experiments here. Because we like thought experiments. Let’s look at the Bible from the perspective of someone who is not Christian for a moment, okay? To them, the Bible is an ancient artifact. It’s a text. So we’re going to compare the text of the Bible with other texts of the ANE and we’re going to say, ohhhh look at that—they’re a lot alike. Why would that be? Then you dig into it and you realize, well, those cuneiform tablets we have from Mesopotamia, those are much older than any of our Hebrew Bible texts. Cuneiform tablets were a pretty good form of record, really. They don’t decompose like parchment or papyrus or anything like that. Okay, so we have these Babylonian and Sumerian texts over here that are older, and they talk about deities like El….oh and look, in the Bible, God there is referred to as El. - So these scholars will make these connections and say that the people who wrote the Bible, the Bible has encoded within it these artifacts of earlier belief, like the name of El. But they changed all that over time and eventually *invented* the idea that YHWH was supreme creator instead of just one god in the pantheon of the higher god, El. - Probably some of my listeners are already well-aware of all of that, this kind of argument, and probably some of you aren’t. And that’s okay. And while I understand the desire of just shoving these ideas off and not thinking about them—well, that’s bad apologetics. - All right, I’m going to give my main point in response to this question, and then I’m going to spell a bit of the scholarly side of things out because there are misconceptions on both ends regarding some of that, too. - So my main point is….here’s the thing that confounds me with these arguments. One of the ways this argument is made in addition to the supposition that pagan texts are older than the Bible, which you know, that might be the case in large part…another bit of evidence is that, oh look, we have archaeological evidence of pagan worship in Israel! That means that the Israelites worshiped other deities before turning to YHWH exclusively. - And I’m like….yeah, we do have that evidence. Wanna know how we could have predicted that we’d find that evidence? Because…the Bible said we would! The Bible itself tells us that there were many times, over and over, where the Israelites worshiped pagan gods! And spoiler alert, they weren’t supposed to worship pagan gods. So what’s the surprise here? We’d only be surprised if there weren’t any of this evidence. But there is, so hey, Bible confirmed, I guess? Well, secular scholars don’t like that trajectory, so they don’t take that trajectory. They cannot scientifically accept that YHWH could or would have revealed himself, so they need another way to make these connections. This shouldn’t be shocking that this is how people today are framing their own narrative of history. And that’s all this is. They’re trying to make sense of the data in front of them, and they cannot appeal to supernatural sources, so this is what they come up with instead. - The genre they use to do this is called higher criticism. You’ll often hear that maligned in Christian circles. You can’t take anything that higher criticism says. Well….I get it because we have these secular scholars who are out there making up these theories to fit their bills. But that doesn’t mean that all higher criticism has to be bad or evil or anti-Christian. I mean, here’s the thing…writing off entire disciplines and ways of thought is just bad form for anyone. Within reason, of course. All that we do ought to be framed in the construct of God acting and engaging with history and all of that. - But all higher criticism is, is the study of the origins of a text. This can otherwise be known as source criticism a lot of times. The higher critic is trying to determine who wrote the text, when it was written, and the context of the writing. That’s not an entirely bad thing, is it? Because, guess what…the Bible was written over time, we don’t know all of the authors, and yes….the Bible was edited. - One point of higher criticism that confessional scholars will get into is what is known as the “synoptic problem.” The synoptic gospels are Matthew, Mark, and Luke…they are the gospels that are in some ways so similar to one another that we wonder, why are they both similar and different? What relationship do these books have with one another? Did one or more of the writers “use” the writings of another author? - Another point that Christian scholars will use within higher criticism is the authorship of the epistles…which letters did Paul write and when did he write them? Who is the author of the book of Hebrews? That kind of thing. - Christians complain about the discipline of higher criticism because it treats the Bible like it was written by human authors. And I don’t know if you know this or not…but you know, it was. It was written by people, in real time, in real contexts. Ignoring that fact….well, it just doesn’t reflect well. Now, does that mean it is only a human book? You know what my answer is going to be here. No, of course not. This is a case of it doesn’t have to be either-or. It’s not *either* a human-book *or* a God-book. It’s actually both, and that is why it is endlessly fascinating—and, to be honest, a bit frustrating. If it was just a text that dropped from heaven, it