WEBVTT 00:00:04.290 --> 00:00:07.089 Hello everyone and welcome to this week's episode 00:00:07.089 --> 00:00:09.869 of Trinity Talks. My name is Kyla. My name is 00:00:09.869 --> 00:00:13.410 Britton. And we are here to talk about the Old 00:00:13.410 --> 00:00:16.500 Testament, which is... a section of the Bible 00:00:16.500 --> 00:00:18.699 that a lot of Christians have questions about, 00:00:18.800 --> 00:00:21.280 maybe don't always know what to do with it or 00:00:21.280 --> 00:00:24.519 how to read it well, which is why I am so excited 00:00:24.519 --> 00:00:27.640 to have a professor of Old Testament with us 00:00:27.640 --> 00:00:31.239 today. So Dr. Marion Taylor is professor of Old 00:00:31.239 --> 00:00:34.920 Testament at Wycliffe College and also focuses 00:00:34.920 --> 00:00:38.840 her research on uncovering forgotten women interpreters 00:00:38.840 --> 00:00:41.659 of the Bible. So thank you for joining us, Marion. 00:00:42.079 --> 00:00:45.299 You're welcome. I'm glad to be here. Yeah. So 00:00:45.299 --> 00:00:47.939 maybe we'll start by just getting to know your 00:00:47.939 --> 00:00:50.259 particular interest a little bit more. Like what 00:00:50.259 --> 00:00:53.280 made you want to study the Old Testament and 00:00:53.280 --> 00:00:56.460 like make a career of that? Well, I had never 00:00:56.460 --> 00:01:00.740 planned to do that. So my first year of university 00:01:00.740 --> 00:01:03.439 at the University of Toronto, I took a course 00:01:03.439 --> 00:01:06.500 in Old Testament. I was a young Christian. I 00:01:06.500 --> 00:01:09.680 wanted to know more about the Bible. I wanted 00:01:09.680 --> 00:01:13.719 to know the stories of the Old Testament as related 00:01:13.719 --> 00:01:18.299 to my faith. So I signed up for a course in Near 00:01:18.299 --> 00:01:22.819 Eastern Studies on the Old Testament. And as 00:01:22.819 --> 00:01:26.099 it happened, the Old Testament professor, he 00:01:26.099 --> 00:01:28.900 had a lot of anger toward the church and anger 00:01:28.900 --> 00:01:31.819 toward the Bible. And I remember the first day 00:01:31.819 --> 00:01:34.799 he said, forget everything you learned in Sunday 00:01:34.799 --> 00:01:36.739 school, I'm going to teach you how to read the 00:01:36.739 --> 00:01:41.650 Bible. Okay. And what his approach to the Bible, 00:01:41.950 --> 00:01:45.250 he was in terms of the spectrum of opinion, he 00:01:45.250 --> 00:01:49.810 would be left of left. And so his emphasis was 00:01:49.810 --> 00:01:53.530 not on the final shape of the Bible, but on the 00:01:53.530 --> 00:01:58.209 prehistory and theories of composition. So that 00:01:58.209 --> 00:02:00.769 course raised all kinds of questions for me, 00:02:00.849 --> 00:02:04.370 right? And I went to the youth minister at church 00:02:04.370 --> 00:02:06.909 and said, I had some questions and he said, why 00:02:06.909 --> 00:02:11.069 are you taking that course? That was not helpful 00:02:11.069 --> 00:02:13.750 for me because already I had questions and I 00:02:13.750 --> 00:02:17.310 had my faith and I had my intellect and I needed 00:02:17.310 --> 00:02:21.069 a way to bring them together. And in one of the 00:02:21.069 --> 00:02:24.349 papers I wrote in that course on Proverbs, we 00:02:24.349 --> 00:02:26.590 had to compare the Egyptian Proverbs and the 00:02:26.590 --> 00:02:28.930 Hebrew Proverbs in the Book of Proverbs. There's 00:02:28.930 --> 00:02:31.919 a section that's quite parallel. And I said, 00:02:32.039 --> 00:02:33.840 well, I didn't know the original languages. I 00:02:33.840 --> 00:02:36.400 couldn't really do this very careful comparison. 00:02:36.520 --> 00:02:39.219 And he said, why don't you learn them? Sure. 00:02:39.919 --> 00:02:42.979 I will. So then I started learning. I learned 00:02:42.979 --> 00:02:45.460 Greek and Hebrew. And so I was hooked, right? 00:02:45.539 --> 00:02:49.060 So I was never planning to make this a career 00:02:49.060 --> 00:02:53.580 choice. I just did it for me. Like I needed to 00:02:53.580 --> 00:02:57.840 figure this out. Yeah. And then as I went further, 00:02:59.689 --> 00:03:04.169 I had a very bad teacher in Old Testament. He 00:03:04.169 --> 00:03:07.629 was an older guy and he had lost. He just said, 00:03:07.729 --> 00:03:12.289 read my book. I thought, that's no way to teach 00:03:12.289 --> 00:03:16.289 the Bible. I had questions. I wanted the classroom 00:03:16.289 --> 00:03:19.310 to be something that was engaging, that answered 00:03:19.310 --> 00:03:25.090 my real questions. Over time, I thought, I would 00:03:25.090 --> 00:03:31.330 love to be a teacher. That's kind of my journey. 00:03:31.650 --> 00:03:35.650 It was a faith journey, an academic journey. 00:03:36.050 --> 00:03:42.030 It wed them together. And I had a really good 00:03:42.030 --> 00:03:45.990 mentor when I was doing my MDiv. And he really 00:03:45.990 --> 00:03:50.330 encouraged me to go on and to go and study at 00:03:50.330 --> 00:03:53.129 Yale University, where I was privileged to study 00:03:53.129 --> 00:03:56.879 with Brevard Childs, who had would develop this 00:03:56.879 --> 00:04:00.219 canonical approach, like reading the Bible, like 00:04:00.219 --> 00:04:03.580 this is the church's book, let's read it in its 00:04:03.580 --> 00:04:07.599 final form. And that was a very helpful moment 00:04:07.599 --> 00:04:11.139 for me in terms of the priority is the final 00:04:11.139 --> 00:04:13.919 shape of the text. You know, you can have theories 00:04:13.919 --> 00:04:17.100 about the composition, but it's the final text 00:04:17.100 --> 00:04:21.540 that the church listens to. And so that was a 00:04:21.540 --> 00:04:26.180 groundbreaking experience for me, and then I 00:04:26.180 --> 00:04:28.339 came back to Toronto and had been teaching at 00:04:28.339 --> 00:04:32.740 Wycliffe. So that's my journey. Yeah, no, that's 00:04:32.740 --> 00:04:35.360 great. It's really interesting. I think that 00:04:35.360 --> 00:04:38.259 mirrors a lot of people's journeys in some sense 00:04:38.259 --> 00:04:40.920 to seminary, is that there's this sense in which 00:04:40.920 --> 00:04:43.920 I want to bring my faith and my reason together, 00:04:44.500 --> 00:04:47.500 right? And there's not always space to do that 00:04:47.500 --> 00:04:50.470 in the local church context. seminary sort of 00:04:50.470 --> 00:04:52.430 gives you that space, right? There's also like 00:04:52.430 --> 00:04:54.750 that intimidation I think that a lot of Christians 00:04:54.750 --> 00:04:56.829 feel when they, especially in the Old Testament, 00:04:57.550 --> 00:05:01.050 where they don't, like they see those big challenges 00:05:01.050 --> 00:05:05.009 and where the history and the complexity of it 00:05:05.009 --> 00:05:07.730 and they just shy away from it. So we'll read 00:05:07.730 --> 00:05:10.910 the teachings of Jesus, but we won't touch what 00:05:10.910 --> 00:05:17.250 was said before or the history of the body throughout 00:05:17.250 --> 00:05:21.310 the Old Testament to the new. Yeah, I'm curious 00:05:21.310 --> 00:05:23.110 to, like, there's an importance to it though. 00:05:23.189 --> 00:05:25.810 We need to know the full story, like the Bible 00:05:25.810 --> 00:05:28.610 in its entirety, as you mentioned before. So 00:05:28.610 --> 00:05:30.410 why do you think it's important for Christians 00:05:30.410 --> 00:05:32.350 today to have that good understanding of the 00:05:32.350 --> 00:05:35.389 Old Testament? Yeah, that's a great question. 00:05:35.970 --> 00:05:40.029 I think you can't really understand the New Testament 00:05:40.029 --> 00:05:43.509 and Jesus, the significance of Jesus' life and 00:05:43.509 --> 00:05:46.750 death and resurrection without knowing the Old 00:05:46.750 --> 00:05:50.149 Testament because In the Old Testament, that's 00:05:50.149 --> 00:05:54.670 where you get not only frequent, like in the 00:05:54.670 --> 00:05:56.970 New Testament, the Old Testament is frequently 00:05:56.970 --> 00:06:02.310 quoted, right? But also these stories about atonement 00:06:02.310 --> 00:06:06.189 and sacrifice, the idea of the Lamb of God. I 00:06:06.189 --> 00:06:09.850 mean, so you're teaching Sunday school to teenagers 00:06:09.850 --> 00:06:12.430 and say, yeah, Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes 00:06:12.430 --> 00:06:14.870 away the sins of the world of anything. the Lamb 00:06:14.870 --> 00:06:20.569 of God. What is that, right? So you need to read, 00:06:21.470 --> 00:06:25.110 like, I wouldn't say go and read Leviticus, that 00:06:25.110 --> 00:06:29.189 exciting book of Leviticus, but the first seven 00:06:29.189 --> 00:06:34.189 chapters talk about sacrifice and atonement, 00:06:34.470 --> 00:06:37.490 right, and the idea of, you know, putting your 00:06:37.490 --> 00:06:41.069 hands on an animal that is sacrificed and the 00:06:41.069 --> 00:06:46.000 transference of sin to something else or the 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:50.300 idea like they had the concept of the scapegoat 00:06:50.300 --> 00:06:53.620 in the book of Leviticus right that on the day 00:06:53.620 --> 00:06:56.600 of atonement one goat was sacrificed another 