BibleProject - 4 Steps to Argument Tracing - Letters E9

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

The New Testament letters can be difficult to follow, but the right tools can help us unpack their rich meaning. In this episode, Tim and Jon look at 1st century letter templates, Greco-Roman rhetoric, and argument tracing. Learn more in this week’s podcast episode.View full show notes from this episode →Timestamps Part one (0:00–15:50)Part two (15:50–37:30)Part three (37:30–55:45)Part four (55:45–63:40)Part five (63:40–end)Additional Resources John Lee White, Light from Ancient LettersRandolph Richards, Paul and First-Century Letter Writing: Secretaries, Composition and CollectionJerome Murphy-O'Connor, O.P., Paul the Letter-Writer: His World, His Options, His SkillsShow Music Defender Instrumental by TentsDay and Night EP by AiguilleShow produced by Dan Gummel and Camden McAfee. Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode. Hey everybody, this is Tim at Bible Project.

And welcome to the podcast. Today, we are wrapping up our final conversation in our series about how to read the New Testament letters. If this is the first episode you're listening to in the series or on the podcast, welcome. We do recommend you go back and check out all the episodes leading up to this one, but if you're just going to dive in first right here, here's an introduction. You are probably familiar with the letters of the New Testament. There's some of the most well-known books in the Bible, and they're full of inspiring one-liners. These are letters that Christians often quote, just single sentences from, and they're actually

are fairly easy to read as devotional kind of grab bags, or you just read a sentence or a paragraph at a time. However, we want to invite people into a more in depth and thoughtful way of reading these as whole letters. And part of learning how to do that means learning the literary context of any given sentence or paragraph in the flow of the letter as a whole.

So today, we're gonna talk about some of the skills involved with following a train of thought from the letters beginning to its end in the New Testament. We're gonna give you some tips the skills involved with following a train of thought from the letters beginning to its end in the New Testament. We're going to give you some tips and skills for how to read the letters more effectively and we're going to discuss an interesting question that comes up between John and I about why Paul sounds so aggressive, even bombastic and arrogant sometimes in some sections of his letters. Paul was trained in ancient Greek and Roman style of rhetoric and public speaking.

And so the way that he writes is really different from how we might try and develop a line of thought in a modern Western context. We're gonna explore things like that and even more in today's episode. One thing to note is that John and I recorded this conversation we were in our office a little bit different than normal, but we think it should be fine.

Okay, thanks for joining us. Here we go. So Tim, we're recording outside the studio. Yes, we are. If I kicked out of our seat. Yeah, we did. So we found this field recorder in the worst in our office. We're in our office sitting next to each other, having this conversation. Staring at screen.

Yeah, staring at screen together. We are carrying on our conversation about how to read the New Testament letters. We did a whole series on the historical background of the letters, learning how to dive into that. And this conversation is about how to actually read the New Testament letters as literary holes from beginning to end. You kind of broke my brain talking about these letters being written in community. Yeah.

But it's good. There's new appreciation for the letters come from Paul and his team. His team. Yeah. And there's a pro-scribe involved likely. And it's just a new category. But it's really helpful for me to imagine that.

Yeah. And bring that into what does that mean for this to be God's word? It's easier just to imagine God zapping a dude who like transcribes something straight from the Holy Spirit. Paul's meditating and praying in his study alone. Yeah, and they just hears the word of the Lord. He's like, there's just put it down.

It just makes it feel more complex, but why can't God work in that way, too? Yeah, he clearly has. Yeah, we're imagining all that, the scenarios from the actual data in the letters, you know, that he names co-senders, co-authors, which was not standard in first century letters. Yeah, there you go.

So, there are the product of Paul and his missionary teams, and they're working out the content over the course of years, and then as they travel in the wrong roads on. What we're going to go now is a little more practical in how to, which is strategies and tools to actually read the letters and notice stuff, and learning how to identify what's important and things like that. So, the first type of approach is just to understand the form of first century letters. I still remember learning how to, like, be taught how to write a letter. I was given a template, put certain things, certain points on the page. The date up and upper left, if in a home address.