seems that would simplify matters, wouldn’t it? But it’s not…it’s a book where God is interacting with us in real ways….messy ways because we’re messy people, right? It makes it hard to interpret, and hard to deal with sometimes. But you know, like I said in the first question here….no matter how messy and difficult things get, it’s God’s character we can rely on. And thank goodness for that, right?? - Now, of course…there’s also a reason that people tend to be antagonistic towards higher criticism, and that’s because the seed of it was developed a couple of centuries ago, and as it developed, a lot of the developments were anti-Christian or anti-supernatural…seeing the world in a post-enlightenment way, where we have materialism on the rise and anything to do with God was starting to be suspect in some way. And of course, Protestant theologians in particular bristle at the idea of higher criticism. The level to which the Bible serves as a standard there makes it feel like these are threats. But here’s the thing, in my opinion…the Bible can withstand anything that it comes up against, and in just the options I gave earlier, we can see the value of the study of higher criticism. But as with any area of scholarship at all, we need to find those people who are sensible rather than those people who just have an axe to grind, right? - Since we’ve started talking about this, I’m going to go ahead and bring out a few other types of criticism, sometimes these are under the envelope of higher criticism. - So, there’s historical criticism. This is the quest to date documents and verify events, right. Now, this one…this is one is interesting to me. Because in a way, I actually see people who are both for and against this type of criticism. If you ask me, though historical criticism could be said to have been started on the atheist side of the fence, the banner of it has been taken up by Christian fundamentalists—and they aren’t even aware of this. On the one hand, they cannot abide the idea of a challenge to the historicity of any of the elements or events of the Bible. On the other hand, these defenders of historicity are often the ones in the Christian aisles who will loudly proclaim that we must find evidence of everything in the Bible, and will go to extreme lengths to do so, that if anything even hints at being in opposition to the storyline of the Bible, then we need to explain this away. In short, I actually think fundamentalism owes much of its origins to secular skepticism. And fundamentalists have no idea that this is the case. - Historical criticism is skeptical of the Bible’s claims for itself. But historical criticism is the discipline of looking for the historicity of the Bible. The secular historical critic will say: God doesn’t intervene in the world. The fundamentalist will amend that and say, yes, God does intervene in the world—and when he does, we need to find evidence of this. - This reminds me of a number of conversations I’ve had with people who take a different view than I do, who don’t accept the “Deuteronomy 32 Worldview” that I’ve spelled out in previous episodes. If you’re not familiar, this view is the idea that God portioned out the nations of Babel to be governed by lesser deities, and these deities rebelled against God and took worship to themselves. So I believe the gods of the nations are real entities—they are lesser, created beings, but they acquired real power from God and then they have abused that power…kind of like what we do on earth ourselves. - But I’ve met a number of Christians who don’t accept this view—and you know, I like having these conversations, but they don’t always last long. Because I’ll say, well, do you believe in a supernatural reality? And they’re Christian, so they’ll say, yes, I do believe in a supernatural reality. They believe in Jesus being incarnated within the virgin womb of Mary, they believe in the resurrection; they probably believe in angels in some form and in demons in some form. They probably believe in what they’d call miracles. That’s a supernatural worldview, sure. - But here’s my next point—what does the Bible say about these things? What is a miracle? - The answer is usually…God intervening in the world. Like, God is coming from outside our reality and entering it, sometimes. When he feels like it. And you know, sometimes there might not be much physical evidence from these encounters—but usually there is, right? There ought to be, because once God has intervened in this world, then it’s no longer a supernatural encounter, right? It’s a natural encounter. - Well guess what—that’s not how the Bible talks about things. It’s just…it’s just not. Yes, we do have God entering this world—but he also sustains this world. Yes, we do have miraculous, unexplainable events—and we call these miracles, but what does the Bible call them? Signs and wonders. We think of miracles as being healings and strange occurrences, though…mostly we think in terms of healings or maybe some supernatural power reaching out to prevent something bad from happening. But the Bible calls these kinds of events signs and wonders—why? Because the point is that they are visible manifestations to people **so that** they are to worship God, to acknowledge the true God. The ten plagues of Egypt? Yeah, they’re not plagues—they’re signs and wonders. The supposed stopping of the sun? That wasn’t to show, oh look God has magical powers—that was to show that God is with his people. It was a sign. While you might have healings and awe-inspiring…or terrifying events…these are there for purposes, for the reason of highlighting God—God who is *at this moment and in all cases already in operation of the world.