00:06:56.600 --> 00:06:59.639 was sent into the wilderness and that one that 00:06:59.639 --> 00:07:03.800 was sent into the wilderness sacrificial symbolically 00:07:03.800 --> 00:07:07.459 is like the carrying away of sin so if you have 00:07:07.459 --> 00:07:10.819 these pictures in your mind then it helps you 00:07:10.819 --> 00:07:14.240 understand the significance of Jesus' death, 00:07:14.480 --> 00:07:18.120 because he was the Lamb of God. He does take 00:07:18.120 --> 00:07:21.500 away our sin. And so all these stories about 00:07:21.500 --> 00:07:28.139 sacrifice are helpful to understand the sacrifice 00:07:28.139 --> 00:07:31.360 of Jesus. But then there are other things like 00:07:31.360 --> 00:07:35.819 in the book of Isaiah, in chapters 52 and 53, 00:07:35.879 --> 00:07:38.279 you have this beautiful picture of a suffering 00:07:38.279 --> 00:07:42.180 servant. and the early church picked up on that 00:07:42.180 --> 00:07:44.620 and they read those chapters and said this is 00:07:44.620 --> 00:07:50.079 Jesus. So Jesus as Israel experienced suffering 00:07:50.079 --> 00:07:53.839 and exile and they had the prophets talked about 00:07:53.839 --> 00:07:58.540 a future servant that would suffer and we see 00:07:58.540 --> 00:08:02.439 that fulfilled in Jesus. So when you see Jesus 00:08:02.439 --> 00:08:05.740 suffering and you know the idea of the prediction 00:08:05.740 --> 00:08:09.220 of the suffering servant it just gives it's like 00:08:09.529 --> 00:08:12.149 instead of watching the television in black and 00:08:12.149 --> 00:08:15.209 white, it's in full color. It's like, oh, I get 00:08:15.209 --> 00:08:20.829 this, right? And then the early church also, 00:08:21.189 --> 00:08:24.870 and even certainly within Judaism, you saw types, 00:08:25.110 --> 00:08:28.269 like a person, place, or thing in the Old Testament 00:08:28.269 --> 00:08:32.250 anticipates another person, place, or thing, 00:08:32.330 --> 00:08:36.870 and we call it typology. When so when you read 00:08:36.870 --> 00:08:39.450 the stories in the Old Testament like the story 00:08:39.450 --> 00:08:43.429 of Joseph and his brothers, right? You know Joseph 00:08:43.429 --> 00:08:46.990 was the young bratty kid You know who had dreams 00:08:46.990 --> 00:08:49.049 and told his brothers about them and they thought 00:08:49.049 --> 00:08:53.870 who is this? You know bratty brother. Yeah his 00:08:53.870 --> 00:08:56.929 life story took like he sold by his brothers 00:08:56.929 --> 00:09:01.389 to Egypt and he he's betrayed by his brothers 00:09:01.389 --> 00:09:05.289 and he suffers but then he is exalted this to 00:09:05.289 --> 00:09:08.330 the second in command in Egypt and actually saves 00:09:08.330 --> 00:09:11.470 people from famine and so when people read the 00:09:11.470 --> 00:09:16.669 story of Joseph they say Jesus was also betrayed 00:09:16.669 --> 00:09:19.690 suffered and exalted and brought salvation in 00:09:19.690 --> 00:09:22.690 a different way sure but Joseph becomes a type 00:09:22.690 --> 00:09:25.629 so all these stories in the Old Testament when 00:09:25.960 --> 00:09:31.519 they can be read, not all of them, but some of 00:09:31.519 --> 00:09:35.399 them are, anticipate things we see in the New 00:09:35.399 --> 00:09:38.019 Testament. I mean, there are some striking stories, 00:09:38.320 --> 00:09:40.799 like in the wilderness, in Numbers, we read about 00:09:40.799 --> 00:09:45.799 the bronze serpent that was lifted up and it 00:09:45.799 --> 00:09:50.399 healed those bitten by serpents. And that has 00:09:50.399 --> 00:09:53.639 all, in art, they often. put the bronze serpent 00:09:53.639 --> 00:09:56.759 up on the stick and Jesus on the cross, because 00:09:56.759 --> 00:09:59.559 Jesus was lifted up to bring eternal life, right? 00:10:00.240 --> 00:10:03.340 So typology is another way of old and new linking 00:10:03.340 --> 00:10:06.879 together. In the past, people went overboard 00:10:06.879 --> 00:10:11.320 with that. Yeah, it's hyper typers, right? They 00:10:11.320 --> 00:10:14.799 type in every color, number, you know, or an 00:10:14.799 --> 00:10:17.679 allegory. So I'm really careful about overdoing 00:10:17.679 --> 00:10:22.269 that. Sure. But if you can see the stories pointing 00:10:22.269 --> 00:10:26.049 ahead, that's another way of saying, actually, 00:10:26.090 --> 00:10:31.169 the Old Testament is really important. For me, 00:10:31.610 --> 00:10:36.090 the Old Testament is so real. It's earthy, it's 00:10:36.090 --> 00:10:41.269 bloody, it's family tension and dynamics. And 00:10:41.269 --> 00:10:44.389 it's like, wow, this is the grit of real life. 00:10:45.190 --> 00:10:48.759 And so the stories of the Old Testament remind 00:10:48.759 --> 00:10:52.480 us that, you know, it's not all about goody -goody 00:10:52.480 --> 00:10:58.059 two -shoes. Life is real and people suffer. And 00:10:58.059 --> 00:11:00.899 that's why, you know, the book of Psalms, when 00:11:00.899 --> 00:11:02.879 the Gideons used to produce the little Bibles, 00:11:02.940 --> 00:11:05.000 it would be the New Testament and the Psalms, 00:11:05.080 --> 00:11:09.019 right? That's significant because you don't need 00:11:09.019 --> 00:11:12.639 to know Old Testament history to read the Psalms. 00:11:12.980 --> 00:11:16.450 I mean, thousands of years old, right? The human 00:11:16.450 --> 00:11:20.950 experience has not changed. We suffer, we question, 00:11:21.090 --> 00:11:24.370 where are you God? Or why is this bad thing happening 00:11:24.370 --> 00:11:28.950 to me? And the laments of the psalmist are so 00:11:28.950 --> 00:11:37.149 powerful, they speak today. So last year I taught 00:11:37.149 --> 00:11:41.649 a course on the Psalms and it was a transforming 00:11:41.649 --> 00:11:45.809 experience. experience for me because I for the 00:11:45.809 --> 00:11:49.129 first time I asked students to listen to the 00:11:49.129 --> 00:11:53.529 whole book of Psalms twice. Once in whatever 00:11:53.529 --> 00:11:56.990 language in your mother tongue or in the voice 00:11:56.990 --> 00:11:59.889 listening to her Bible which is a woman reading 00:11:59.889 --> 00:12:04.789 it and and then in you know you could have a 00:12:04.799 --> 00:12:08.000 a deep male voice reading it or somebody with 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:11.799 an accent. And that experience of reading the 00:12:11.799 --> 00:12:15.419 Psalms for five hours actually transformed the 00:12:15.419 --> 00:12:21.419 lives of my students. One woman who had childhood 00:12:21.419 --> 00:12:26.419 leukemia and suffered greatly as a child and 00:12:26.419 --> 00:12:30.159 was in a Christian family, I mean, she survived 00:12:30.159 --> 00:12:33.980 the experience, but she was never allowed to 00:12:33.950 --> 00:12:38.289 acknowledge the pain of it all, right? And the 00:12:38.289 --> 00:12:41.309 pain of a later double mastectomy and things 00:12:41.309 --> 00:12:48.370 like that. The faith as she had experienced it 00:12:48.370 --> 00:12:52.509 didn't allow her to lament or complain or get 00:12:52.509 --> 00:12:56.909 mad at God. When she said she started hearing 00:12:56.909 --> 00:13:01.929 a woman read the Psalms, and when she heard a 00:13:01.929 --> 00:13:05.610 woman's voice, Speaking the laments my god my 00:13:05.610 --> 00:13:08.070 god. Where are you? Why have you forsaken me? 00:13:08.250 --> 00:13:11.809 She said it wasn't her voice That was me and 00:13:11.809 --> 00:13:15.690 for the first time in her life. She was not like 00:13:15.690 --> 00:13:19.429 probably in her 40s. She said I Could speak to 00:13:19.429 --> 00:13:22.110 God I could tell God what was really going on 00:13:22.110 --> 00:13:25.809 in my life and it changed my life Yeah, so the 00:13:25.809 --> 00:13:29.809 Old Testament is God's Word beak and God's Word 00:13:29.809 --> 00:13:34.980 keeps speaking to us So that's not to say that 00:13:34.980 --> 00:13:37.539 it doesn't have its challenges. And there are 00:13:37.539 --> 00:13:40.759 lots of them. There are lots of them. But there's 00:13:40.759 --> 00:13:46.379 also a very, like, you don't need all that background 00:13:46.379 --> 00:13:48.759 to read the songs. Right. I mean, you come to 00:13:48.759 --> 00:13:51.919 the ones like, you know, smash those babies heads 00:13:51.919 --> 00:13:57.519 against the rock. Right. Yeah. But you know, 00:13:57.580 --> 00:14:01.419 but when you read it in light of these were babble, 00:14:01.519 --> 00:14:05.700 they were israelites in the exile whose children 00:14:05.700 --> 00:14:09.340 had been hurt who like who were slaves and you 00:14:09.340 --> 00:14:13.899 think yeah i could see wanting experiencing that 00:14:13.899 --> 00:14:17.480 feeling sure the souls are never allowed to say 00:14:17.480 --> 00:14:20.379 okay i am gonna smash your baby right yeah right 00:14:20.379 --> 00:14:24.299 it's like god you deal with the enemy right it's 00:14:24.299 --> 00:14:28.419 all their vengeance is not allowed on the person 00:14:28.419 --> 00:14:31.450 but you have to ask god to God, you deal with 00:14:31.450 --> 00:14:34.490 this problem. It's too big for me. Sure. Yeah. 00:14:34.730 --> 00:14:37.970 So I don't know. The Old Testament for me, I 00:14:37.970 --> 00:14:40.889 love. It's not just a book of rules, right? Yeah. 00:14:41.590 --> 00:14:45.409 It's relevant. It's not too hard to understand. 