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.
Pete 0:00
Yeah, and you know, wisdom sort of does take on a life of its own in a couple places in the Old Testament. It is not it's not an abstract concept it's something very tangible and very concrete. And I think that speaks to the, the key importance of wisdom as a concept in the Old Testament as a whole, which is sometimes overlooked by Christians, I think. You know, we think like law is a central concept. Well, it's very important obviously, Prophets are important, Kings are important. But wisdom is something that really pervades the Bible as a whole even in these stories. Like the Adam and Eve story is considered by many people to be a wisdom story. The Joseph's story is a wisdom story and other places like that. So yeah, wisdom is key and wisdom is personified as a woman, and the closest you come to in, the New Testament, is Jesus. Jesus, is, you know, has that intimacy with God that wisdom has in the Old Testament in Proverbs chapter 8.
Seth Price 1:27
Hey there friends! Welcome to the Can I Say This At Church podcast! I'm glad you're here. A few quick announcements and then we will jump right into this bad boy. If you are at all interested in diving deeper into contemplation and some of the work of the episodes from Alexander Shaia, and the Heart and Mind journey for Spiritual transformation and a different kind of take on the Gospels, I would encourage you to go to the website. I am eventually I promise going to make sure by now, by now, there should be a button where you can sign up. And I will put you on the mailing list for that so that we can all coordinate appropriately, I will do my best to make sure that we meet at least monthly somehow, to talk about it. But it will require some work on your part, you're gonna have to do some reading, you're gonna have to some prayer, you have to do some soul searching. And hopefully, hopefully, over the course of these conversations, there will be growth in both you and me spiritually, and contemplatively. And I believe it'll be beautiful. Click that button and do that.
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You saw when you downloaded this thing already that I am talking with Pete Enns and so, Pete Enns he is the Abraham Clemens Professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University. You'll probably know him from another podcast called the Bible for Normal People. He's authored some fantastic books. He's very smart. And most importantly, he is sarcastic and likes puns and so he is near and dear to my heart.
And I will not belabor this anymore. Let's get into this. Let's roll the tape on a conversation on how the Bible actually works with Pete Enns.
Seth Price 4:40
Pete Enns, actually, I'll say Dr. Pete Enns, but that's the last time I'm going to say doctor.
Pete 4:44
Yes, my wife and kids have to say that!
Seth Price 4:46
Sure.
Thank you so much for making the time this afternoon to come on the podcast. At the beginning, I had a list of like 15 or 20 people and you were on the list. And so almost two years later, I'm glad to finally welcome you to the show.
Pete 4:58
(laughts) Yeah, great. It's good to be here.
Seth Price 5:01
I want to start with just a quick, you know, rule of thumb. So Jared Byas was one of my very first interviews, although it was not one of the very first ones that was released. And the fact that you and Jared run the only God ordained podcast on the internet I'm curious if now that since I've had you both on if I am now also a God ordained podcast on the internet?
Pete 5:19
Well, that's not up to us. That's up to God. Right? So we can't really give you that.
Seth Price 5:25
Oh, man.
Pete 5:26
No, I'd like to, but that would be really arrogant on my part.
Seth Price 5:30
Would it?
Pete 5:32
Even more arrogant than saying the only God ordained podcast! You have no idea, Seth, how many people-it's not like thousands of people-but how many people like email me and they say things like, “you know, we really like the content. But do you really think you're the only God ordained podcast on the internet”?
Seth Price 5:50
I feel like they are missing the point.
Pete 5:50
And I don’t even answer that anymore because it's like, obviously we don't think that.
Seth Price 5:53
You should just say yes, like, Of course I do!
Pete 5:58
Just say yes. Yeah, just say of course.
Seth Price 6:05
Yeah, well, I'm glad to then finally count myself amongst the ranks because while you were talking, I prayed about it. And I feel like I also as well have become either way that's neither here nor there.
Pete 6:17
If you feel a calling for that you are good!
Seth Price 6:20
Yeah, absolutely. So I like to start each episode, although you're fairly large enough that I feel like most people are familiar with you. But there will be that one person listening in New Zealand that's not and so can you just take two or three minutes and give me a crash course on who Pete Enns is and why he is what he is?
Pete 6:37
Yeah, well, wow.
Um, I was born that no… Okay, so here's the thing. I am a Bible Professor. I teach the in the theology department at Eastern University, which is in Pennsylvania. And I also went to seminary I taught the same seminary for about 14 years. And you know, I blog And I write some books. And in my main interest is just like making sense of this ancient text for us today. And that sounds really cheesy. But that's a hard thing to do. Because there's a big gulf in between and you want to take the text seriously in its moment, but also say, “Well, what does this have to do with us”? So, I'm really interested in a lot of things and I teach courses pretty much run the whole spectrum of things you could teach on the Bible at the college level. And let's see what else I don't know I have a wife, I have three adult children, and animals.