* The point is…it’s not that we have a natural world and a supernatural world, it’s that these things are all one in the same; they always have been; they always will be. Separating the two, like the only way God can interact with the world is by reaching into it….that’s not the biblical view of creation at all. It’s just not. - So my point here is…well, stop with the always looking for historical evidence. Okay, don’t really stop. I like archaeology. I like apologetics. And I do think that it has demonstrated the historicity of the Bible in many ways. And I want to see the ruins and the buildings and the coins and all that. But archaeology isn’t going to prove anything to anyone about the Bible as far as its supernatural…ness. Because it can’t. And there’s going to be a lot in the Bible that cannot and will not be proven this way. If you want historical proof of the gods of the nations, well, good luck with that. I do think you can see proof of their power in a lot of places…but as I’ve said previously, these gods are deceptive. Stop taking them for their words on things. Just, stop. Please. - And likewise, I’d say…stop giving the atheists ground by suggesting that if we can’t find historical evidence, then we might as well say that the Bible has no merit or proof. - And again, I’m not saying that historical evidence is worth nothing or is unimportant. I mean, the evidence for the resurrection is exceptionally strong and that’s what we can hang our belief of the entire Bible, right? But you see, that’s not a normal event. Um, I mean, obviously. Like, you could find all the wagon wheels in the sea to prove the Exodus, and someone’s still going to come along and say, oh that’s not proof of the Exodus, right? There are still ways to spin any historical evidence in a way that it’s not convincing to everyone. That’s what makes the evidence for the resurrection so powerful—any way you want to try to spin that, it doesn’t really fly intelligently. The only explanation for the resurrection comes from the Bible. And that need not be the case for most other things we’re going to look for evidence for, that’s all I’m saying. Historical critics and fundamentalists, unite! - It’s just a strange thing to me. - Anyway….back to higher criticism as a whole. I said that that can also be known as source criticism. I mean, not all higher criticism is source criticism, but source criticism is often the important thing that higher critics are looking at. And this is what are the sources of the text? The reason why this might be a problem for the Christian is that it can reject the authority of the text. Like, heyyyy, if Moses didn’t write the Torah, then the entire Bible falls all around that. Okay, no, it doesn’t. And again, here we see that we don’t have to swallow the whole hook, okay? I’ve seen many, many Christians claim that if you reject Moses as the author of the entire Pentateuch, then, well, you just reject the authority of Scripture itself. - The thing is…the Torah never itself reveals its author. Yes, it does talk about Moses writing things—but who says that that means that the things he wrote down are the entirety of the first five books of the Bible? And it would be a little hard for Moses to write about his own death…and we have the question of how did he know about Adam and Eve and all that—it’s presumed God revealed that to him, or that it was passed down orally or that kind of thing. I mean, maybe….but guess what, the Bible doesn’t say any of that. None of it. Nope. - The biggest reason I suppose that Christians hang on to this claim as necessary is that the NT and I think maybe also in Joshua, it speaks of the “laws of Moses,” which is presumed to be the Torah. This is traditionally understood to mean that Moses wrote these books—but again, it’s just not a necessary conclusion to say that the reference to the “laws of Moses” couldn’t have just been shorthand to refer to this section of Scripture. And you know, most of it may have been written by Moses. A lot of it looks like it was. God spoke directly to him; these are the words that God gave Moses. That would be a good enough reason to call it the law of Moses, that so much of it has to do with what Moses *did* write down. - Anyway, I could get into a lot more with source criticism. I should probably leave that for another time. But it doesn’t have to be a boogie-man. There’s a lot of good conversations in the realm of source criticism. - Form criticism is another one I’ve talked about before. This is one is a less-scary form of criticism because it’s just referring to genre. Is it a narrative? Is it poetry? - But oh, don’t get me wrong. There’s still plenty of sketch stuff going on in form criticism where we have scholars suggesting that the gospels were new forms of literature that is more akin to fiction and that kind of thing. But for us Bible students, it is necessary to understand genre. - Let’s see…do I have anything else here? Oh yes, tradition criticism. This is a bit like literary