You name your name, yeah. I remember it felt weird to me. To put that information up at the upper left, you write your name and address. I remember being like, what isn't my address on the envelope? Why do I need it? Yeah. Stuff like that. Do you ever do that in letters?

Oh, dude, I can't even remember the last time I actual wrote a paper letter. But if you ever opened up a Word document, yes, that's right. And there's templates. Yeah, I've done those. There's a letter template. You're right, I've done those.

There's a business letter template. So the thing is, I don't create it. I just use a template. You just use the one. That's within pages. But all to say. There's a letter template. You're right, I've done those. There's a business letter template. Toilet. The thing is, I don't create it, I just use a template. You just use the one. That's within pages. But all to say, there's a template for how you write letters. That's right. And there was a template for how you write letters. Template, yeah, toilet.

So here, we'll just summarize it in the most basic form. It's pretty intuitive. Yeah. It's not rocket science. Ancient letters in the centuries before, especially in around the time of the apostles, you begin, the first words is your name and then the receiver. So this is called the opening address. You identify yourself, who you're writing to, and you usually use some form of the Greek word

chorus, which means grace or favor, to say hello. Grace to you. So Paul to the church and so on, so Grace to you. There you go. There's almost always some little line of giving thanks to the gods for what... After the opening address. After the opening, there follows second main part of the form which is all the thanks giving. You give thanks to the gods. I hear that you're in good health. I give thanks to the gods. That kind of thing. Then you get the body of the letter, and then you get the

closing of the letter, which is usually saying hi to people. If you want to. Travel plans. A final prayer for the well-being or health, or sometimes a praise to the gods gods and then whatever, PS, post-grid manner. So opening address, Thanksgiving prayer, which is kind of a formality of sorts. And then you get into it, here's why I'm writing letter, getting all the content, and then the closing. That's right. And then what you've got here is just a charts of like all of Paul's, all the New Testament letters.

Yeah. And how they do this. And in the opening here, like you've got first, second, Thessalonians, collations for secrity and sec, you've got all the letters. And then you got columns. Yeah. And you filled them out.

So you've got a sender column. Yeah, just copied and pasted. Yeah, the opening paragraphs. Paul's the sender. Yeah. And he gives himself a title usually. He doesn't, first and second, Thessalonians. The next column over is called a description. Yeah. So in the opening, it's like, here's who I am, and let me describe why.

That's right. It's important who I am. Yeah. Yeah. So in other words, when Paul, the most basic form would be Paul Tucson, so. Yeah. He actually not one of his letters begins that way. He almost always adds a description of himself. Sometimes short, sometimes long. He often names the group that produce a letter and that it comes from. He'll name people. So that's the first thing.

Yeah. He rarely puts just his name. He usually puts his name and other people's names, and he usually describes himself with long or short descriptions. And so here's the basic point is that if you start comparing all the different beginnings of the New Testament letters, you'll notice when Paul or Peter or John is taking the existing form and tweaking or adapting it to the unique purposes of that letter.

That's the basic idea. Yeah, there it is. Cool. Yep. And so the same thing's true for the Thanksgiving. Yep. He always has some sort of Thanksgiving prayer before it gets into the meat of the letter. Of the letter.

Correct. So feel free to skip that. Just a formality. Okay, here's what's interesting. From here I found a helpful collection of ancient Greek and Roman letters from a collection by a scholar named John White called Light from Ancient Letters. And you can just read collections of ancient letters. I don't know.

Most people probably should not do this. In fact, I don't know. I don't recommend it. Actually, I do recommend it, but it's like, you know, what's interesting is one, we recalled, we noted in the last conversation how long the New Testament letters are in comparison to all ancient other letters.