Seth Price 7:38
…and animals. Assuming that no one at university is listening. What is your least favorite course to teach?
Pete 7:45
You know, I don't want to sound…I like them all. I really do mean I teach intro courses to students who are coming in. Many of them have very little Bible background so it's a challenge to sort of sell it to them, so to speak, like you can't assume they're interested, you have to sort of show them why this might be a value to them. And all the way up to the other end where I have a senior seminar that I usually teach where we focus on one book, and it alternates between Genesis and Romans, year to year, and that's the seniors only.
And everything in between. I teach hermeneutics, Torah, the historical books, wisdom and poetry, I teach a science and faith class, science in the Bible really more than science and faith. And I like them all! Each one is a challenge. And I just I really love teaching,
Seth Price 8:38
Why Genesis and Romans? Like of the 66, and at least our canon, why those two? Did they just randomly come out of the hat or there's a method to that madness?
Pete 8:47
Well see I inherited this when I came to Eastern in 2012. And I think the reason is because those are books that you can really land on every possible important issue. You know, with like Genesis, you're dealing with literary structure, theology, mythology, legend, you know, his whole historical question comes up. And with Romans, you're dealing with a core person, a writer of the New Testament, Paul, and you get into currents of scholarship, like the new perspective on Paul, which is a very different way of reading Romans than a more, let's say, traditional way, at least for Protestants.
But so yeah, it's sort of like these are places you can get into like, very important issues for people who were Bible majors. And so that's why I sort of kept it as that and I just, I think it's fun. You know Romans is often misunderstood as Genesis, so we'll go for those.
Seth Price 9:45
Well, I'd argue, pretty much every book in the Bible is often misunderstood. And probably by me, at least every third or fourth day.
Pete 9:55
That's what I hear!
Seth Price 9:56
You have a book or you have the your news book on How the Bible Actually Works. And then I like your subtitle. And so I usually don't say these because I can't remember them. But I brought yours with me, “in which I” Pete, “explain how ancient ambiguous and diverse book leads us to wisdom rather than answers and why that's great news”. And so two questions on that. I've never known a publisher that would allow that much text to be on the cover. And what the heck does that mean?
Pete 10:23
Yeah, well, \first of all, it's a little tongue in cheek, okay. I don't really mean that. But it's just my way of just sort of talking about things and but again, even there, I've had people see previews of the title. And say “He’s got to be kidding. Is this the Babylon Bee that I'm reading”? How dare he think?
Seth Price 10:44
Well, to be fair, you've got the yellowish color.
Pete 10:47
Right, that's true. (laughs) Yeah, so I mean, how the Bible actually works, and, you know, the word actually is in italics, and, you know, I don't really I think I know how the Bible in total actually works. But this book takes a stab at things that don't normally come into the picture when people talk about the nature of the Bible. And in the subtitle, I have these words, it's ancient, ambiguous, and diverse, which are actually wonderful things because those are the kinds of things that make the Bible, let's say flexible. And I don't like to use the word applicable, but that's not a bad word here, you know, it's usable, applicable, and flexible, which is one reason why I think it sort of keeps hanging around and people keep reading it in very different ways and getting different things out of it. The Bible seems to me set up as it were, to do that kind of thing. So it gives us wisdom rather than answers because it's not just sort of this collection of propositions and if you do them all, or believe them all, everything's fine. It's a book that is diverse, it's ambiguous, and it's ancient, and therefore leads us towards trying to gain wisdom, rather than thinking of the Bible is sort of the field guide for the Christians.
Seth Price 12:11
Right, you talk in the book on wisdom quite a bit. And you make the distinction of the searching for wisdom over answers. And so when you say that, what I hear is the answers constantly change, at least for me, maybe I'm over reading that. Is that what you mean by that with wisdom? Like the answers for next year, you know, and all of my kids are a year older and all of my problems change that the answer is different, or the way that I interpret is different. What is actually the distinction there?
Pete 12:44
Well, I think that the Christian faith and the Bible behind it, you know, our circumstances change, and we see things differently and something that think and I believed very strongly that was true, let's say 20 years ago that I might not or 30 years ago or 40 years ago, but I don't think is correct any longer. I was on the path to seeking wisdom. And my views have changed and or my practices have changed. So that's really what I mean. It's, you know, I'm not suggesting, for example, that the Bible doesn't say anything that we might consider it to be an answer. But every answer still has the follow up kind of question. Okay, well, so what what do I do? What difference does this make? And at that point, you're immediately in wisdom territory, because that can look different for different people and it will get different for the same person, as you said, at different times in their lives under different circumstances. Which is beautiful. This is exactly what the Bible models the Bible models, different writers at different times, communing with God, I even like using the word imagining God, in different ways depending on who they are and when they are what their pressing questions are.