criticism without the books. This is where they are trying to uncover the history of traditions before they were written down. So trying to track oral tradition—I mean, you can’t really do that directly, but they look at things like liturgy and ritual and try to tie those into earlier practices or other cultures and times and things like that. - And then there’s redaction criticism…which is concerned with the editing of the text. Now, because we don’t really have a whole lot in terms of original source material for the Bible, this is hard to do—but we can see things like name changes in the Bible, place names, and other hints of editorial hands. We do have things like…we can compare the book of Kings and Chronicles. And again we can look at the synoptic gospels and try to see which came first and whether another writer shortened a narrative or something like that. - So my point is….we don’t need to be afraid of any of these things. And they can all be useful in some way because we’re dealing with a text that has a manuscript history and clear evidence of changes—which again, isn’t a reason to get all up in arms and paranoid. - What was this question about? Oh yeah…the idea that Israelites went from polytheism to monotheism. The reason scholars suggest this—aside from archaeological evidence and whatnot, which is no kind of proof whatsoever since reading the Bible will lead you to the conclusion that you’ll find this kind of stuff all over—the reason that scholars suggest this is that they they think they can piece together what happened in history and how traditions were passed down, and all of that kind of thing…they think they can piece all this together cohesively into this idea that we don’t need God to explain any of it. - This all falls apart when we realize that oh, the Bible really can speak for itself. It is trustworthy in what it says of God’s character and so on. If we go with this idea of polytheist-to-monotheist, then we’re giving credit to these other pagan texts and saying, oh I guess they were right, or I guess that God didn’t really reveal himself accurately. From my run down of all these types of criticisms that might lead someone to that conclusion—well, you can see for yourself that they have their own agendas. That’s not to say we can’t use the methods—but this skepticism that they are all born out of, that leads nowhere. And…it’s not cohesive because what it is does is it takes all the available evidence—the Bible and these other texts—and it treats them all the same, except that it actually cherry-picks from what they will claim is reliable in the Bible. “Oh God is called El here….he is called YHWH there….well, the biblical authors, they just mixed those two up into one.” Like, no…if the Bible is accurate in anything, it ought to be accurate in what it’s saying about God, right?? Otherwise, it really is just another ancient text. - Okay, well…so two questions down. Oh…and if you were wondering why it’s called *higher* criticism? It’s a weird label, isn’t it? Yes, there is also *lower* criticism. And this is text criticism, textual criticism…which is the drive to see where manuscripts have been copied inaccurately. When you have handwritten manuscripts, errors are bound to creep in and our lovely text critics try to see where that happens and maybe even explain why. - So, lower criticism has to do with the texts, actual manuscripts, and higher criticism is all about authorship and dates and how things were composed originally before editors came along and all of that kind of thing. ## How Can I Find Good Resources? - Okay, so our third question today is a simple one, but another hard one to answer concisely. How do I find good resources? And how can I judge a resource well so that I am not wasting my time? - Well first of all you can stop shopping for theology books at Barnes and Noble. Okay…maybe not entirely. I mean, I’ve seen Dr. Heiser’s books there before. But the fact of the matter is, most popular-level books are either not going to be good information or, if they have good information, it’s going to be packed in with a lot of fluff. And this shouldn’t surprise us because, well, there’s a lot of books in the world, just like there’s a lot of movies or anything else, and most of them just aren’t that good. - Now the caveat here I will say is that if you find a popular level book from somebody who is doing other scholarly work, like the popular level book is the book for your average person to read, and they, this is the book that they've condensed their dissertation into. That's a different kind of a thing than what I'm talking about with most popular level books where they're just written from the get-go of the popular level. So if you find that somebody has written scholarly work and then they've also written popular level work, that's kind of a different strata of books. - But I’ll also say this: just because one author has a good book on one topic, that doesn’t necessarily mean that their next topic is going to be just as good. - To be honest, one of those authors I’ll say is John Walton. He has some really fantastic stuff…I mean, I mentioned *The Lost World of Genesis One* in episode 10. Fantastic, insightful book. And he’s the contributor of my favorite study Bible—the *Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible*. If you want a study