00:14:45.789 --> 00:14:51.289 And I think today we have more resources at our 00:14:51.289 --> 00:14:55.169 fingertips to help us read the Bible than any 00:14:55.169 --> 00:14:59.049 other generation. I mean, Most of us are literate 00:14:59.049 --> 00:15:01.690 for one thing, right? And most Christians throughout 00:15:01.690 --> 00:15:04.529 history only heard the Bible, allowed to read 00:15:04.529 --> 00:15:07.490 the church, right? But we can read it. And we 00:15:07.490 --> 00:15:10.149 have things like the Bible Project, right? Which 00:15:10.149 --> 00:15:13.590 is free. You just Google Bible Project. You want 00:15:13.590 --> 00:15:17.070 to read about the book. Joshua gives you an overview, 00:15:17.210 --> 00:15:22.019 talks about issues. So... It's more accessible 00:15:22.019 --> 00:15:24.440 now than ever before. For sure. That's what I 00:15:24.440 --> 00:15:27.539 would say. Just thinking about all that you shared 00:15:27.539 --> 00:15:32.399 and just the complexity of it. I feel like one 00:15:32.399 --> 00:15:34.960 of the reasons why we're so hesitant or we kind 00:15:34.960 --> 00:15:37.860 of toss the Old Testament away is because we're, 00:15:38.399 --> 00:15:40.779 as Christians and as human beings, we're scared 00:15:40.779 --> 00:15:46.500 to reflect on our own humanness, our own frailty 00:15:46.500 --> 00:15:50.730 or... the possibility that we could cause harm, 00:15:51.870 --> 00:15:54.230 some of the messiness within the Old Testament 00:15:54.230 --> 00:15:56.269 that folks don't want to get into. It's still 00:15:56.269 --> 00:15:58.509 very alive in the New Testament, but we tend 00:15:58.509 --> 00:16:01.669 to find very convenient ways to kind of brush 00:16:01.669 --> 00:16:04.370 that off. But there is this humanity in the Old 00:16:04.370 --> 00:16:08.269 Testament. Like we see people fail. We see people 00:16:08.269 --> 00:16:10.590 do things that today we'd find questionable. 00:16:11.470 --> 00:16:14.259 Oh, absolutely. Yeah. But that's a part of our 00:16:14.259 --> 00:16:17.399 humanity. It's a part of the global story. We 00:16:17.399 --> 00:16:19.559 can't run away from it, especially in light of 00:16:19.559 --> 00:16:22.320 the things that we see in today's world. Right. 00:16:22.679 --> 00:16:25.120 Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And it gives us this 00:16:25.120 --> 00:16:28.720 lens in which we can view all of that and say, 00:16:28.720 --> 00:16:32.679 God is still sovereign. God is still doing something. 00:16:32.960 --> 00:16:36.320 through all of the broken messiness, right? Right. 00:16:36.500 --> 00:16:39.500 And so we can't like discount ourselves. Yeah. 00:16:39.759 --> 00:16:41.740 Oh, and there are things in the Old Testament 00:16:41.740 --> 00:16:45.759 that are highly problematic and disconcerting, 00:16:45.799 --> 00:16:48.779 right? How women are portrayed, right? In the 00:16:48.779 --> 00:16:52.960 Old Testament is deeply disturbing. Not all of 00:16:52.960 --> 00:16:55.419 the women or all of the passages, but there are 00:16:55.419 --> 00:16:58.659 some passages, like stories about the abuse of 00:16:58.659 --> 00:17:02.509 women that are what Phyllis Tribble called texts 00:17:02.509 --> 00:17:07.210 of terror, right? But if we wrestle with those 00:17:07.210 --> 00:17:12.170 texts, it's very helpful actually, because it's 00:17:12.170 --> 00:17:15.690 like we have those stories today, right? And 00:17:15.690 --> 00:17:20.470 this is not how women should be treated, right? 00:17:22.150 --> 00:17:27.589 And, you know, I just, we were studying the story 00:17:27.589 --> 00:17:30.980 of David, the life of David, right? So his rise 00:17:30.980 --> 00:17:35.039 to power to be king was he was a good guy, right? 00:17:35.180 --> 00:17:39.119 He had time and opportunities to kill Saul, but 00:17:39.119 --> 00:17:43.500 he didn't. But then, you know, his demise, he 00:17:43.500 --> 00:17:47.119 saw Bathsheba bathing and said, I want that woman 00:17:47.119 --> 00:17:50.200 to find out who she is. Right. And then she's 00:17:50.200 --> 00:17:53.059 married. Oh, doesn't matter. I want her anyway. 00:17:53.099 --> 00:17:57.509 Like, and so he he I would arguably you know, 00:17:57.509 --> 00:18:00.690 there's different opinions on it, like he essentially 00:18:00.690 --> 00:18:05.190 raped a married woman, she became pregnant, and 00:18:05.190 --> 00:18:08.849 then he murdered the husband, right? Then you 00:18:08.849 --> 00:18:12.589 read the demise of David. David asked for forgiveness, 00:18:13.970 --> 00:18:19.730 and God granted him forgiveness, but the damage 00:18:19.730 --> 00:18:23.950 was done. And you read the lives of David's children. 00:18:24.250 --> 00:18:28.170 and they repeated this kind of behavior and murder 00:18:28.170 --> 00:18:32.430 and murder brother like the the brokenness of 00:18:32.430 --> 00:18:36.769 the family after that it's like okay i mean sin 00:18:36.769 --> 00:18:41.289 has its consequences and the the text never uh 00:18:41.289 --> 00:18:46.769 you know so we see the the how how bad his decisions 00:18:46.769 --> 00:18:51.210 were right and and the narrator presents it as 00:18:51.210 --> 00:18:54.539 you know There's David sitting on, you know, 00:18:54.720 --> 00:18:57.480 when in the fall of the year, when kings go out 00:18:57.480 --> 00:19:00.519 to war, why isn't David out there with his buddies, 00:19:00.740 --> 00:19:04.259 right? Leading, leading. But he's, it's like, 00:19:04.480 --> 00:19:07.079 I'm king, I can do anything. So we see this repeated 00:19:07.079 --> 00:19:11.519 in history, right? Leaders who take advantage 00:19:11.519 --> 00:19:14.759 of, I'm in power, I can do and have it, and then 00:19:14.759 --> 00:19:19.339 abuse comes. And so those gritty, gritty stories 00:19:19.339 --> 00:19:23.930 are really important. to embrace and talk about 00:19:23.930 --> 00:19:28.130 and say, this is not acceptable, right? This 00:19:28.130 --> 00:19:30.650 cannot happen again, but it happens over and 00:19:30.650 --> 00:19:32.970 over again. For sure. But at least as a church 00:19:32.970 --> 00:19:37.750 community, we can say, no, this is sin, this 00:19:37.750 --> 00:19:40.410 is wrong. Right, yeah, it's reminding me. So 00:19:40.410 --> 00:19:45.009 I mean, we see justice and mercy of God, such 00:19:45.009 --> 00:19:47.549 character in the Old Testament. It's like when 00:19:47.549 --> 00:19:53.740 you read You know, for me, when I was a, well, 00:19:54.000 --> 00:19:56.180 I'm still a mother, but when my kids were little 00:19:56.180 --> 00:20:00.519 and I was reading in Isaiah, like, God is like 00:20:00.519 --> 00:20:04.079 a mother who cannot forget her nursing child. 00:20:04.099 --> 00:20:08.440 And I thought, yeah, when I was nursing my children, 00:20:08.500 --> 00:20:11.240 like, if you forget your kid, you have engorged 00:20:11.240 --> 00:20:15.299 breasts, right? So it's like, could I forget 00:20:15.299 --> 00:20:19.279 my child? No, but some mothers do. Right? But 00:20:19.279 --> 00:20:22.539 God is like a nurse. God will not forget. God 00:20:22.539 --> 00:20:26.460 loves beyond human love. And the attachment of 00:20:26.460 --> 00:20:30.000 a mother child is so strong. It just says, God 00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:32.759 loves you more than this. Right? So there are 00:20:32.759 --> 00:20:35.460 so how I mean, you get Jesus love in the New 00:20:35.460 --> 00:20:39.000 Testament, but the bigger picture, the full picture 00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:42.359 of God's character is revealed in the Old Testament 00:20:42.359 --> 00:20:44.559 through all these stories that give us a picture 00:20:44.559 --> 00:20:48.299 of who we are as humans and the sinfulness and 00:20:48.299 --> 00:20:52.839 the darkness of our souls, kind of, and then 00:20:52.839 --> 00:20:56.180 the kind of openness and love and liberation 00:20:56.180 --> 00:21:01.759 we find in Christ, right? For sure. Yeah. Yeah. 00:21:02.960 --> 00:21:05.920 So, I mean, we sort of touched around this, but 00:21:05.920 --> 00:21:10.269 I think a lot of Christians... just have no idea 00:21:10.269 --> 00:21:13.670 how to approach the Old Testament and how to 00:21:13.670 --> 00:21:16.410 sort of read through it. So like, are there some 00:21:16.410 --> 00:21:19.089 common challenges that you think, you know, your 00:21:19.089 --> 00:21:21.390 students or Christians face and maybe some tips 00:21:21.390 --> 00:21:27.269 for overcoming that? Sure. I mean, people usually 00:21:27.269 --> 00:21:30.049 get bogged down in certain books of the Bible. 00:21:31.130 --> 00:21:34.069 Genesis is a great read, right? Great stories. 