Seth Price 14:33
I spoke with a guest, I don't remember exactly who it was or when it was, but they had said something about, you know, the Hebrew text and the way that that language was written and the Aramaic words, as well, were meant. were limited enough that each word had different meanings depending on your context and the context of who they were written to. And they were meant to be wrestled with and chewed on and they all had multiple facets.
Pete 14:58
I think that's true. Yeah, very much so! And even just the factor of the passage of time, when you have Hebrew texts that are being read, let's say hundreds of years later, by Jews at a later time, even before the time of Christ, you know, some words like they'd start meaning different things. You know, like the last classic example of like fool and English, you know, full meant something to Shakespeare and it means something different today. But, so, you know, it's not always clear what something meant back then originally, but later readers don't care.
You know, it isn't like, I have to go back and do my homework. It's more like, you know, words take on different meanings, they evolved. I mean, there are numerous examples of trying to think off the top of your head, but the language evolves, right. So if you have something written, let's say during the period of, I don't know the monarchy, let's say the seventh century, you know, by something like whoever is writing at that point. And you have Jews reading this in, let's say 200 BC, 400 years later, where Hebrew is no longer the major language, but they passed through Aramaic and now Greek has become important. So the language of the Bible itself forces readers (insert cat meow here) to appropriate these things differently for their time. And that's exactly what happens.
Seth Price 16:30
So when I do that, well, firstly, I don't necessarily believe in inerrancy the way that most people talk about it, although I feel like that conversation is quickly changing as my generation gets older and more vocal, maybe I'm wrong-maybe that's just the circles that are running. But when I'm reading Scripture that way, how do I measure with…what's the word I'm looking for? How do I measure with conviction that what I'm reading the text to say, is a good way to read it and that I'm not just retconning in Scripture? Because I mean, the way that people would do for, you know, slavery the way that people would do to keep women in a place of subservience or the way that people would do for other issues? How do we make sure when we're treating language, I guess loosely is the best way to say it for me, that we're not just retconning in what we need it to say?
Pete 17:19
Well, I mean, that's a surprisingly complex question. And the fact that it needs to be asked doesn't mean that now language has to be very simple, right. In other words, we do have this interpretive problem and there's no question about it. And how do you know? Well, you don't really know mechanically all the time. But it may take time to sort of filter these things through a community and to see, like to be in conversation with, this is a tall order, but as much of the history of your tradition or of the Christian faith as you can be. And I do think that, for example, I want to have a starting point in trying to understand what ancient authors were trying to do. But in the same sense, I don't know if that really can limit us because we have the Bible itself that doesn't do that it appeals to earlier stories and earlier texts. And it goes in very different directions, directions that you might not always expect.
Seth Price 18:22
What's a to drill down language and you use the word fool earlier and you were talking about it in your book about, you know, contradictions. I forget which part of Proverbs but basically, don't answer the fool because that's just a bad decision, but then right after it, answer the fool, or he's gonna, you know, boast that he's obviously. You know, don't answer Donald Trump or answer Donald Trump, but either way, I'm screwed. It doesn't matter which way I go. And so when we're talking about words changing meaning what does fool actually mean? there?
Pete 19:02
What does it actually mean, you mean historically in the context. Fool is like a casual term in the book of Proverbs that describes people who are slanders who are lazy, who, don't look out for the well being of the other—it's just many, many things that involve the fool. And we might think of that as basically someone who was “not righteous”.
And unrighteousness means how you are towards other people, really. This isn't like pious theology in Proverbs it is actions towards other human beings. And that's really what a fool is there. It's, it's not somebody who's like, is such a fool like you're an idiot, or you know, you don't see the obvious thing in front of you. Fool is a little bit more of a treacherous category in Proverbs, and you're warned, don't be a fool, but be wise.
Okay, great. So let's go to what you were citing before Proverbs 26:4-5, “don't answer a fool/answer a fool”. Well, which do you do? Because I don't want to be foolish. I want to be wise. So what do you do? Well you know what to do if you have wisdom that's the circle here in Proverbs. It's a book that's meant to help you along the path of wisdom, but not just by delivering these “nuggets of truth” but by forcing you to enter into it and to experiment and to think. Like, sometimes you have to really sit down and think, should I say something right now or should I not say something? Right, so it's about more than reading the book. It's about reading the situation that you're in and that's what wisdom is about. I think the Bible really, not just Proverbs, but I think the Bible forces us into sort of a situation like that where we have to think and do our best. You know, it's just so not set up as that rule book that sometimes people make it out to be and Proverbs 26:4-5, putting them next to each other like that is a glaring example of, I think, not just Proverbs but how the Bible as a whole seems to be functioning.