Bible and don’t have one, I highly recommend that. The fact is, Walton is great at bringing contextual material to a wide audience. He’s got a lot I’d recommend. - And thennnn…and then there’s his book about Demons. What is it called? I need to look it up here…*Demons and Spirits in Biblical Theology: Reading the Biblical Text in Its Cultural and Literary Context*. And what’s wrong with this book, you might ask? I thought he was really good at bringing out context! Well he is, and that’s not really the overarching problem here. The problem with this particular book is Walton’s approach. Basically, what Walton says is…yeah the ancient Israelite believed in all of this stuff—but we modern Christians shouldn’t. Walton believes, and I’ve seen him flesh this out in various interviews, that the spiritual context of the Bible, the entire supernatural metanarrative that spans the people of the text….all of that is just God accommodating himself to his people. So information about the gods of the nations, about Satan and demons, yes, the biblical audience believed all that—but they were wrong. Because—science! - Walton compares the supernatural worldview of the ancient person to the fact that they had a primitive cosmology. God accommodated himself to their pre-scientific beliefs, and just like that, he accommodated himself to the spiritual views of the ancient world, as well. So there is no reality there beyond God and well maybe some of the angels and things. - I’m not going to go into more in-depth critique of Walton’s book and views. If you are interested, I suggest hopping over to the Naked Bible Podcast and checking out episode 430 where Dr. Heiser critiques Walton’s book on Demons. - Dr. Heiser, incidentally, wrote a book on the topic himself and I do recommend that one. - So we do need to be critical of even the individual books that writers put out. Not that we don’t also have authors who consistently knock it out of the park, because of course we do. - So how do we tell? Well, honestly one thing is…find someone who seems really solid and see what they recommend. In the scope of books like *The Unseen Realm*, look at their bibliographies. And again a warning…just because a work is referenced doesn’t mean the entire thing is recommended by that author who referenced it. We have to have our thinking caps on at all times. There are good questions to ask to prepare us to judge what we are looking at. - For one thing, who is the publisher? You can look up other books that that publisher has put out. This isn’t a slam-dunk because a lot of publishers will publish anything. But there are some publishers out there, and you’ll get a feel for this as you go, who are really solid in content. - You can ask where the author teaches, if they’re a teacher. Again, definitely no slam dunk, but potentially helpful in judging work. - Does the book have citations or footnotes or endnotes? Does it have a bibliography? Are they backing up their words with data? - You can also watch some Youtube interviews or presentations with the author if you can find them. And more and more are putting stuff like that out. - How does the author present his views? Does he or she have a high view of Scripture? Is he focused on the central tenants of the Bible’s message or is he focused on some periphery—is he or she holding up God’s character in a faithful way? - Is the author warning us or presenting something that they have discovered as new rather than trying to uncover something that has been there and we just haven’t seen it clearly in that way for some reason? We should always be wary of people who are putting out “warnings.” - We live in a click-bait world and sometimes even the best content looks like click-bait, though. So we do need to dig in a bit to see what’s solid. But usually after a little digging, it becomes clear whether this is marketing or whether it’s really just click-bait all the way down. - Also, read reviews. I guess that ought to be obvious, but…get used to reading reviews because eventually you can tell those kinds of reviewers who know what they are talking about as opposed to…well, those reviewers who don’t know what they’re talking about. - Podcasts are actually a great source of reviews and information. The problem with good podcasts, though, is that rather than trying to weed through bad books, you’ll soon find yourself with an overabundance of resources that you cannot live without. You’re warned, but you’re already here so it’s too late. - I will also say…read in a diverse community. If the only responses and voices you are hearing are those within your own tradition, you might want to step back and invite the opinions of others in. The fact that someone is Reformed, or Catholic, or Greek Orthodox, or Presbyterian, or Anglican…these are not reasons to reject wholesale the authors who come from these traditions. - I do think part of this question is directed to the path of wanting to find more scholarly information—because there are a lot of scholarly articles that you can find online for free. And you can find all kinds of dissertations and all kinds of things. So how do we judge those things? Well, I’ll be honest, if you’re asking that question….you might want to be sure to have a few trustworthy people to bounce these things off of. People who are used to reading such things can spot