00:21:34.299 --> 00:21:37.359 like you can read Genesis and I get through it 00:21:37.359 --> 00:21:41.700 pretty well right yeah and Exodus um I mean there 00:21:41.700 --> 00:21:44.859 is very important stories in Exodus yeah but 00:21:44.859 --> 00:21:47.440 when you get to the legal material people kind 00:21:47.440 --> 00:21:53.039 of get what is this yeah yeah you know and um 00:21:53.039 --> 00:21:57.180 yeah so so I think I you know you could have 00:21:57.180 --> 00:21:59.400 a there are reading plans to go through the whole 00:21:59.400 --> 00:22:02.430 Bible but parts that are harder to read than 00:22:02.430 --> 00:22:06.289 others. So I would read. Well, what I would recommend, 00:22:06.329 --> 00:22:08.670 first of all, is look at the Bible projects, 00:22:08.829 --> 00:22:11.430 little video, five minute video on how to read 00:22:11.430 --> 00:22:15.730 narrative, how to read plots, how to read characters, 00:22:15.869 --> 00:22:19.130 right? And though there are three little videos 00:22:19.130 --> 00:22:22.589 on how to read, and they're beautiful and they're 00:22:22.589 --> 00:22:26.029 accurate. And if you're reading the stories looking 00:22:26.029 --> 00:22:30.829 for the plot, the high point, what the narrator 00:22:30.829 --> 00:22:35.089 says, who's described. Like we often don't know 00:22:35.089 --> 00:22:38.470 what the people look like. But Absalom is told 00:22:38.470 --> 00:22:41.710 he has long hair. Why do we know that? Well, 00:22:41.769 --> 00:22:45.569 the hair gets caught in a tree and he dies. So 00:22:45.569 --> 00:22:49.150 being attuned to what the narrator is saying 00:22:49.150 --> 00:22:53.250 is really helpful in this story. So I would think... 00:22:54.030 --> 00:22:56.869 Read with somebody who has some experience. So 00:22:56.869 --> 00:22:59.750 read the narrative story line. So you get the 00:22:59.750 --> 00:23:04.809 great narrative, right? And you understand the 00:23:04.809 --> 00:23:09.829 creation and the fall and the God choosing a 00:23:09.829 --> 00:23:11.930 family and the family narrative and then the 00:23:11.930 --> 00:23:15.369 Exodus story and then the wilderness wanderings 00:23:15.369 --> 00:23:19.910 in numbers. And then you get to the end of Deuteronomy 00:23:19.910 --> 00:23:23.240 and. you know, Moses at the end, he's ready to 00:23:23.240 --> 00:23:25.779 die, he can't get into, like God is saying, you 00:23:25.779 --> 00:23:28.819 can't go into the promised land, but he looks 00:23:28.819 --> 00:23:32.220 in hope. So like if you've got a good grasp of 00:23:32.220 --> 00:23:35.000 that, the primary, some people call it the primary 00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:37.859 history, that you know, that really helps you. 00:23:38.940 --> 00:23:41.359 There's a woman who writes a book on reading 00:23:41.359 --> 00:23:43.859 the Bible, it talks about the Bible is like your 00:23:43.859 --> 00:23:46.039 messy closet, you have all these shoes everywhere, 00:23:46.079 --> 00:23:50.009 you need to figure out who Abraham comes before 00:23:50.009 --> 00:23:53.670 Isaiah, you know, he kind of helps to get a storyline. 00:23:54.470 --> 00:23:57.150 And then to read different narrative, like to 00:23:57.150 --> 00:24:01.190 know that the Bible isn't on a magic book, right? 00:24:01.349 --> 00:24:03.829 You don't open it up and get find your met. Oh, 00:24:03.829 --> 00:24:06.490 God is saying this to me today, right? No wealth 00:24:06.490 --> 00:24:08.569 condition of your flocks. Well, I don't have 00:24:08.569 --> 00:24:15.789 any sheep. So yeah, and I would read the Psalms, 00:24:16.049 --> 00:24:19.559 Proverbs. quite fun to read because they're often 00:24:19.559 --> 00:24:22.700 not all of them like chapters one to nine is 00:24:22.700 --> 00:24:25.059 kind of a narrative but then they're pithy statements 00:24:25.059 --> 00:24:30.400 right so yeah i mean there there are parts that 00:24:30.400 --> 00:24:33.819 that are key that i would read first sure and 00:24:33.819 --> 00:24:36.140 read along with somebody like read in a group 00:24:36.140 --> 00:24:38.359 like have a reading group that you can kind of 00:24:38.359 --> 00:24:42.430 ask questions to yeah But you will come to stories 00:24:42.430 --> 00:24:44.990 that are like, oh my gosh, like the big one, 00:24:45.089 --> 00:24:47.509 the elephant in the room is the killing of the 00:24:47.509 --> 00:24:50.910 Canaanites, right? What the heck do we do with 00:24:50.910 --> 00:24:54.329 God seeming to say, you know, I'm giving you 00:24:54.329 --> 00:24:57.430 this land, you go in and take them out, right? 00:24:57.849 --> 00:25:02.190 And in today's, we know a lot about genocide 00:25:02.190 --> 00:25:06.289 and taking property that doesn't belong to you. 00:25:06.329 --> 00:25:12.230 So how can this be right? I've done a lot of 00:25:12.230 --> 00:25:15.269 work on 19th century women interpreters of Joshua. 00:25:15.730 --> 00:25:18.789 My colleague, Cristiana DeGroote at Calvin and 00:25:18.789 --> 00:25:23.809 I wrote a piece last summer on 19th century women 00:25:23.809 --> 00:25:27.369 who wrote on the book of Joshua. That was really 00:25:27.369 --> 00:25:30.549 interesting to see how our Anglican foremothers 00:25:30.549 --> 00:25:33.849 dealt with the killing of the Canaanites. How 00:25:33.849 --> 00:25:38.839 did they deal with it? Well, the interesting 00:25:38.839 --> 00:25:42.440 ones are children's stories, right? And they 00:25:42.440 --> 00:25:45.200 had their kids, the kids knew all these stories, 00:25:45.579 --> 00:25:48.880 but they would portray the Canaanites and their 00:25:48.880 --> 00:25:51.799 children as they're all really wicked people, 00:25:52.099 --> 00:25:55.240 right? And they needed to be destroyed. And then 00:25:55.240 --> 00:25:58.240 they, like, I would never do this with a child 00:25:58.240 --> 00:26:01.339 today, but then they would say, you know, hey 00:26:01.339 --> 00:26:04.220 Johnny, like you have to be a good boy and not 00:26:04.220 --> 00:26:06.079 be wicked or else you're going to be punished. 00:26:08.420 --> 00:26:11.660 Some of them dealt with that. It's very hard 00:26:11.660 --> 00:26:15.220 to read these very moralizing stories based on 00:26:15.220 --> 00:26:19.220 Joshua for children. Other people and the majority, 00:26:19.819 --> 00:26:24.920 like some people recognized the darkness of this 00:26:24.920 --> 00:26:28.539 and wrestled deeply with the moral issues about 00:26:28.539 --> 00:26:33.880 killing and genocide. And others recognized that 00:26:33.880 --> 00:26:36.759 you could read the story on a different level 00:26:36.759 --> 00:26:42.539 as a type of wrestling through evil, like wrestling 00:26:42.539 --> 00:26:45.859 with the enemy. We have enemies, we need to kill 00:26:45.859 --> 00:26:49.259 our enemies. One of my favorite children, well, 00:26:49.259 --> 00:26:52.440 she wrote for teenagers, Eddie Wissnan. You know 00:26:52.440 --> 00:26:58.339 the story in Judges when J .L. kills Sisera. 00:26:58.980 --> 00:27:06.019 Sisera is an enemy and he ends up in her tent 00:27:06.019 --> 00:27:09.099 and anyway he goes to sleep and then she gets 00:27:09.099 --> 00:27:11.299 a tent peg and puts it right through his head 00:27:11.299 --> 00:27:16.819 with a hammer. I mean, that's an awful story 00:27:16.819 --> 00:27:20.339 in some ways. And often they said, oh, it's not 00:27:20.339 --> 00:27:22.819 good for a woman to be a murderer like this and 00:27:22.819 --> 00:27:25.220 kill somebody. Yes, as if a man could be a murderer 00:27:25.220 --> 00:27:27.480 and that would be fine. Yeah, that would be fine. 00:27:28.559 --> 00:27:34.440 How could a woman do that? But teaching teenagers, 00:27:34.599 --> 00:27:39.019 she made the story all about we all have enemies 00:27:39.019 --> 00:27:43.200 and you need to put the tent peg in your enemy. 00:27:43.339 --> 00:27:46.920 and for her it was drinking like you teenage 00:27:46.920 --> 00:27:50.599 girls don't the enemy of alcohol right and or 00:27:50.599 --> 00:27:54.059 i thought wow alcohol isn't even in the story 00:27:54.059 --> 00:27:59.420 right right but that's how many earlier interpreters 00:27:59.420 --> 00:28:03.059 dealt with some of these stories they they use 00:28:03.059 --> 00:28:08.660 them as a um a platform for talking about who 00:28:08.660 --> 00:28:11.660 are our spiritual enemies we need to put our 00:28:11.660 --> 00:28:14.079 spiritual enemies to death. So the Canaanites 00:28:14.079 --> 00:28:20.000 became sin. So that's how the church often dealt 00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:23.200 with it. More recently, and here I'll put a plug 00:28:23.200 --> 00:28:29.019 in to Canadians who've written a book called 00:28:29.019 --> 00:28:32.880 Bloody, Brutal, and Barbaric. War in the Old 00:28:32.880 --> 00:28:36.259 Testament. Gordon Oste and William Webb, they're 00:28:36.259 --> 00:28:39.119 both in Southern Ontario. Gordon has taught at 00:28:39.119 --> 00:28:42.490 Wycliffe. He's a Wycliffe grad and most Old Testament 00:28:42.490 --> 00:28:46.410 scholars now read the book of Joshua and Judges 00:28:46.410 --> 00:28:50.990 within its ancient context. So read about other 00:28:50.990 --> 00:28:56.789 warfare texts and other warfare texts are typically 00:28:56.789 --> 00:29:00.900 exaggerate that how many you killed. how you 00:29:00.900 --> 00:29:04.539 killed them, how fast you took the land, and 00:29:04.539 --> 00:29:08.819 