Seth Price 21:15
Yeah, well, I mean, the Bible as a whole has so many contradictions. Do you think that humanity as a creature, I guess is the best word requires a rulebook? Because it seems like we always try to turn things into that. It doesn't really matter what the dogma is and it doesn't even matter that it's in a religious context but so often people look for the order of things to process in?
Pete 21:39
Yes, I think that's true. Whether it's just endemic to humanity, I would probably say, yeah, we keep coming also the history of humanity. And that's why it's interesting (insert dog barking for the next little bit) that the Bible is such a long, winding, complex collection of narratives and different genres that go in and out over, spanning, you know, roughly a millennia, right, roughly, and millennium. And all these genres and all these potential differing circumstances that, you know, it's the Bible is really set up not to be taken as a rulebook. That's really the point.
Even if you can say “I can point to some rules” that's great but like, Okay, how about you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself. Okay, that's a rule what do I do though? That's where the wisdom part comes in, like, how do you actually enact that? And that's where people will have different opinions. And, to me, that's part of the beauty of the Bible that makes it really worth reading because we have to own this stuff for ourselves, and not just check off some boxes.
Seth Price 22:57
You've written basically two books in this book. I would argue. So there's the text itself. And then there's the footnotes at the bottom of many of the pages, which are almost an entirely different book unto themselves. I literally flipped through and just read those. And I like them a lot. But I'm curious, you give so many footnotes about your kids, and about other things. And basically saying, I'm using this word this way. I'm aware that it's wrong, but for the purposes that we're using this in, this makes the most sense to the people that live right now.
But you don't give me a footnote about, you know, Joshua 10, and Judges 4 and 19, where there's tent poles and dismemberment. So you talk about all that like right around the same chapter, as you know, making sure that we don't screw our kids up, which is a big goal of mine with three kids under 10. Not to screw them up! And they ask really hard and tough questions, but then you don't give any disclaimers about the parts of the Bible that I should maybe avoid for the tent poles and the dismemberment. Which one of those was more fun to write the book itself or the footnotes?
Pete 24:00
Well, they both were I mean, the footnotes are just places where I can sort of riff on things that I think are important or a chance for an occasional snarky comment. But you know, I try to, as people can tell from the Bible Tells Me so and the Sin of Certainty and now this book, that I really don't want to use footnotes for a lot of content, because it's just distracting. A few places I do because I mentioned Isaiah, and like the exile and I said, listen, you know, most scholars think that Isaiah is probably a compilation of a long tradition that maybe three people put together or something like that. And I just want people to sort of know that because a lot of my readers are very curious about things. You know, they want to understand something of the scholarship, but footnotes with citations and books and things like that, I may do that once. But for me the footnotes to replace just to say sort of relevant but semi-fun things too that that might help with some of the concepts of the book itself.
Seth Price 25:07
I think you did only do it once you're talking about I think homosexuality, you're like, yeah, I'm not going to talk about that. Please see this book, this book or this book—end of footnote, although I will say my favorite footnote was about Asherah and Yahweh as possible archaeological evidence for them being (husband and) wife. I think you just said, Here's another free piece of trivia for you. There you go. Here you are.
You brought up the term exile and you deal with exile in a way in this book that I'm not really familiar with you deal with exile as a term and like exile is a form of death. You know, that were exiled from Eden, exiled into Babylon. And that obedience in turn, is what brings you out of exile, which I've never really connected those two together before. Can you break that apart just a bit for those that have not read the book?
Pete 25:54
Sure. Yeah.
You know, there's this thing called the Babylonian exile which it began in 597 BC and lasted till 589 BC I'm already boring all your listeners by saying that…
Seth Price 26:09
I doubt it.
Pete 26:11
I would say that is the pivotal moment in Israel's history as far as the Bible's concerned. Because, you know, I'm collapsing a lot here, but it's during the exilic period that the Israelites who would soon come to be called Judites, because that's the southern nation that actually survived. They, you know, they were writing their story within the context of the pressure of exile, and the sense of God’s abandonment in exile. And that's when the ancient stories started coming together and being edited together and grouped together in a certain way and new stories were being written. And, after the exile, stories were being written for even like, two 300 years, at least after the exile was over. And thing about exile is that it was so traumatic, because it was a sense of God's abandonment. And you see how pivotal that exilic and post exilic perspective is on much of the Bible.