the complete nonsense pretty easily. Now, of course, there’s complete nonsense that is also disguised really well, too. So, there’s just not a simple answer to this question…though you can use tools like Google Scholar to see if you can find where papers have been mentioned in other papers—below the link to the paper, it says, “cited by such-and-such many” or “related articles”—that’s a good indication that either the first paper was total bunk and needed to be strongly fixed or else it’s a seed of an interesting idea that people are talking about. - To get a bit more into resources, there are various types you can look for. We are probably all familiar with study Bibles. Of which there are many, often from particular traditions. I recommended before the *Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible.* This gives you a lot of, well, cultural background. Another good one is the *Faithlife Study Bible*…you can get that through the Bible software, Logos. - There are commentaries, and there are various types of these. Some commentaries are more designed for sermons where they don’t have a whole lot of meat to it, and others are designed for more exegetical work. The exegetical commentaries will go into things like language and nuances there. Sometimes they’re a bit difficult if you can’t read the alphabet of the language. Commentaries can span the whole Bible, or just parts of it, and often commentaries will focus on one book—so they get awfully expensive, awfully fast that way. - Then there are monographs, which are entire books on a single topic—and you can find these on pretty much any subject you want. - There are Bible Dictionaries and these aren’t just normal dictionaries, but provide reference articles for particular topics. Bible dictionaries can have a bit of a cross over with encyclopedias. But encyclopedias will often be more in-depth. If you’re going to use Logos, the Lexham Bible Dictionary is an awesome resource. Bible dictionaries, again, can span the entire Bible or they can focus on certain areas of it. And another great thing about Bible dictionaries is they will have reference articles or reference authors, so if you’re interested in going down a certain rabbit trail, you can find all kinds of books and resources to do that. - There are systematic theology books, of which there are a number of popular ones. The only one I personally like is Michael Bird’s *Evangelical Theology*. - Well, there are tons of other types of references and books you might get into, like journals and textbooks and lexicons and devotionals. But I hope that gives you a rough idea of where to start out if you’re interested in this. ## Do I believe in young earth creationism? - All right. It looks like we can cover at least one more question…assuming I don’t go overboard with responding like….I have with every other question today… - Okay, question number 4…Do you reject young earth creationism? - Uh. No. There, that was easy! - Okayyyyy, you know I can’t just leave it at that. I mean, I’ll admit: I don’t like young earth creationism, really. It’s too packaged into that way of thinking I was describing before, this idea that we are just going to reject anything that isn’t historically verified or oriented. I don’t like young earth creationism because of that presentation…that it feeds into that. That doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s a perfectly viable option, though. Of course it is! There’s certainly nothing in the Bible that prevents this interpretation. And admittedly, there’s a whole lot that suggests it. Maaaaybe not as much as some might think, though. - It’s this idea of it’s gotta be my way or the highway kind of interpretation that I balk at. I’m just being honest. It rubs me the wrong way. And also…science done from the perspective of young earth creationism…I can see too many other possible answers for what they say, I guess. I watched that documentary…I forget what it’s called. Explaining how all of this is; it’s based on Genesis and all that. Actually I think I watched it a couple of times, and…it’s not persuasive to me. - But do I reject it wholesale? No, definitely not. I mean, we’re talking about God creating here. There are so many examples of supernatural creation in the Bible. The creation of the cosmos could have been done any which way. We’re here, so it’s reality. And I trust that God did it. - One thing I might explore in an episode is digging into the book The God of the Gaps…it explains why we cannot use the Bible for chronology like we might want to. I’m tempted to get it out now, but…we’re getting along here, so…so I won’t. ## Do I believe in old earth creationism? - So question number 5…if I reject young earth creationism, am I sold on old earth creationism? - Well, again, I do find it a bit more persuasive—but sold on it? No, not necessarily. I like looking at all the options. But to be honest, I’m not nearly as interested as exploring things scientifically as I used to; it’s interesting, yes, very much….but talk about something being human-centric, geez. *These* are the ideas that are just developed by humans. And there’s nothing wrong with that, we have all kinds of cool technology because of it. Allllll kinds of super interesting ideas. - But no, I’m not sold on any of it. It’s just a human pursuit, and very interesting at that. ## If