there's a genre issue. So they are, they suggest 00:29:08.819 --> 00:29:13.200 that we realize that their ancient readers would 00:29:13.200 --> 00:29:17.380 understand just like a fisherman said, I caught 00:29:17.380 --> 00:29:19.160 a big one. And every time you tell the story, 00:29:19.180 --> 00:29:22.380 you get bigger, right? So that's what there is. 00:29:22.990 --> 00:29:26.210 And I know Gord will say, like he loves hockey, 00:29:26.349 --> 00:29:29.569 and he says, we killed them. Well, they didn't 00:29:29.569 --> 00:29:34.509 kill them, right? So if we could understand the 00:29:34.509 --> 00:29:38.250 genre, we might understand the book a little 00:29:38.250 --> 00:29:41.430 better. And also in terms of numbers, exaggerating 00:29:41.430 --> 00:29:44.410 numbers and how many they killed. The other interesting 00:29:44.410 --> 00:29:47.430 thing that helps me is that when they knew they 00:29:47.430 --> 00:29:52.559 were being, there was like a fight coming. The 00:29:52.559 --> 00:29:55.259 women and children would leave the walled town 00:29:55.259 --> 00:29:58.279 and go to the hill country, and the people left 00:29:58.279 --> 00:30:02.240 would be the soldiers, the fighters. So when 00:30:02.240 --> 00:30:07.980 they were under siege, it would be the men trained 00:30:07.980 --> 00:30:09.799 to fight, and the women and children weren't 00:30:09.799 --> 00:30:12.519 even there. But then they would say, we took 00:30:12.519 --> 00:30:16.779 them all. But even within the book of Joshua 00:30:16.779 --> 00:30:21.269 and Judges, there are statements that say we 00:30:21.269 --> 00:30:25.309 took them all but the next chapter it says and 00:30:25.309 --> 00:30:27.369 there was still this one and this one and this 00:30:27.369 --> 00:30:29.890 right yeah yeah so if you're a careful reader 00:30:29.890 --> 00:30:35.450 of the text you know that there is a theology 00:30:35.450 --> 00:30:40.049 driving the tech to say god gave us the land 00:30:40.049 --> 00:30:42.750 and it was good and we took it but if you read 00:30:43.130 --> 00:30:46.849 They didn't take it all, right? And the enemies 00:30:46.849 --> 00:30:52.369 were still there. So again, knowing more about 00:30:52.369 --> 00:30:56.089 how to read the stories helps get rid of some 00:30:56.089 --> 00:30:58.369 of the ethical issues that are kind of wrestling 00:30:58.369 --> 00:31:02.990 there. So there are, you know, we can get the 00:31:02.990 --> 00:31:06.750 help of people who read, like in their book, 00:31:06.849 --> 00:31:09.430 they give examples of, you know, Egyptian and 00:31:09.430 --> 00:31:12.940 Babylonian war texts that are very similar. or 00:31:12.940 --> 00:31:15.819 that the one guy says, oh, you know, I traveled 00:31:15.819 --> 00:31:19.619 from Jerusalem to Egypt in a day. Well, it couldn't 00:31:19.619 --> 00:31:26.859 possibly be a day. There's a long walk. So that 00:31:26.859 --> 00:31:31.079 helps deal with that problem of the genocide. 00:31:31.710 --> 00:31:34.309 But, I mean, if God gave them the land, it had 00:31:34.309 --> 00:31:37.170 to be clear. And it's true that when they made 00:31:37.170 --> 00:31:39.210 a deal with the Gibeonites, they didn't leave 00:31:39.210 --> 00:31:41.490 the land, right? So they didn't take them all. 00:31:41.730 --> 00:31:46.650 Rahab, she was saved, right? And so it's more 00:31:46.650 --> 00:31:50.630 complex than some people make it out to be, I 00:31:50.630 --> 00:31:53.589 would say. Sure. Yeah. The other thing I was 00:31:53.589 --> 00:31:55.630 thinking about, you know, in terms of trouble 00:31:55.630 --> 00:31:58.670 reading some parts of the Old Testament. Like 00:31:58.670 --> 00:32:00.529 you mentioned, you know, we can't just open it 00:32:00.529 --> 00:32:03.170 up like magic and expect, oh, this verse is talking 00:32:03.170 --> 00:32:06.730 about me. Right. Right. So this Sunday, Rob is 00:32:06.730 --> 00:32:10.630 going to be preaching on Jeremiah 29. And everybody 00:32:10.630 --> 00:32:14.750 sort of takes Jeremiah 29 11 and says, this verse 00:32:14.750 --> 00:32:18.210 is about me and my life and all of the good plans 00:32:18.210 --> 00:32:20.829 that God has for my life. Right. Right. Yeah. 00:32:20.970 --> 00:32:23.910 So like, what do you do with like some of those 00:32:24.039 --> 00:32:26.599 prophets and promises? How do we put them in 00:32:26.599 --> 00:32:30.960 their proper context? Yeah, that's a very good 00:32:30.960 --> 00:32:37.140 one. When we had a lot of Christian bookstores 00:32:37.140 --> 00:32:39.380 around, there used to be a little box and it 00:32:39.380 --> 00:32:42.200 was a box called God's Promises, right? And they 00:32:42.200 --> 00:32:44.559 would have verses and half -verses and you open 00:32:44.559 --> 00:32:46.319 the box and pick out your verse and that was 00:32:46.319 --> 00:32:48.539 God's Promises. It was like horoscope for the 00:32:48.539 --> 00:32:53.890 day almost. So you have to be very careful. about 00:32:53.890 --> 00:32:59.069 reading a text in its context and not lifting 00:32:59.069 --> 00:33:02.690 it out. And my own personal example would be 00:33:02.690 --> 00:33:06.890 when I was in university and with Operation Mobilization 00:33:06.890 --> 00:33:12.329 in Belgium, I was with a team of 32 young people. 00:33:12.390 --> 00:33:15.809 There was a really nice English guy there. We 00:33:15.809 --> 00:33:18.769 became friends and he was having his quiet time 00:33:18.769 --> 00:33:21.789 in the morning. And he said, God has said we 00:33:21.789 --> 00:33:24.289 should be together, Marian. And it was a verse 00:33:24.289 --> 00:33:28.630 from Isaiah, ho ye from the north. I was in Canada, 00:33:28.809 --> 00:33:33.829 right? So you read the context of the verse, 00:33:33.990 --> 00:33:39.369 that was the enemy from the north, right? You've 00:33:39.369 --> 00:33:42.190 got to be careful and read something within the 00:33:42.190 --> 00:33:45.089 context. So, you know, God has a sense of humor 00:33:45.089 --> 00:33:51.619 and can, you know, let people Verses can be used 00:33:51.619 --> 00:33:55.819 in that way to encourage you, like God works 00:33:55.819 --> 00:33:58.420 through that, but you've got to be really careful 00:33:58.420 --> 00:34:02.599 not to misuse scripture. But the promise is, 00:34:03.119 --> 00:34:06.519 if it's a teaching like that in Jeremiah, that 00:34:06.519 --> 00:34:11.039 we do know that God is with us and has plans 00:34:11.039 --> 00:34:14.059 for our life. That's not a one -off. That's not 00:34:14.059 --> 00:34:18.369 the only place. we talk about God's sovereignty, 00:34:18.769 --> 00:34:27.670 but it also can't be used to underscore a theology, 00:34:27.949 --> 00:34:31.090 the prosperity gospel, that if you believe life 00:34:31.090 --> 00:34:34.530 is going to be a bed of roses, well it's not. 00:34:35.510 --> 00:34:38.710 Bad things happen to very good people all the 00:34:38.710 --> 00:34:41.860 time. And that's why we need the book of Psalms. 00:34:42.900 --> 00:34:48.199 When bad things happen, and they will. When I 00:34:48.199 --> 00:34:51.820 was teaching Jeremiah, I had a psychologist come 00:34:51.820 --> 00:34:54.679 and talk about trauma. And I will never forget, 00:34:54.719 --> 00:34:58.000 she said, if you live a long enough life, you 00:34:58.000 --> 00:35:01.000 will experience trauma. And you'll know what 00:35:01.000 --> 00:35:06.260 I'm talking about. Some people have an easier 00:35:06.260 --> 00:35:09.719 life than other people. Right? We all wrestle 00:35:09.719 --> 00:35:13.599 with real big challenging problems. And that's 00:35:13.599 --> 00:35:18.159 why a rich life of faith that is not pie in the 00:35:18.159 --> 00:35:21.659 sky. Right? Right? That when I was in Sunday 00:35:21.659 --> 00:35:25.679 school, we used to sing every day with Jesus 00:35:25.679 --> 00:35:30.460 is better than the day before. That's a very 00:35:30.460 --> 00:35:34.420 hopeful song. I love him more and more. I'm thinking, 00:35:35.119 --> 00:35:40.380 well, you know, That's probably not the narrative 00:35:40.380 --> 00:35:43.579 that we teach a person because then when life 00:35:43.579 --> 00:35:47.940 happens, they'll say, where is Jesus? Right? 00:35:48.420 --> 00:35:51.420 And Jesus is with us when the day isn't better 00:35:51.420 --> 00:35:54.079 than the day before, but worse, right? Right. 