All right, so long letters. Especially Paul in the letter to Hebrews. That's a long one too. Yeah, among the longest letters from the ancient world. Not like long like, I'm like, oh, yeah, this is long as it's like, whoa, you went twice as long as anyone else ever goes. Or three times. Or three times.

So the Thanksgiving is like this. Usually, if you read any ancient letters, it's like writing deer, so and so. Deer John at the beginning of the letter. That's the opening. Yeah, like using the word deer. Oh, is it the formality? Yeah, I mean, yes, because do I actually mean you're so dear to me.

No? It's just, I mean you were John, called you were dear to me. I think you're welcome. But you know what I'm saying, like when you write deer, so and so, it's just a formality. You're welcome. But you know what I'm saying. When you write dear so-and-so, it's just a formality. The Thanksgiving prayer, many thanks to the gods that you are healthy and well this year. I give thanks to this god because he protected me and you. It's just what you say.

When you read Paul's letters, he's taken the thanks Thanksgiving and he's turned it into a whole movement of the letter. And so here's another little fun homework assignment. Go through all of the New Testament letters and study the Thanksgiving prayer and what you will find. More often than not is all of the key themes or vocabulary that is going to be developed in the letter is introduced in that opening prayer that it's going to be developed in the letter is introduced in that opening prayer. In a really cool way. It shows that Paul especially saw the Thanksgiving prayer. First of all, it's Jewish. It's just good biblical style to give thanks to God. And then to fill out your thanks to God, it's like a third of the Psalms, the book of Psalms. So what he's done is taken the Thanksgiving prayer and really

filled it out as a communication tool and to make these theologically and poetically quite beautiful. So don't skip it. Don't skip it. No, they're super important. Looking at your chart, he always says the Thanksgiving except for the book of Galatians. Yes, he's got no thanks. He's not thankful. No, the better. Yeah, he immediately, right, in the place not thankful. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no Yeah, so the absence of Thanksgiving in the ledbisclations sticks out. Right. So we got the opening. Yep. And then Thanksgiving prayer, you could chart it all, see what Paul's doing with those or whatever it's writing in it.

Yep. And then the body. And then you come to the body, that's right, which we'll talk about in a moment. And then the final kind of main form or standard convection is the closing, which is actually fairly flexible, but it has common elements in it. You usually pronounce a piece, benediction. Closing Thanksgiving, sorts. Yeah, that's right.

But peace, yeah, peace be upon you and your son-so, peace on you and your animals this year, that kind of thing. The church would call this the benediction. The benediction, that's The Benedictine, that's right. Yeah, that's right. So what Paul will often do is use the word peace, but in creative ways. So I can Thessalonians, he'll say,

may the God of peace bless you and make you holy, faithful as the one who called you. Other times, he'll just say, at the end of the Romans, may the god of peace crush the satan under your feet that kind of thing. So with the closing there's often a peace benediction there's sometimes he'll boil what he wants them to do down to like a really brief command called the final exhortation there's usually greetings I say hi say hi, say hi to Sonsa. Sonsa says hi.

And then sometimes he'll even identify his autograph. Like at the end of the glacial, he says, look what large letters I'm writing with my own hand. Actually, that goes back to our scribe conversation. Yeah. What Paul's saying? He grabs the pen from the scribe. Yes.

He's like, hey, let me throw it in the line. You can tell my handwriting because I have large sloppy letters. That's what he's saying. Yeah. Because the scribe's trying to maximize space on that. It's got small, tight, beautiful letters. Yeah.