So in other words, you know, you can have stories of David, and Abraham, Adam, and Moses, and Joshua, and whatnot and those traditions are very old. Almost every Biblical scholar acknowledges that some of these things are trained in archaic, very, very old traditions, but the form of the Bible in which we have it, no, they weren’t written five minutes after Joshua, or five minutes after Moses. These books are the product of post exilic reflection on an ancient tradition, they were retelling their story in the context of this period of suffering and what came out of it and what they learned from it, quite frankly. And I think that's a very important concept and so you see exile woven in to the Bible in various points and one of those points is the Adam and Eve story. Where, you know, they're exiled from the garden for disobedience. And that parallels very nicely how Israel is exiled from the promised land because of disobedience.
It's like the Adam and Eve story is really a preview of coming attractions. And you have this hinting going on like in Deuteronomy about if you do this, you know, one day I'm just gonna, like, throw you out of the land I haven't even put you in yet.
Right, they haven't gotten to land yet and they're really talking about leaving, because Deuteronomy is a later perspective. It's near the exile and probably during and maybe even a little bit after the exile as far as we know. And so death, like the Adam story, death and exile are the same thing, in a sense. Because on the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. On the day they eat of it, they're driven out of the garden, because to be exiled is to be in the place of death.
And Ezekiel says that to you know, what is it 37, the Valley of the dry bones, you know, I saw this vision, there's a valley and all these dry bones and those dry bones represent the exiled Judites. And they slowly come back to life little by little and God then breathes life into them, Adam sorry, breathes life into them. And well, okay, what does that mean? What Ezekiel for heaven's sake tells you exactly what it means. He explains the metaphor at the end of that chapter says basically this is about the Judah hikes coming back from exile to the promised land.
So to come back to the land is a sort of a resurrection. And that’s why I mean, I just, this is such an important thing because this is why all four gospels introduce Jesus' public ministry by citing Isaiah 40 in the first few verses. Sometimes it's John the Baptist or just the narrator, but they cite this in Isaiah 40 is like the classic big return from exile passage in the Old Testament. You know, comfort my people says your God, speak tenderly to Jerusalem tell her that her warfare is ended. She's been repaid double for her sins. But now it's time to come home. Now it's time for comfort.
And Jesus’ story begins with him identifying with Israel's national plight into death. And what happens at the end of the gospel stories? Well, Jesus comes back to life! Right, it's a retelling, so to speak, of this story that really goes back to Adam, that all has to do with the reality of exile and what that means. Now, the New Testament interprets it very differently you know, it's not about land. It's a different kind of exile and different kinds of resurrection. But that's still mean that the ideas are there and, you know, I just can't think of a more simple concept for understanding the structure of the entire Bible, then the stress of exile and what it means to be Jewish in the midst of that.
Seth Price 31:34
You give Wisdom almost a personification. So you give wisdom like, I'm a banker for my day job and so you give wisdom like an equation of time + diversity = wisdom. But you also give wisdom, like a feminine trait, which I've never really given much credence to. What does wisdom look like when it's given that phenonom…. oh my gosh, I can't talk…that attribute
Pete 32:00
Feminininiom..
Seth Price 32:02
All of that. Yeah.
Pete 32:02
Yeah, well, you know, first of all wisdom is personified in the Old Testament as female and referred to as “she”. And Proverbs chapter eight is a great place like wisdom is like, be gotten by God and is with God at creation and wisdom is a feminine concept. The reason that happens is probably very grammatical because wisdom, the Hebrew word, is a feminine noun, wisdom is personified as a woman, probably for that reason. But yeah, and that's what you know, wisdom is sort of does take on a life of its own in a couple places and the Old Testament is not an abstract concept. It's something very tangible and very concrete. And I think that speaks to the the key importance of wisdom as a concept in the Old Testament as a whole, which is sometimes overlooked by questions, I think. We think like law is a central concept. Well, it's very important. Obviously, prophets are important things are important. But wisdom is something that really pervades the Bible as a whole, even in the stories. Like the Adam and Eve story is considered by many people to be a wisdom story, Joseph's story is a wisdom story, other places like that. So, yeah, wisdom is key and wisdom is personified as a woman, and the closest you come to in you know, the New Testament is Jesus. Jesus has that intimacy with God that wisdom has in the Old Testament in Proverbs 8
Seth Price 33:49
A good answer. Anytime we're discussing the Bible is to say the best example is Jesus. So that almost always works.
Pete 33:56
I mean, for the Christian Bible, they're great and I respect that. But for the Christian Bible, that's, it's like, you know, the concept of wisdom doesn't predict, like Jesus or anything like that. But Jesus embodies this ideal, that is taken by wisdom, that's occupied by wisdom in the Old Testament. And in John's Gospel, you know, in the beginning was the Word the Word was with God, the Word was God, everything was created through him. This word is, in John's world, very much connected to the idea of wisdom. It's not the same thing like in Greek philosophy, but it's this sort of intermediary kind of your that like to be connected to this has to be connected with the deity. But you know what, what turns the tables in, in John's Gospel is that this logos becomes flesh. Which logos is the Greek word for word, but this word becomes flesh. Which would be anathema both to Judaism into Greek thinking. So it's taking this wonderful idea but then flipping it on its head a little bit and saying the unexpected here.