00:35:54.440 --> 00:35:57.579 That's where you need the whole Bible. Yeah, 00:35:57.820 --> 00:36:00.659 for sure. Yeah. Because Jeremiah, my goodness, 00:36:01.000 --> 00:36:05.449 Jeremiah's life was a terrible life. I mean, 00:36:05.610 --> 00:36:13.150 his family beat him up. He couldn't marry. God 00:36:13.150 --> 00:36:17.429 said, you can't marry. He's like stuck in a well 00:36:17.429 --> 00:36:20.230 at one point, I think. They threw him down a 00:36:20.230 --> 00:36:25.650 well and they arrested him. And then when everybody 00:36:25.650 --> 00:36:28.710 else went to exile, he stayed and then they took 00:36:28.710 --> 00:36:31.150 him down to Egypt and he probably was killed 00:36:31.150 --> 00:36:35.019 down there. We don't know. So he is God's chosen 00:36:35.019 --> 00:36:38.440 prophet, right? The good guy. The good guy had 00:36:38.440 --> 00:36:44.340 a really hard life. And his laments, again, help 00:36:44.340 --> 00:36:47.960 us. Like his honesty, his rawness, like, God, 00:36:48.119 --> 00:36:52.159 you are a deceitful brook. Like in Israel, there 00:36:52.159 --> 00:36:55.760 are all these dry riverbeds. And when it rains, 00:36:56.039 --> 00:37:01.550 they're lush and flowing. I want water to be 00:37:01.550 --> 00:37:04.289 there and you're not there for me. Well, that's 00:37:04.289 --> 00:37:08.989 raw. Yeah. So when you know all the stories, 00:37:09.170 --> 00:37:12.110 then I think you can live a life of integrity 00:37:12.110 --> 00:37:17.230 and walk a Christian life in the good times and 00:37:17.230 --> 00:37:19.969 bad and be there for your friends who are walking 00:37:19.969 --> 00:37:24.130 through the bad. Because if you say, oh, you 00:37:24.130 --> 00:37:27.320 had a miscarriage, right? you know, while the 00:37:27.320 --> 00:37:29.960 baby is in a better place. Well, it's not a better, 00:37:30.099 --> 00:37:33.000 like that's a terrible thing, right? And you 00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:38.820 need to grieve the loss and not to, you know, 00:37:39.300 --> 00:37:41.719 not to say we don't believe in heaven or anything 00:37:41.719 --> 00:37:46.260 like that, but to experience, to say, like, this 00:37:46.260 --> 00:37:50.320 is a huge loss, right? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. 00:37:51.769 --> 00:37:56.170 Yeah, no, I think it like well taken. It's like 00:37:56.170 --> 00:37:58.730 what you're getting at. It's reminding me of 00:37:58.730 --> 00:38:02.030 the term like proof texts where folks will just 00:38:02.030 --> 00:38:06.610 pull texts to make a point. And I think that's 00:38:06.610 --> 00:38:09.530 like Jeremiah is a great example of that. Like 00:38:09.530 --> 00:38:13.610 it's very convenient to pull at, I know the plans 00:38:13.610 --> 00:38:16.690 that I have for you and to use that as your mantra 00:38:16.690 --> 00:38:19.309 for life. And every single time you go to the 00:38:19.309 --> 00:38:22.349 bank, well, bank teller doesn't know the plans 00:38:22.349 --> 00:38:23.789 that God has for me is you're gonna pull out 00:38:23.789 --> 00:38:28.570 a million dollars. It's so, so convenient. But 00:38:28.570 --> 00:38:32.070 at the same time, like people use it for like 00:38:32.070 --> 00:38:33.610 really positive things that they want in their 00:38:33.610 --> 00:38:36.489 life. They use the proof tax method or pull out 00:38:36.489 --> 00:38:39.429 certain passages to make a particular point. 00:38:40.090 --> 00:38:42.889 But there's also that what some would define 00:38:42.889 --> 00:38:45.369 as like a negative way where there's certain 00:38:45.369 --> 00:38:47.969 groups of people are put down. And women in the 00:38:47.969 --> 00:38:50.610 scripture has been one of those ways where we 00:38:50.610 --> 00:38:52.650 pull at, like certain texts in Leviticus are 00:38:52.650 --> 00:38:55.570 very convenient to put women in their place or 00:38:55.570 --> 00:39:00.090 in Deuteronomy. And that has had a very negative 00:39:00.090 --> 00:39:03.650 impact on the values that we have in our society 00:39:03.650 --> 00:39:07.639 and whatnot. So I'm interested because you spent 00:39:07.639 --> 00:39:10.099 a lot of time looking at women interpreters and 00:39:10.099 --> 00:39:12.719 how they've used the text to do the opposite, 00:39:12.960 --> 00:39:18.239 to speak for their rights and a manner of other 00:39:18.239 --> 00:39:20.280 things, a manner of other injustices that happen 00:39:20.280 --> 00:39:23.000 in our society. Yeah, so I'm interested in how 00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:25.960 that's been and what are the common stories or 00:39:25.960 --> 00:39:29.699 passages from the Bible that women have used 00:39:29.699 --> 00:39:33.280 to draw more on when they're speaking out for 00:39:33.280 --> 00:39:37.539 injustice. Right. That's a very big question. 00:39:37.539 --> 00:39:45.360 Loaded question. Yeah. So when I studied, we 00:39:45.360 --> 00:39:47.739 just studied the great books of the great men, 00:39:48.239 --> 00:39:51.059 right? The great preachers, the great scholars. 00:39:52.079 --> 00:39:54.019 When we studied the Reformation, we did Luther, 00:39:54.239 --> 00:39:56.239 Calvin, Zwingli, and all the men. And I didn't 00:39:56.239 --> 00:39:58.559 even know there were women involved in the Reformation. 00:40:02.539 --> 00:40:05.360 This past couple of years and now on my sabbatical, 00:40:05.679 --> 00:40:11.539 I am working on 16th century women who commented 00:40:11.539 --> 00:40:16.900 on Paul. Because Paul, when it comes to women 00:40:16.900 --> 00:40:23.260 in the Bible, there are just a cluster. You can 00:40:23.260 --> 00:40:26.340 do it on one hand, a very hard text in the New 00:40:26.340 --> 00:40:31.750 Testament. that say women should keep silent, 00:40:31.949 --> 00:40:35.269 women shouldn't teach, women should be submissive 00:40:35.269 --> 00:40:39.090 to their husbands. And if those texts are used 00:40:39.090 --> 00:40:42.090 as the lens through which to read all of scripture, 00:40:43.130 --> 00:40:47.409 then we come out with a theology that today is 00:40:47.409 --> 00:40:50.670 called complementarian theology. And you go back 00:40:50.670 --> 00:40:55.670 to, so women have talked a lot through the ages 00:40:55.670 --> 00:41:00.489 on how Genesis one to three, right, the creation 00:41:00.489 --> 00:41:05.570 story. And here, like I will, like this book, 00:41:05.829 --> 00:41:08.590 The Gospel According to Eve, that was written 00:41:08.590 --> 00:41:12.050 by Amanda Bankhousen, who was a student at Wycliffe. 00:41:12.210 --> 00:41:15.010 And she recovers, starting with the 17th century, 00:41:15.250 --> 00:41:19.090 women's interpretations of those texts, because 00:41:19.090 --> 00:41:24.760 traditional patriarchy has argued well, not patriarchy, 00:41:25.099 --> 00:41:29.539 but men endorsing patriarchy take the creation 00:41:29.539 --> 00:41:32.219 story, women are created second from the rib 00:41:32.219 --> 00:41:36.119 as women are derivative, they are to be helpers 00:41:36.119 --> 00:41:39.440 and in subordinate, God created women intentionally 00:41:39.440 --> 00:41:43.079 to be subordinate, right? And women are saying, 00:41:43.239 --> 00:41:47.780 no, like that's not how to read this story. And 00:41:47.780 --> 00:41:52.619 like, why did the serpent? attempt Eve and not 00:41:52.619 --> 00:41:54.559 Adam because she was the smarter one. I mean, 00:41:54.699 --> 00:41:57.079 there are ways to turn it all around, right? 00:41:58.300 --> 00:42:02.659 But women have pushed back and so have men. There 00:42:02.659 --> 00:42:07.079 was a second, so this dominant reading of Genesis 00:42:07.079 --> 00:42:12.559 1 to 3 to put women in a subordinate place, challenged 00:42:12.559 --> 00:42:15.940 by some early church, very renowned early church 00:42:15.940 --> 00:42:19.079 fathers to say no, that didn't. doesn't mean 00:42:19.079 --> 00:42:23.559 that. And those people had also in mind the whole 00:42:23.559 --> 00:42:27.880 message of scripture and included how Jesus treated 00:42:27.880 --> 00:42:31.880 women, right? Texts like Galatians 3 .28, in 00:42:31.880 --> 00:42:34.880 Christ there's neither male nor female, Jew nor 00:42:34.880 --> 00:42:37.800 Greek, slave or free. We're equal in Christ. 00:42:38.280 --> 00:42:43.539 So there are a whole lot of stories that show 00:42:43.539 --> 00:42:47.989 women Were not always submissive in the Old Testament 00:42:47.989 --> 00:42:52.789 Sarah was not submissive at all Yeah, not at 00:42:52.789 --> 00:42:55.650 all. And yet the verse in Peter about Sarah was 00:42:55.650 --> 00:42:58.949 submissive. She called her husband Lord That 00:42:58.949 --> 00:43:01.449 was in every merit Anglican marriage ceremony, 00:43:01.449 --> 00:43:04.710 right? When in submission in the earlier versions 00:43:04.710 --> 00:43:08.909 of the prayer book, so When when I started to 00:43:08.909 --> 00:43:11.869 find women's writings, I thought my goodness 00:43:12.960 --> 00:43:17.039 Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, women and 00:43:17.039 --> 00:43:20.000 the men that supported these women were saying, 00:43:20.400 --> 00:43:23.760 wait a minute, the message of scripture is not 00:43:23.760 --> 00:43:27.559 that women all should never teach or preach, 00:43:27.699 --> 00:43:32.079 right? Or witness. And they found all these other 00:43:32.079 --> 00:43:35.519 texts. And women often wrote about the women 00:43:35.519 --> 00:43:41.329 in the Bible, right? Sarah and... Rebecca and 00:43:41.329 --> 00:43:45.289 Miriam and Deborah. Deborah becomes a really 00:43:45.289 --> 00:43:49.230 important woman, not only for female queens who 00:43:49.230 --> 00:43:54.050 model their queenship after Deborah. She's a 00:43:54.050 --> 00:43:56.949 leader. So how can you say women can't lead? 00:43:58.329 --> 00:44:01.730 Or then you have all these New Testament examples 00:44:01.730 --> 00:44:10.510 of Mary in the Magnificat. or the women of Samaria. 