Paul comes in, he's like, check out me. Look at the huge letters of my name. But the point is, I'm the one writing this to you. Yeah. Like this, yeah, that's it. So that's the kind of the closing. So once again, it really pays off to compare the final chapters or paragraphs of all the letters and you'll notice unique things

that begin to mark each letter and kind of give you the unique profile of each letter and it's opening and it's closing. And if you do that for all the letters, you can even start to see their things that will teach you what to look for when you turn to the body of the letter. Key words, key ideas. Why did he describe himself that way in the opening? And why did he pray this specific prayer and thanksgiving? Well, why was this his final exhortation? All those things are clues to what he's doing in the body of the letter. Correct. That's right. So one of the most helpful ways to study and get the main ideas of the whole of the letters

is not just to follow the train of thought in the middle, but actually pay real close attention to the beginning and the end. And you'll notice things that will set you up for success in reading the body. That's the basic point. That's the basic point. That's the basic tool. Great. So I think we can do that in the video in a pretty short form. Yeah.

So that leaves... We can, in the video, Paul could be opening up like a Word document template. And you're filling it out. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I feel like this could be real intuitive of just like every, you know, in every culture,

people learn how to write a letter in standard ways. Those ways existed in the first century. And then you can show what's interesting is to watch how the apostles though would adapt, tweak it. And you can show the standard and then show just the basic point that we just made. Right.

Okay. So turning then to the most difficult part of the letters then to really make work and make sense of is the body. Mm-hmm. 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc

1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc First, a quote from Randolph Richards, who quoted from already Paul and for century letter writing his work, he says, Paul's letters were inordinately long.

The typical papyrus letter was one papyrus sheet in the approximately 14,000. The papyrus sheet about made by a lot of it. Oh, and I think a bit smaller, I forget I've stopped my head. I just read last week the Wikipedia page on papyrus because we're the project we're talking about. I learned a lot. It's this plant that grows in the flood plains of Egypt.

And it's from the stock of this plant. It's like a chute. And then you slice that up. And then you got these thin pieces of strips. Strips, yes. And then they put all the strips. Weave them together. Weave them together, maybe smash it.

And then they maybe even decompose a little bit so that they kind of stick together. And then it's dried out. And and then even kind of ironed out. But you can then make, you can stitch together as long as she does you want. Correct. That's right. So there's probably some sort of typical sheet size. Yeah, I bet that's right.

I'm sure it was standardized in the production of them. Yep. The first time I ever saw one of these. Actually, it wasn't papyrus. It was leather parchment. I made a vanimal skin, but the dead sea scrolls. And I remember being blown away how tiny they are. They're not huge.

When you see pictures of them, they're all magnified. But they're like this big. What? Yes. That's how tall they are? Yes. Your hands are about six inches. Oh, not eight inches. Yeah, eight to 12

They're not big. Okay. Yeah, I was imagining like and when yeah, yeah, when you see pictures of them, they look huge It's because like a hand-writing so tall. Yeah, but they're tiny and the handwriting is so unbelievably tiny and Yeah, anyway, yeah, it's all And it's why you need a pro. You need a pro, and it's all about economics too. I mean, the stuff's been... Oh, right, yeah. Okay, sorry, we only made it through two sentences.

So, back to Rangie Richards. The typical papyrus letter was one sheet. In the approximately 14,000 private letters preserved from Greco-Roman antiquity, the average length is about 87 words, ranging in length from 18 words to 209 words that's long. The letters or literary masters like Cicero or Seneca were considerably longer. For example, Cicero's shortest letters 22 words. His longest letter, 2,500 words. Nonetheless, Richard goes on. Paul stands apart from the mall.

Paul's shortest letter, Fy Leeman, is 335. His longest letter, Romans, is 7,100 words. So the average length of a letter in Grico Roman antiquity, which what's that? That's like, oh, got it. These are mostly from 3rd century BC up to like 1st or 2nd century AD. Okay. So there's 14,000 private letters that we have preserved we found. The average length is 87 the longest letter in that collection is 209. But there's Cicero and Seneca. They live in Greek or Roman times. They are.