the Gods of the Nations are Real, and if Christ Defeated Them, Then Why Doesn’t It Seem Like They’re Defeated? - All right. One final question. If the gods of the nations are real, if God gave them authority, and if Christ defeated them, then…why doesn’t it seem like they’re defeated? Why are they still around? - So glad you asked. And I mean, it’s a totally fair question. Christ has victory! We’ve won! Why doesn’t it feel like that, then? Why haven’t we reached the end times yet? - Well, we have that picture of the fullness of the Gentiles needing to come in…and why are we still struggling? Why are dark forces still at play? Well, because we aren’t in that consummated time yet. - This is known as the “already but not yet” paradigm of eschatology. - You and I—we aren’t perfected yet. Well, I know I’m not and I’m *fairly certain* about you. Jesus came to inaugurate the kingdom—but we are still here suffering and all other kinds of things going on. We still die. These are the questions that Peter was dealing with in his epistle writing. There were people who were saying, oh look, believers still die—what’s up with that? Guess Jesus didn’t fix everything after all. - Well it’s a good thing for us that the curtain didn’t go up then, isn’t it? Because if it did, we wouldn’t be here. - There’s apparently a process to all of this. - I’m going to read an entry from the *Faithlife Study Bible* about this “already-but-not-yet” reality; this was written by Mike Goldsworthy: - The Kingdom of God: Already but Not Yet The kingdom of God is a central theme of the Gospels as well as other New Testament books. It is the message that John the Baptist declared in preparation for Jesus (Matt 3:2), the good news that Jesus preached (Mark 1:14–15), what Jesus taught the disciples in the 40 days between His resurrection and ascension (Acts 1:3), and what Paul is recorded as proclaiming at the conclusion of the book of Acts (Acts 28:31). A kingdom is a place where someone has rule or governance. The same is true of the kingdom of God. Jesus said in His prayer: “May your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10). The kingdom of God is where God’s will is carried out. The Old Testament theme of Yahweh’s rule and reign is another way of describing the kingdom of God. The psalmist speaks of Yahweh’s kingdom as an everlasting realm that endures throughout all generations (Psa 145:13). Isaiah declares that Yahweh will save (Isa 33:22) and speaks of a time when God will reign (Isa 52:7). The Old Testament portrays great anticipation for the time when God will be worshiped in all the earth (Isa 2). During the first century AD, many Jews believed that the Messiah would initiate this reign, which was based on passages like Malachi 3:1–5; Zechariah 9:9–10; Isaiah 9:1–7; and Isaiah 52:13–53:12. They also believed that the kingdom would be established through political or military means (compare Matt 26:51–53; Luke 22:47–53)—but Jesus ushered in the kingdom in a radically unexpected way. He announced that the kingdom had come upon those whom He freed from demons (Matt 12:28); He taught that the kingdom should be received like a child (Mark 10:15) and explained that it belongs to the impoverished (Luke 6:20). Jesus declared the kingdom of God as a present reality that could be experienced by those He taught and to whom He ministered. Jesus’ teaching also assumed the kingdom was a future reality. While His disciples expected the kingdom to appear immediately, Jesus changed their expectations by telling them a parable about a ruler who had to leave before he could return to his kingdom (Luke 19:11–27). He described what good and faithful servants could do in the meantime. Paul spoke of the kingdom as something that could be inherited (1 Cor 6:9–10) and that does not perish (1 Cor 15:50). These examples testify to the kingdom of God as a future reality. To borrow the phrase made popular by George Eldon Ladd, the kingdom of God is “already/not yet.” God’s kingdom has a dual dimension. Jesus initiated the kingdom on earth, and wherever God’s will is carried out, the kingdom is a reality. The kingdom, however, had not been fully manifested in Jesus’ day—nor has it in ours. We do not yet live in a world where God’s will is a complete reality. We feel the tension of experiencing God’s kingdom in our lives and communities before it is fully realized. We still see unbelief, brokenness, and sin, telling us God’s will is not yet fully expressed. Many believers neglect to focus on the kingdom as a present reality. Their concern centers on the future reality of getting to heaven—but this focus can easily sever the relationship between the Christian life and life here and now. When Jesus prayed, “May your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10), He asked that God would bring the experience of heaven to earth. Through Jesus, God’s reign, rule, and power are available to us today, not just in the distant future. The present reality of the kingdom of God should prompt us to examine our lives and ask what areas we have not yet surrendered to God’s rule. On a larger level, the notion of God’s kingdom should lead us to examine both our neighborhoods and the global community and ask what lies outside of God’s desire. Where are people not being treated with the dignity and honor they deserve as God’s image-bearers? As we anticipate the time when all things will be made fully new (Rev 21:4–5), we can actively participate in the kingdom of God now (Matt 4:17). As we surrender to the reign of God, we will begin to experience the Kingdom of God now—as God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven (Matt 6:9–15). MIKE GOLDSWORTHY *John D. Barry et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016).