00:44:10.530 --> 00:44:13.710 Women went out and witnessed. And then you have 00:44:13.710 --> 00:44:16.769 Aquila and Priscilla. And what's interesting 00:44:16.769 --> 00:44:19.710 in Beth Ellison Barr's new book on the pastor's 00:44:19.710 --> 00:44:23.829 wife, she talks about the influence of a woman, 00:44:26.110 --> 00:44:29.590 Paige Patterson, who is telling ministers wives, 00:44:29.869 --> 00:44:33.530 you've got to be the supreme. You've got to be 00:44:33.530 --> 00:44:36.949 the submissive support, right? You make the casseroles. 00:44:37.030 --> 00:44:40.829 You invite the women over. Play the piano. Do 00:44:40.829 --> 00:44:43.369 the Sunday school. That's not in the Bible, but 00:44:43.369 --> 00:44:46.570 she took the story of Aquila and Priscilla in 00:44:46.570 --> 00:44:50.429 the New Testament and said Priscilla was subordinate 00:44:50.429 --> 00:44:54.230 to Aquila. There's no evidence of that. In the 00:44:54.230 --> 00:44:57.050 six times they're mentioned in the New Testament, 00:44:57.190 --> 00:45:00.409 she comes first. She's the leader of the house 00:45:00.409 --> 00:45:03.440 church, not the husband. And even when you talk 00:45:03.440 --> 00:45:07.519 about Paul saying, you know, you take his instructions 00:45:07.519 --> 00:45:11.340 to the Corinthian church, that was instruction 00:45:11.340 --> 00:45:14.920 to a church, a new church where women had never 00:45:14.920 --> 00:45:17.659 been educated. They didn't know how to sit still 00:45:17.659 --> 00:45:20.360 listening to a sermon. And he says, women keep 00:45:20.360 --> 00:45:24.139 silent. That doesn't mean all women in every 00:45:24.139 --> 00:45:27.139 culture, in every time should be silent, right? 00:45:28.440 --> 00:45:32.019 The early interpreters knew that was true because 00:45:32.019 --> 00:45:36.579 they read Romans 16, which has all the women 00:45:36.579 --> 00:45:39.619 involved in Paul's ministry. They were not solid. 00:45:40.920 --> 00:45:44.159 So a woman is probably the one who carried the 00:45:44.159 --> 00:45:49.539 book of Romans from Paul to be read. You know, 00:45:49.659 --> 00:45:53.019 so we have so much evidence now from the early 00:45:53.019 --> 00:45:55.820 church of women being ordained, women in the 00:45:55.820 --> 00:45:59.159 Oran's position as presiding over Eucharist. 00:45:59.420 --> 00:46:03.280 Right. So it's because our generation has trashed 00:46:03.280 --> 00:46:07.699 history. We don't remember the full history of 00:46:07.699 --> 00:46:10.960 women's involvement. And so right now, working 00:46:10.960 --> 00:46:15.199 on these 16th century women, these are women. 00:46:16.809 --> 00:46:21.730 who grasped the gospel and Luther talked about 00:46:21.730 --> 00:46:25.010 the priesthood of all believers, right? If you 00:46:25.010 --> 00:46:27.469 are a believer, you parted the priesthood of 00:46:27.469 --> 00:46:30.409 all believers and women said, okay then, right? 00:46:31.269 --> 00:46:34.949 You know, and so this, you were gonna ask me 00:46:34.949 --> 00:46:37.489 about one of my favorite ones. One of my favorite 00:46:37.489 --> 00:46:41.610 interpreters is this woman. If you can see her 00:46:41.610 --> 00:46:45.570 picture, there she is. standing in front of a 00:46:45.570 --> 00:46:48.630 group of monks who are at the university. So 00:46:48.630 --> 00:46:51.949 this is the most learned bunch of men in the 00:46:51.949 --> 00:46:54.630 16th century at the University of Ingolstadt. 00:46:55.010 --> 00:46:58.639 And she writes them a letter and says, You don't 00:46:58.639 --> 00:47:02.219 know how to read the Bible properly. It was a 00:47:02.219 --> 00:47:05.579 social justice issue that they had arrested a 00:47:05.579 --> 00:47:08.639 young guy who was teaching Luther's idea in a 00:47:08.639 --> 00:47:11.559 Catholic university, and they threatened his 00:47:11.559 --> 00:47:14.679 life. They made him recant. They put him in jail. 00:47:15.400 --> 00:47:17.619 And she said, you can't do this. This is not 00:47:17.619 --> 00:47:21.740 how you treat a fellow Christian, right? She 00:47:21.740 --> 00:47:24.099 daringly wrote them and said I want to have a 00:47:24.099 --> 00:47:26.420 debate with you. I don't know Latin, but you 00:47:26.420 --> 00:47:29.039 know German will debate in German, right? Okay, 00:47:29.039 --> 00:47:33.599 it was a it was daring and she said things like 00:47:33.599 --> 00:47:39.179 God used an ass Balaam's ass It can use a woman 00:47:39.179 --> 00:47:45.099 to speak right? Yeah, and you know and she cites 00:47:45.099 --> 00:47:47.460 all these other women in Scripture and she said 00:47:47.460 --> 00:47:51.780 where are the men stepping up to? protest the 00:47:51.780 --> 00:47:55.380 injustice. If a man does not speak up, I, as 00:47:55.380 --> 00:47:58.519 a woman, need to speak up. And then she cites 00:47:58.519 --> 00:48:01.480 the verse, if you do not confess the Father, 00:48:02.659 --> 00:48:05.980 I won't confess you before my Father. Like Jesus 00:48:05.980 --> 00:48:09.019 said, you must confess your faith. And she said, 00:48:09.019 --> 00:48:12.139 I will confess my faith. I cannot keep silent. 00:48:12.739 --> 00:48:15.039 So that's what women did in the 16th century. 00:48:15.780 --> 00:48:19.500 They confessed their faith. They felt called 00:48:19.500 --> 00:48:25.699 as a fissure of men and women to witness. They 00:48:25.699 --> 00:48:29.880 were very involved. They preached like Argula's, 00:48:29.940 --> 00:48:32.019 another woman, Katarina Zell, when her husband 00:48:32.019 --> 00:48:34.659 who was a minister died, she preached at the 00:48:34.659 --> 00:48:38.239 graveside. Women preached in the 16th century. 00:48:39.360 --> 00:48:43.559 We've forgotten their stories and having their 00:48:43.559 --> 00:48:48.239 stories means It empowers us as women today to 00:48:48.239 --> 00:48:52.739 say, we have four mothers of faith that we can 00:48:52.739 --> 00:48:55.619 stand on their shoulders and be courageous, right? 00:48:56.119 --> 00:49:00.289 Speak out against injustice. preach right speak 00:49:00.289 --> 00:49:03.769 out against teachings that circumscribe women 00:49:03.769 --> 00:49:06.610 to no no you're the minister's wife you need 00:49:06.610 --> 00:49:09.369 to do the bulletins you need to have the keys 00:49:09.369 --> 00:49:11.969 to the church and do everything right no you 00:49:11.969 --> 00:49:15.610 don't right you need to follow god's call for 00:49:15.610 --> 00:49:19.050 your life and it may not be as like you might 00:49:19.050 --> 00:49:21.309 be a doctor and he might be the minister and 00:49:21.309 --> 00:49:25.650 i um yeah i was talking to a student going who's 00:49:25.650 --> 00:49:29.219 just gone back to taiwan because wife is a pastor, 00:49:29.780 --> 00:49:34.860 but in Taiwan, you can be a single pastor and 00:49:34.860 --> 00:49:37.900 be ordained. If you get married, you're fired 00:49:37.900 --> 00:49:41.059 because you have to be under the submission of 00:49:41.059 --> 00:49:46.420 your husband. So if you're ordained and married, 00:49:46.659 --> 00:49:49.219 the guy has to be ordained or you will not be 00:49:49.219 --> 00:49:53.400 a pastor. This is crazy, right? This is like, 00:49:53.519 --> 00:49:57.369 that is not how it's meant to be. But that's 00:49:57.369 --> 00:50:03.130 taking a view of women's roles as you must be 00:50:03.130 --> 00:50:07.630 under the submission of a male leader and saying 00:50:07.630 --> 00:50:14.530 a woman can't be a lead pastor. But I think that's 00:50:14.530 --> 00:50:21.849 wrong. you know, we know the verses that they 00:50:21.849 --> 00:50:24.190 used, right? And then they kept using the same 00:50:24.190 --> 00:50:27.309 ones over again. And that's not how Jesus treated 00:50:27.309 --> 00:50:30.550 women. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I was just going 00:50:30.550 --> 00:50:33.289 to say, I remember like in your Old Testament 00:50:33.289 --> 00:50:35.969 class when you started talking about some of 00:50:35.969 --> 00:50:38.150 these different women interpreters, one of the 00:50:38.150 --> 00:50:40.210 things that stood out to me was like, OK, women 00:50:40.210 --> 00:50:42.829 interpreted the Bible and then the next generation 00:50:42.829 --> 00:50:46.429 of women like forgot or that that was lost, right? 00:50:46.429 --> 00:50:50.500 No, that's right. Women have continued to do 00:50:50.500 --> 00:50:54.079 the same work over and over and over again. That's 00:50:54.079 --> 00:50:56.539 exactly right. They came up with the same arguments 00:50:56.539 --> 00:50:59.179 because they read the Bible and they saw all 00:50:59.179 --> 00:51:02.380 these examples of strong women. Then they read 00:51:02.380 --> 00:51:07.199 Proverbs. Wisdom is a female figure. Right. Yeah. 00:51:08.019 --> 00:51:10.900 So is Lady Folly, a female figure. Well, okay. 00:51:10.960 --> 00:51:14.659 Good and bad, right? Yeah. But there are wonderful 00:51:14.659 --> 00:51:20.090 examples of Godly women, right? And when you 00:51:20.090 --> 00:51:23.070 read a woman's reading of a text, like the story 00:51:23.070 --> 00:51:26.949 of Hannah, read by a Jewish woman in the 19th 00:51:26.949 --> 00:51:30.230 century, when they only had prayer books, and 00:51:30.230 --> 00:51:32.949 she said to the Jewish woman, wait a minute, 00:51:32.969 --> 00:51:36.150 Hannah prayed out loud, extemporaneous prayer. 