Why aren't their letters part of that collection? Oh, because they are wealthy, elite, their careers are... They're like professional letters. Progress through letter writing. And they were some of the best letter writers in the ancient world. Okay. Which is why their letters have been preserved. And so you take those guys out of there and you're like, these are the elite letter writers in the ancient world, which is why their letters have been preserved. And so you take those guys out of there and you're like these are the elite letter writers.

Yes. And their average letters are about the size of like, Cicero's average letter is the like the size of the longest letter of any other yeah of the ancient letters. Yeah. And Seneca's is like three times that. Yeah, Cicero's average letter is 295 words. Seneca's average letter, 995 words. Yeah. Paul's average letter, 2495 words. I mean like two and a half times longer than the longest letter writers of the ancient world.

Yeah. It's pretty- Paul has a lot to say. Paul has a lot to say. Yeah, that's the basic point here. Yeah. of the ancient world. Paul has a lot to say. Paul has a lot to say. That's the basic point here. The body of Paul's letters are among the longest in of letters preserved from the ancient world. That's really interesting.

We talked about that before. I'm still trying to figure out what's to take away from that. That's interesting, that's like. Part of it is that Paul is among all the apostles as NT Wright says, he is inventing the concept and the medium of written theology. So that's what I think I mean with like pushing communication technology. Yes. Yeah. It's like he's got, yeah. He doesn't just retell the stories.

He doesn't just quote the poetry or make exact exhortations. He's developed a whole new way of philosophical theological discourse of thinking through what happened in the life of death and resurrection of Jesus. Now, Sena Kho is doing similar stuff. Taking in Sysro, right? But he's like, I'm taking it to another level. He like found a fourth and fifth gear. Yeah, what's this role in Santa Clara

for the most part doing is mediating the traditions in which they were raised. Oh, and a lot of his posturing, a lot of its rhetoric. And it's just making friends with so-and-so career strategy. For Paul, you know, he'll write something like the letter to the Romans to a couple hundred people. I mean, just think about the impact of the letter to the Romans throughout history.

Right. And the original audience is a couple hundred people. And what the majority of the letter is is its theological reasoning in light of the story of the Bible and what happened with Jesus as to why they should unify together. So Paul's got a lot to say because of his unique calling and vocation. So Seneca wrote a lot of other like he didn't just write letters, he wrote like essays of sorts. Yeah or his letters will have short essays and I'm not an expert. Is there, there's first century letter writing,

was there first century like essay writing? Oh, yeah, sure. That's often what's in these letters. And that's, you know, this is why in the era of letter writing, pretty much before email, this is why people preserve famous correspondences. Yeah, the correspondents of famous or influential people is because often their letters will have short essays and beautiful thoughts on them. Yeah, that's right. So these are

really long bodies of letters. Yeah, pulse letters especially but also Hebrews and a certain degree uh first Peter. They're pretty long dense bodies. So there's two things. One is learning how to follow the main themes and the flow of thought through a dense body From any time in place. But then second is when you have Messianic Jewish authors who are using Greek and Roman rhetorical styles to create that flow of thought then that takes a little bit of adjusting to And so I think those are just the two basic steps. One is just thinking like, hey,

I'm entering another culture's way of arguing a point. And we've talked about this before and like there's two cultures where we have to wade through to get to what Paul's doing because he's thinking in Hebrew and Jewish, shaped by the Hebrew Bible, but then he's writing in Greek and he's using Greek rhetorical style and a Greek letter template. Correct. And we're reading it in English. Yeah, that's right. And thinking in English. Correct. So with any part of the Bible, it's a cross-cultural moment to adjust. I've totally had this experience myself, and I've talked with other people, especially Paul,

that he comes across at pretty bombastic sometimes, or pretty just very aggressive or assertive, or, and it's off-putting for a lot of modern western readers. I have found. I can't have imagined that's a personality too, like if you met him. I think there's an element of personality. Can it be like this guy? Yes. He's very sure of what he believes and he's very talks a lot.