Seth Price 35:14
You seem to easily work in books that I'm entirely not familiar with, although I have a copy of them and so like the Wisdom of Solomon, and Maccabees, you know, 1 and 2 Maccabees. And so, I'm familiar with what they are, but I don't really know how to use them. Well, so what is what are we talking about when we say apocrypha, and its relationship to the Bible? And what use should it be of?
Pete 35:39
Well, I mean, my orthodox friends, my Eastern Orthodox friends, remind me that the Apocrypha was in everybody's Bible until, I don't know, sometime relatively recently. I mean, well after the Reformation. So these books are not a waste of time and Apocrypha means hidden, which is wildly biasing you against them. Like they're hidden books, well, not very well, because you can go buy them anywhere you want. But the Apocrypha are a collection of books that were essentially written in Greek but they're Jewish books. So they stem from roughly the time of week conquests of Palestine of that part of the world, which happened…like Alexander the Great around 332 BCE he conqured stuff. And you see a lot of Greek influence in Jewish thinking, certainly by the year 200.
And so what Jews did was they kept writing, they didn't like, “well, the Biblical period is over, we're not going to write anything anymore”. They were writing a lot of stuff, to talk about what it means to be Jewish in a very different kind of world, not a Semitic world. Judaism in a Greek world, right, and that changed something for them.
And one reason these books are so important is that we can see these Jews before the time of Jesus thinking out loud about what it means to be Jewish in their world. And also you see some concepts that are not in the Old Testament, the Christian Old Testament, the Protestant Old Testament, they're not in the Old Testament, but they are in this apocryphal literature. And the New Testament talks about some of these things rather casually, as we all know. So actually there's this broad gulf of time, where again, the caricature for many Christians is that like, “Well after the exile you had some books, and then people were basically twiddling their thumbs waiting for Jesus to show up for about 500 years”. Oh, no! They were being Jewish. You know, and the New Testament is an extension of the whole Jewish development, especially coming out of Greek thought.
Seth Price 37:55
This isn't really the conversation at hand, but I'm just curious because I feel like you must at least know and breathe the answer. Why are they not allowed to be in my Bible now? Like I say, not allowed that's that's a bad metaphor. But why the apathy for these books? Because they're not preached on and I've only read them in current books a handful of times yours being among them; but each time I read something from there it's it's a fresh of breath air and that's probably because I'm not familiar with any of it and so that helps it. You know it's like it's the second string quarterback of the defense never prepared for it really penetrates all of the game plan because they play entirely different than Tom Brady, or whoever. Why is it not canon I guess is the best word but I know that's an entirely off topic, but…
Pete 38:51
Well remember it is canonical or what's sometimes called canonical but of a secondary nature deuterocanonical in both Roman Catholicism and in the Eastern Orthodox churches. So that's two thirds of the church basically has these this as canonical. The question really is why Protestants don't.
And there are a couple of interrelated reasons for that. One is, it was never part of the Jewish canon, these books. They were respected, it isn't like Jews and ignore them back and saying, well, this isn't part of the Bible. But what, but the reason they're not part of the Bible is because they're not old enough. These books are written in Greek, not Hebrew.
And so it's of a different level. And Jews recognize that but that doesn't mean they don't find them to be you know, I mean, Jews think different things about topics and not every Jew is the same, but you know, Jews are maybe more historically inclined or whatever, they will look at these books and read them and research them, even if they're not, let's say, preached on. Right.
And for Protestants, you know, in the wake of the reformation, the decisions were made. And I'm not clear exactly how the decisions were made, but they were made, that their Old Testament is going to go back to the Jewish standard and not to the Roman Catholic standard. Because you remember, Protestants and Roman Catholics didn't always get along. Right? So you have this historical divide that began for us for all intents and purposes, let's say around 1500. And, there was sort of like an anthema, like if you start looking for wisdom from these books, you know, you're treading in dangerous territory, right? And you're really not supposed to be doing that if you're Protestant. But I find it invaluable for filling in the pieces of a lot of key information of the New Testament that there's so many things the New Testament that like, if you only referenced the Old things just don't make a lot of sense. Like where do these ideas come from?
Things that we just take for granted that actually have a history and a development behind them. And it's fascinating to see how faith in this God of Israel moves and changes and I don't mind using the word “evolves” in some cases. Because that is a model for our own way of living and doing theology because we're still a part of that process of, you know, what does this God of old have to do with us right here and right now? That's a hard question.
And the Biblical witness as a whole, within the Old Testament throwing the apocryphal books in the New Testament, we're seeing some pretty major shifts in thinking; not just Jewish versus Christian, but within Judaism.