* - So this reality of being in the kingdom, but not yet fully there, that applies to us, and it applies to the dark forces of reality, as well. - Don’t they know they’ve lost? Why don’t they just give up? - Well, do you give up on everything that you realize is futile? Of course you don’t. The idea that the end isn’t coming til the fullness of the Gentiles comes in suggests that the powers might have this idea that they can prolong the inevitable, they can drag down humanity with them still through the continued deception, through drawing people away from worshiping the true God. - You notice that in reading that article, a lot of the focus is on how we live our lives, how that impacts the realization of the Kingdom. And that’s exactly right. We might not think that we are engaging in spiritual warfare by living out our own lives in Christian fashion—by treating others as we should, by sharing the message of the coming of our King Messiah, but this is exactly what the dark powers don’t want us to do. They don’t want people hearing about who should truly be worshipped. We take ground from them as we do these things. - One final quote, from Dr. Heiser’s *The Unseen Realm*; here he is talking about after Jesus’ temptation by Satan: - Immediately following this confrontation, Jesus “returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee,” where he preached in the region’s synagogues and was rejected by those in his home town of Nazareth (Luke 4:14–15). Matthew and Mark tell us that Jesus moved out of Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum (Matt 4:12–16). At Capernaum he began his ministry with a simple but appropriate message: “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven is near” (Matt 4:17). Jesus then did two things: called his first disciples (Peter, Andrew, James, and John) and healed a demon-possessed man (Mark 1:16–28; Luke 4:31–5:11). Let the holy war begin. It might sound hard to believe, but this event is first time in the entire Bible we read about a demon being cast out of a person. No such event is ever recorded in the Old Testament. The defeat of demons, falling on the heels of Jesus’ victory over Satan’s temptations, marks the beginning of the re-establishment of the kingdom of God on earth. Jesus himself made this connection absolutely explicit: “If it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Luke 11:20 ESV). And since the lesser elohim over the nations are cast as demons in the Old Testament, the implications for our study are clear: The ministry of Jesus marked the beginning of repossession of the nations and defeat of their elohim.7 *Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible, First Edition. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015), 279–280.* - We think of “spiritual warfare” as being this type of casting out of demons. But is that what the NT is? Just a grocery list of Jesus and the apostles casting out demons? I mean, they did that, but what else did they do? Quoting *The Unseen Realm* again: - As if the intention wasn’t clear enough, in the next chapter Jesus does something dramatic to announce to all who understood the cosmic geography of Babel what was really happening After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where He Himself was going to come (Luke 10:1 NRSV) Jesus sent out seventy disciples. The number is not accidental. Seventy is the number of nations listed in Genesis 10 that were dispossessed at Babel. The seventy “return with joy” (Luke 10:17) and announce to Jesus, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” Jesus’ response is telling: “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (10:18). The implications are clear: Jesus’ ministry is the beginning of the end for Satan and the gods of the nations. The great reversal is underway. *Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible, First Edition. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015), 280–281.* - The sending out of the seventy wasn’t all about demon-exorcism. It was about sharing the good news, about spreading the gospel and getting people to join in with the worship of the true God. The reclaiming of the nations is happening still today. How amazing is it that we get to be part of that? ## Outro - Well, that’s it for this episode. Thanks, as always, for listening. I genuinely hope you enjoyed it. - Thank you for those who have shared episodes and who have reached out to me to tell me that you’re listening. If you find this valuable, please do share this episode with anyone you might think might like it. Please also rate my podcast wherever you listen to it as that helps others see it, too. - If you’re on Facebook, feel free to say hi and join my discussion group. If you’ve got any questions, I’d love to hear them. And you can always email me at [email protected]. - Thanks as always to Wintergatan for the music. Hoping you have a blessed week and we’ll see you soon!