I mean, just imagine that's how I would feel. Totally. But another part of it too is he was trained in the Greco-Roman style of giving speeches and trained in rhetoric. If you learn the art of debate rhetoric if that's a part of your training and it was certainly a part of his training and a part of how just education back then it was a way of presenting your thoughts to a public audience. It was a whole tradition. That for the most part, Western audiences

were totally where we swim in a different river altogether. I'm sure they're still part of that in our culture. I mean, were you ever part of Speech to Beatteen? Oh, I never was. No, I mean either. Yeah, but it's a mode. It's a mode you enter into. In fact, here's a quote from Jerome Murphy O'Connor,

and very helpful. Murphy O'Connor says, oratory and rhetoric are about the art of persuasion. At all times and places, the ability to win others to one's point of view has been esteemed and in all spheres of life, business, politics, law, relationship. In the democratic societies of Greece and Rome, success in public life depended on eloquence. It was the hallmark of civilization and the characteristic of an educated person. And while some were gifted in finding the key to an audience's heart, the majority, we're not.

And so began the project of studying and codifying the art of persuasion in Greco-Greumann education. This was like a whole field that you're trained in. This is like, it's the equivalent of, I think, what, at least the American education systems what I know of, like math and science now, this would be, this was one of the standard tracks. Math, science, and rhetoric. Redric.

Learning how to articulate your thoughts in a way that is wholesome, persuasive, and gets things done. It's an art. And yes. Yeah. I took this really interesting class. And it was at a community college.

And it was, like, they took philosophy class and it was out of community college and it was like they took philosophy class and a speech class and they combined it. Oh interesting. And so there was the speech teacher there and the philosophy teacher there. So half the class was talking philosophy, then the other half the class was now we're going to like talk about how we would present these ideas to each other and then you would do speeches of different types. Yeah. Yeah, it's all about how do you persuade someone. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, that's right. How do you give a good presentation? It's still super valuable. It's totally. Yeah, I took my first speech class in college. Yeah. And it still rules the world in terms of career if you think about like... Totally.

If you ever gone on LinkedIn, it's just what people are, they're just talking either to the camera, or giving little blurbs and trying to, yeah, you could say, it's like things well. You could say it's actually a universal kind of human trait. And as in a group of people that get together

and forms a society, the ability to communicate persuasively, to get things done, it's like it's super valuable. Super valuable. Some people have a talent and confidence to be able to do it, but nobody can do it perfectly without training. I mean, you have to work at it to practice.

In the first century, there was a whole system. And actually, a lot Aristotle, Plato, all of them have famous essays and tracks on the rhetoric and persuasion and so on. The most famous kind of like Godfather who codified and wrote the handbook that still is again named Democritus. But in the Greco-Roman tradition, there were three main forms that you were trained in. And this was actually helpful for me because, as I've sat with the New Testament letters for many years, it's helped me kind of know what mode they're in. The first is called deliberative, and it's essentially you're persuading people to do something. So you'll use examples from the past, you'll project future outcomes, you're using reason, but not

always logic and not always data, you're using reason or just persuasion to get people to do something. So persuasion mode, and it pauls off in this mode. When he's trying to get to Corinthians to stop doing something, he'll get into persuasion mode. Another is called forensic, which is essentially lock court, but it's, you get into attack mode. You're attacking. Just making it to link someone's position.

Yeah, yeah, you attack someone's credibility or the credibility of someone's case. You point out how something is crazy, insane, ridiculous, and then you establish your own point of view, that's clearly superior and so on. I find that this is the mode that it's most off-putting to modern Westerners. Unless, I guess you've been in debate class,

which I never was in debate anyway. And then the third is what's called display rhetoric. I guess you've been in debate class, which I never was in debate. And then the third is what's called display rhetoric. And this is interesting, because in display rhetoric, you're actually not trying to make any new points or ideas. What you're doing is elevating certain people and values and decisions as like, this is what we're all about. You're celebrating certain choices and paths

or devaluing others. This is how first John works completely. In first John, there isn't really anything new. In fact, he says it at multiple points. You already know everything I'm writing to you. So you're persuading people and reminding them of what they already think they value and you're just holding it up as like, listen,

you say you value this, so listen. So this is kind of three modes, and you can all of them work at a different point in the New Testament. And these are modes that in the ancient Greco-Roman world, people are trained in. They're specifically trained in these three modes. Correct.