Seth Price 41:52
You’re talking about right now?
Pete 41:54
No back then. So, this ancient corpus of material is modeling for us something that I think thing is very vital for us, which is that it's not just about looking for the answers, it's seeking answers in your day in time, while engaging these texts, and looking to them for wisdom, but not expecting them to sort of answer the question for you.
Seth Price 42:18
So two things, and I want to connect them, I don't remember exactly what chapters they're in. But you say that
the Bible was created for when Israel needed it.
And if I'm following Christ, I'm hoping that the Bible is also created for when I need it. But then you also say that
the entire history of the Christian church is defined by moments of reimagining God to speak here and now.
And so, practically, and for you know, the next decade to 50 years, let's focus on decade or maybe even five years. What do you-just because you have your finger on the pulse of a youthful generation and you deal with many demographics with what you do-and so what currently do you think needs the most attention for being reimagined or reworked through or relanguageicized…I don't know what the word is—really voiced for the for the future of our faith to not just implode? Because everyone that I talked to I've asked the same question recently and each of them very easily have been able to say within a few generations the churches we know it will cease to exist. At least in Western culture if something doesn't change and so all supplant change with reimagining what do you see those things as for today?
Pete 43:38
Um, yeah, that is something that I do think about and the young people at least that I engage that's sort of where they are, even if they don't articulate quite as well. But you know, one thing, for example, is to really look at what the gospel is. And that is basic but you know, is it individualized salvation, so you can avoid the wrath of a retributive God and not go to a very hot place when you die; or is salvation something else? Like what is the purpose for Jesus even being on earth? I think it's that fundamental. Well it's to die. Oh, is it just to die? Because we have a lot of wasted space in between, you know, birth and death. There's a lot of stuff going on. So what what is the purpose of Jesus's life and death? And how do we appropriate those things and how do we think about those in ways that are meaningful today that may be different from meaningful back then?
I mean, I think salvation if I may make a very inadequately blanket answer to a very complex issue, but I really don't think salvation in the New Testament is about what happens to you when you die. It's about what happens to you right now. And whether you're a part of this kingdom of God, which is a present thing, which is going to get bigger in the future, but it is a present reality, because the king is here, right‽ So, you know, what sorts of things would you want to do if you're part of this kingdom? What kind of a person would you want to be?
Well, I can point to things in the New Testament that suggest, you know, basically, helping the poor, not aligning yourself with power. Many of the things that, you know, in my growing up evangelical, I would see the opposite. I would see power grabs and not real concern for the poor but concern for building empires. And so, I think in part, it's a matter of revisiting some of those older ideas as a corrective for us without even having to like rethink language. But even words like salvation, or justification, or righteousness, these are all terms that I think have become skewed. And for us to write like we think those terms is very, very important for understanding like, what is God doing in this world? I don't think it's to build little “Jesus clubs” where we isolate and sort of hunker down and wait for the end of time. That's a very non New Testament way of thinking.
Seth Price 46:35
So what you're talking about there's like eschatology, but yeah, I've stopped using the word sanctification or any of those and I just started using the word theosis for two reasons. A: I like the idea of slowly, contemplatively, becoming, you know, Christlike and B: it forces people to stop what they're doing and actually have to pay attention because I used a big word that I learned three weeks ago or whatever. And so I intentionally I've stopped using those words. And I only use that one as a very blanket term. Because it moves the conversation, at least to a point of new information can be gathered or proffered from both parties. But that's just me, personally.
Pete 47:16
Well I think that's great. I mean, the most difficult writing I've ever done in my life is working on a children's Bible curriculum, which I did a few years ago. And I wrote like three volumes. It's called Telling God's Story, which is excellent, by the way, and other volumes have come out since I had to stop doing that. But it's hard. It was hard writing because I couldn't use those buzzwords we're used to using. You can't use sanctification like this or that right? You just you have to like talk differently.
Seth Price 47:47
To bring it back together. And I like to close our time with this question. Partially because I am entirely bias in the answer and I have an inherent, what's the word I'm looking for, I want to do it better than I do it because I know I don't do as good of a job as I could. And so you give an analogy of raising children as a good way for how the Bible works as a wisdom book.
And so I'm hoping that in this answer, I can both learn something about a better way, with intention, to help raise children in a way that they have a good knowledge of Christ, but also maybe helps me read Scripture in a better way.
Pete 48:24
That is a big wisdom question, right? Because the point is that growing in faith, is not about making for you follow…it’s not treating the Bible as again, that rulebook. Because rulebooks for parenting don't work. You can't anticipate every scenario. You can't anticipate your child's personality beforehand. You can't treat each of your children exactly the same way. “Well, these are the rules”. Well, different kids respond differently and they have different things going on inside of them.