00:51:36.489 --> 00:51:40.130 We need to learn to pray like that, right? And 00:51:40.130 --> 00:51:43.869 so she was empowering Jewish women to learn to 00:51:43.869 --> 00:51:46.980 pray and not just say, have a prayer book because 00:51:46.980 --> 00:51:49.699 these Jewish women were not taught to read Hebrew. 00:51:49.760 --> 00:51:52.320 So they didn't have a prayer book, right? So 00:51:52.320 --> 00:51:55.139 they were missing out on that whole experience 00:51:55.139 --> 00:52:00.059 of learning to pray. So there are in the Bible 00:52:00.059 --> 00:52:03.500 has many, even in the Old Testament, you have 00:52:03.500 --> 00:52:07.179 counter stories. Like in the book of Ruth, in 00:52:07.179 --> 00:52:11.219 the second chapter, Boaz, who's the wealthy landowner, 00:52:12.329 --> 00:52:18.389 to whom Ruth, a Moabite outsider, she should 00:52:18.389 --> 00:52:22.369 be submissive in a patriarchal culture, but he 00:52:22.369 --> 00:52:26.510 serves her. Let me serve you, right? That's a 00:52:26.510 --> 00:52:30.230 counter -cultural moment there, right? So there 00:52:30.230 --> 00:52:34.869 are confusing stories that Caleb was promised 00:52:34.869 --> 00:52:38.960 to the guy who won the war. He was promised, 00:52:39.420 --> 00:52:42.300 like he won, Caleb's daughter was given as a 00:52:42.300 --> 00:52:44.619 prize of war, which is a terrible thing to be 00:52:44.619 --> 00:52:48.260 given away like that. However, she makes a deal 00:52:48.260 --> 00:52:52.280 and says, I want land. So I want the springs, 00:52:52.300 --> 00:52:55.360 right? And she was given that. So in England, 00:52:55.719 --> 00:52:59.340 the 19th century women said, we can't own property. 00:52:59.739 --> 00:53:02.500 We can't keep our children if we're divorced 00:53:02.500 --> 00:53:05.760 if you can't own anything yet in the Bible women 00:53:05.760 --> 00:53:10.139 had more rights than we did they need rights 00:53:10.139 --> 00:53:13.719 to property and like we could own land we can 00:53:13.719 --> 00:53:20.420 you know, and so the Bible has inspired Oppressed 00:53:20.420 --> 00:53:25.730 marginalized groups. Yes push for freedom, including, 00:53:25.730 --> 00:53:30.869 you know, the slavery issues and, you know, that 00:53:30.869 --> 00:53:34.929 liberation comes through faith in Jesus and we 00:53:34.929 --> 00:53:39.690 need to extend that to the principles in the 00:53:39.690 --> 00:53:42.329 Old Testament. Care for the poor, the outsider, 00:53:42.969 --> 00:53:48.050 you know, the orphan. I mean, those are repeated 00:53:48.050 --> 00:53:53.679 over and over again. So, The Bible has undergirded 00:53:53.679 --> 00:53:58.659 many great programs of liberation in like the 00:53:58.659 --> 00:54:03.119 whole, like Wilberforce and John Newton, like 00:54:03.119 --> 00:54:06.139 their work for abolition and all the women who 00:54:06.139 --> 00:54:08.360 work for abolition. At the same time, the Bible 00:54:08.360 --> 00:54:12.900 has been used very oppressively too. The Bible 00:54:12.900 --> 00:54:16.800 says we should treat people this way. So the 00:54:16.800 --> 00:54:22.059 Bible can be used to say, It's how you interpret 00:54:22.059 --> 00:54:26.000 and you can make it say what you want it to say. 00:54:27.119 --> 00:54:29.460 That's why you need to know the Bible, to know 00:54:29.460 --> 00:54:32.320 whether what they're saying is good or not. Right? 00:54:32.539 --> 00:54:36.099 Right. Yeah, for sure. Did you have any other 00:54:36.099 --> 00:54:37.940 favorite women that you wanted to sort of give 00:54:37.940 --> 00:54:40.739 a little shout out to? I'm in my office. I have 00:54:40.739 --> 00:54:47.559 hundreds of books by me. I think it was such 00:54:47.559 --> 00:54:52.320 a surprise to me. that this woman named Julia 00:54:52.320 --> 00:54:56.619 Joanna Gresswell wrote a textbook for set for 00:54:56.619 --> 00:54:59.139 second year Hebrew students in the 19th century. 00:54:59.719 --> 00:55:02.440 It's called a grammatical analysis of the Hebrew 00:55:02.440 --> 00:55:05.119 Psalter. I thought they use second year Hebrew 00:55:05.119 --> 00:55:07.599 students, all men at Oxford, because women weren't 00:55:07.599 --> 00:55:10.519 allowed to go to university. They use textbook 00:55:10.519 --> 00:55:14.719 written by a woman. Wow. That was cool. Yeah, 00:55:15.159 --> 00:55:17.539 very cool. So for me, it's like finding these 00:55:17.539 --> 00:55:22.179 women has really given me hope and confidence. 00:55:22.179 --> 00:55:25.059 And I just have this real passion to say like 00:55:25.059 --> 00:55:29.019 we need and and it's happening like we have histories 00:55:29.019 --> 00:55:32.260 are now being rewritten to include women's voices 00:55:32.260 --> 00:55:35.320 because they were there. And just like the old 00:55:35.320 --> 00:55:40.280 Norton anthology of English. like they were all 00:55:40.280 --> 00:55:42.559 men initially. Now in the 19th century they're 00:55:42.559 --> 00:55:45.519 mostly women because women were really good writers, 00:55:45.980 --> 00:55:50.619 right, poets, novelists. So yeah, we need to, 00:55:50.780 --> 00:55:53.119 the next generation needs to have an account 00:55:53.119 --> 00:55:56.340 of Christian history that includes women. Because 00:55:56.340 --> 00:55:59.159 if you can't see it, you can't be it, right? 00:55:59.579 --> 00:56:02.639 If you think that every minister has to be a 00:56:02.639 --> 00:56:06.079 white man, a white man with a big beard or something. 00:56:06.519 --> 00:56:08.760 How is the young woman thinking, I feel called 00:56:08.760 --> 00:56:12.420 to be a minister, right? You need women out there 00:56:12.420 --> 00:56:15.400 in front leading. So others will say, oh, she 00:56:15.400 --> 00:56:19.760 looks like me. I can do this, right? It's very 00:56:19.760 --> 00:56:22.400 important to have role models. They can be dead, 00:56:23.099 --> 00:56:25.980 right? You have a dead mentor, right? I'm all 00:56:25.980 --> 00:56:29.679 for dead mentors. They're easy to get a hold 00:56:29.679 --> 00:56:34.900 of too. Yeah, read the book. Harriet Beecher 00:56:34.900 --> 00:56:36.800 still is one of the women who had a real impact 00:56:36.800 --> 00:56:40.800 on me when she was a busy mother and she was 00:56:40.800 --> 00:56:43.119 writing her, she was married to a professor, 00:56:43.219 --> 00:56:46.079 they didn't have a lot of money. So she talks 00:56:46.079 --> 00:56:48.739 about wearing an apron with a big pocket in the 00:56:48.739 --> 00:56:52.389 pocket with the manuscript of her book. So if 00:56:52.389 --> 00:56:54.469 she had a minute, she had five kids running around. 00:56:54.489 --> 00:56:57.630 She'd just pull out the little notepad and write 00:56:57.630 --> 00:57:01.050 the next chapter of a serially published book 00:57:01.050 --> 00:57:03.889 she was writing, Uncle Tom's Cabin. And then 00:57:03.889 --> 00:57:07.050 she was interrupted. The fishmonger came to the 00:57:07.050 --> 00:57:08.969 door. Would you like to buy fish for dinner tonight? 00:57:09.610 --> 00:57:12.269 And I thought, oh, women have a hard time today 00:57:12.269 --> 00:57:16.550 doing work and family, but it's not new. And 00:57:16.550 --> 00:57:19.730 she made it work. And the money she earned from 00:57:19.730 --> 00:57:25.420 the book, She hired a guy to put a new extension 00:57:25.420 --> 00:57:27.940 on the house where she'd have an office, and 00:57:27.940 --> 00:57:31.719 she hired a nanny. Women have been struggling. 00:57:31.840 --> 00:57:36.119 How do I do it all? We're not the first generation 00:57:36.119 --> 00:57:42.659 at all to struggle with the balancing act. There 00:57:42.659 --> 00:57:46.079 are some women who came before us who can help 00:57:46.079 --> 00:57:48.880 us. That's what I think. That's really good. 00:57:49.369 --> 00:57:51.449 Yeah, this has been such a good conversation 00:57:51.449 --> 00:57:54.590 to talk about some of those things that I think 00:57:54.590 --> 00:57:56.489 a lot of Christians are thinking about and wrestling 00:57:56.489 --> 00:58:00.050 with, but don't put out there very often. So 00:58:00.050 --> 00:58:02.289 really helpful to talk through the Old Testament 00:58:02.289 --> 00:58:04.869 and some of those really hard texts, but then 00:58:04.869 --> 00:58:08.250 also how women fit in the church and fit in the 00:58:08.250 --> 00:58:11.760 history of interpreting the whole Bible. Yeah, 00:58:11.880 --> 00:58:13.860 so thank you so much, Marion, for taking this 00:58:13.860 --> 00:58:15.800 time. Oh, you're welcome. This has been really 00:58:15.800 --> 00:58:18.699 good. And for those who are listening, thank 00:58:18.699 --> 00:58:21.179 you for taking this time to tune in as well. 00:58:21.199 --> 00:58:24.300 And I hope that you have found some information 00:58:24.300 --> 00:58:27.300 and encouragement through our conversation. And 00:58:27.300 --> 00:58:28.320 we'll see you again next week.