Deliberative. Deliberative, I want you to do something. Yeah. So I'm going to try to convince you to do that amounts. Correct. Deliberative. Deliberative. I want you to do something. Yeah. And so I'm going to try to convince you to do that thing. Yep. Forensic is I'm trying to prove a position against someone else's position. Yeah.

So there's a lot of tearing down the other position. Yep. Yeah, a lot of, yep, that's right. Display rhetoric is just... You're reinforcing what you think your audience already believes, but you're trying to remind them and reinforce it so that they'll keep valuing that thing. Yeah, another place I'm is happening everywhere in culture.

But yesterday, the Senate began, the US Senate began its impeachment trial. It went like all day. Yeah, so it was laid and laid into the night. Laying the night because I turned it on at 9. Mm-hmm. To listen to some of it. West Coast time. West Coast time. So it was midnight out there. Yeah. And it's our list by half hour. Mm-hmm. And it was a lot of forensic rhetoric. Yeah. Yeah. There was a lot of, like, let me explain why the other position is just untenable and ridiculous.

Yeah. And deliberative rhetoric of like, and then let me, I want you to now really appreciate my position. That's right. And it really is all rhetoric. I mean, it's just persuasion. It's all persuasion.

That's right. Yeah. And they literally are trying to persuade a few people to change the way they're gonna vote. Sitting at the front of the room. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. I wanna few people to change the way they're going to vote sitting at the front of the room Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what I want to persuade you to change the way you think totally Yeah, that's exactly right. So for sure Paul his writing and vocabulary display is all the signs of Being raised in the Jewish education system and then his adult years being

Formed in some way through the Greco-Roman education system. When you read Santa Caz letters, you feel like, oh, like Paul and Santa Caz were buddies. They talk like each other in how they make their arguments in points and what they're reflecting as a common educational track. And Santa Caz was like the Stoke School of thought, right? Oh, I believe so.

So, summarize this point about rhetoric. Essentially, what the body of the letters are, is their stylized speeches, their literary stylized condensed speeches, using persuasive, forensic, and display rhetoric in different strategies. Here I'll let Murphy O'Connor say this again. He said it well.

And well, first let me contrast it. I think when I first came, when I was introduced to the Bible, one of the main modes that I was introduced was like the theological handbook model. I'm trying to form my beliefs as a new Christian in my 20s. What should I believe? And what should I do? And so theological handbook, where I go to certain verses to establish a belief based on the information. So what this mode is adopting is learning to read the letters

as communication holes and notice that their goal actually isn't just or even primarily to give me information. These letters are communication acts between two people and they're designed to do something. They're trying to get something done. It convinced me of something. Yeah, or to get you to get a certain group of people to actually do something. So Murphy O'Connor puts it this way. He says, Paul never put a pen to paper except when it was absolutely imperative. A letter for Paul always had a definite goal.

He designed it to accomplish something. Lacking any mechanism to impose his will, he couldn't enforce. He was inescapably bound persuasion. And in the ancient world, persuasion was the staple of the educated who were all trained in rhetoric. So this is interesting. Paul forms these communities, but these are all voluntary associations,

the churches, people can leave. Yeah, you know. Right. So he doesn't have power over them. Right. The way... Yes, they give it to him. A senator would or something like that.