I think the life of faith and how we read the Bible is very similar to that. Different people will pick up different things from the Bible, and it simply doesn't work well, or I think at all, as that kind of a script to follow to crank out perfect Christians. Don’t do this just do the other thing. Well, no, I just I mean, it's, the Bible just will frustrate you at every turn, when you try to make the Bible into something like that, because the Gospels don't even agree. And Proverbs is messing with your head and the laws of the Old Testament…you know, there are laws given by Moses, from God through Moses, and depending on who is reading Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, they will say different things. That's not a mystery. People have known this since the beginning. Right?
So the Bible will frustrate our wanting to have let's say a parenting book for being raised in the faith, rather than I think God is a good parent, and we are left to figure things out. So like a friend of mine puts it “winging it in the Holy Spirit”. And the Bible models a process like that for us. And sometimes there are anchor points where we can touch down, but they're not ready made. They're not these 10 things that “this never changes”. No, again, God's love never changes. Okay. What does that mean? What's the impact of that for us? And so, you know, at the end of the day, it's about seeking wisdom through experience and through communion with God and trying to be in God’s presence and be mindful of that presence all the time. And then going through life thinking how is God showing up right here and right now, you won't find the answer to that by flipping in the index in back of the Bible.
Seth Price 50:57
So screw the concordance and know that the day that I got my first Bible is very similar to the day that they trusted me 48 hours after my wife gave birth to my son to just “here you go, just don't read the concordance and just go for it!”
Pete 51:12
But here's the thing, though, if you used the concordance well, you're going to be really well off because you're going to see how the same word doesn’t mean things in the same way and every place that it's used. Yeah, you'll be alerted to the variety of a right away and the variety of Scriptures.
Seth Price 51:32
Yeah. Well, Pete, where can Well, obviously this book will be available everywhere that fine books are sold, but how do they engage with you? I know you're very active. Well, you're semi active on Twitter. I have no idea. If you're active on Facebook, where would you direct people to be to get in touch with you and kind of engage in this text and the work that comes with it?
Pete 51:50
Sure. I mean, Twitter is always good. I have Facebook/author page which sounds really snooty, and it's meant to be but it's a place where I will post things regularly and people comment and engage back and forth there. My website Peteenns.com, aka theBiblefornormalpeople.com has all sorts of stuff, you know, comments there on blog posts, and you can access our podcasts there. We're also Jared Byas and I who were you know, we both run the Bibles for normal people, we have a Patreon account. And if you're not familiar with ash, don't worry about it. But if you're right, but therefore, you know, as little as $1 a month, there's extra content that we give and different levels of engagement that we have for people who are interested, including things like being part of a book study. People occasionally too, so. So those are the best ways to to connect with me and there are a lot of them.
Seth Price 52:51
They they should be familiar Patreon because I plug it every single week. Although I will say most people rise to the occasion. The Patreon community around specific this show and I'm sure it's similar with yours. Those people that become the people that I text phone call, email, like their feedback, not because they pay money, but because they're engaged and this is the best and the best feedback of anyone's because just the engagement.
Pete 53:16
We have a level of pay at our Patreon for what we call producers and these are people we get on, like quarterly calls with them, and they have like special access to sort of give feedback about stuff. And it's really valuable it is fantastic
Seth Price 53:30
Well, Pete, thank you for your time.
Pete 53:32
Thanks for having me.
Seth Price 53:58
Wouldn't it be crazy in twenty years our kids, my kids, your kids, maybe you I don't know how old you are, listen into this actually did what we need to do with the Bible; if we treated it not as an instruction book, and we tried to just live quote unquote, “biblically”? If we actually wrestled with the text and allowed the text of Scripture to change us, if we allowed the voice of wisdom to help inform our decisions, and to help change our hearts. I can't imagine what the world would look like. But I think it would look better than it does today. I know that it would look better than it does today. And so let's keep in mind, let's meditate on and let's be clear that the Bible has many opposing views on many different issues. And at all times both those views are true, and that's okay. Because if anything, I've learned that the Bible gives me permission to doubt. And the Bible gives me permission to question. And it's through prayer and discernment that the answers actually come and it's worth all of the uncomfortableness and all of the effort to get to the resolutions of the issues that come up day to day for me.
The music today is from a repeat artist Matt Tipton. I used some of his music in a previous episode and it was beautiful. He has a new album called Blessed King that you can get everywhere music is sold. It's everywhere. Just Google bless it King Matt Tipton, beautiful music. But check out Matt and then as always the songs from today's episode all four of those will be mixed into the Spotify playlist for the music of this show that playlist is called Can I Say This At Church. It is fantastic playlist you should be listening to it.
I will talk with you next week and I'm excited to be blessed everybody.