Yeah. So yeah, what you see Paul doing is trying to persuade people to the Christian world to you. So anytime he's communicating theology, it's always in the service of some goal, very practical goal that he's driving at in the course of the letter. I think what you're saying is, as you're reading a letter, there is a purpose to him writing that letter. It isn't. I want to give you a bunch of theological thoughts for you to dig out at your pleasure. It's usually something very tangible. You guys need to stop living in this way, start doing these kind of things, and all of that's reinforced through rhetoric.

And in that rhetoric, he does make theological claims. But those theological claims are always serving that other thing. That's right. So to isolate the theological claim and then build something all around it, apart from what he's doing, you can get in trouble. Yeah, you can get in trouble. That's right. So what I first wanted to do is on, yeah, and we're kind of back to the first one of what you call situational context. What can I learn about the situation he's writing into to understand his goals? And then knowing what his

goals are will help me read the body of the letter and its flow of thought with just more precision honoring his intent more basically. So that's the first basic point. They're written speeches designed to accomplish something and they're using rhetoric to do it. So that's one whole thing. We could go much further down that rabbit hole, but that's just a point to make that I found very helpful. So that leaves really the most practical work left,

which is to actually just read and reread and reread the body of the letter. Yeah. And to follow it, I have found four practical steps to be immensely helpful. So I think what would be helpful is actually to eat pickle letter for us and for the video. Think the letter to the Ephesians could be really helpful

and just to kind of illustrate these steps. These steps? Yeah. Yeah, there you go. Four steps to a better life. This is by reading the New Testament letters. 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc

1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc Step one, get a sense of the whole body and isolate the paragraphs, main paragraphs.

Now Paul didn't write or any of these authors didn't write paragraphs. Correct. It would all be just one dense. Yeah, one dense body type. It would be a perfect space. That's right. So remember, they were designed to be listened to. So what you're looking for is cues for transitions

between bodies of thought. Now, let's talk paragraphs for a second. OK. Because I was never really taught what a paragraph is. Oh. I think I had to intuit it. And even to this day, there's times when I'm writing something, and I'm like, I could end the paragraph here.

Yeah, sure. I could also not. I could put these two together. And it almost just feels like an art not a science. It's totally an art. It's absolutely an art. What makes a paragraph a paragraph? And why are we isolating paragraphs? Oh yeah good. So, you've got to have the body of the letter.

There's something that Paul or Peter wants to accomplish. Okay. And they've written a movement of thought to take me on a journey somewhere. Right. So, going next level, this is about learning to take my Bible reading the next level. Yeah. Because you could read that. You read the whole body. You could just read this. And one go.

And most letters you could do that in 15 20 minutes. You can get a sense of what he's doing. Yep. Yeah. Some main ideas, some good one liners, the basic flow of thought. So yeah, this is about taking your Bible reading one step further and really making more explicit and tracing and going slower to identify each step of where they've taken me and what each step is actually doing and how it fits into the whole.

Now a lot of Bibles have tried to do that for you. They have broken things into paragraphs. They break into paragraphs and often times even like sections like here's a header from... Yeah and often giving them little summary headings. Yes, that are sometimes helpful, sometimes unhelpful. So, most likely, you're an open-your-rower, you're gonna find that was already broken down into... They've already done it for you.

Paragraphs and main thoughts. That's right. And they'll usually maybe indent... different Bibles have different conventions for how they mark paragraphs. But what you'll find in the letters, in the body of letters, is that each paragraph will almost always begin with what the author intended as a cue, an oral cue, for like a Phoebe, who's performing the letter to the Romans to a group of people.

These would be cues that Phoebe would be following. I see. And she reads it aloud. These would be kind of like, therefores. Yeah, so I'm gonna call a group of words called logical connectors. They're hinge words that transition between a paragraph and a new paragraph. So yeah, there can be a simple as and but more often words like therefore for this reason because of this. So here, Ephesians essentially consists of about 13 large paragraphs, and each one of them begins with a line like, for this reason. You haven't defined paragraph yet. Oh, a paragraph is either one focused movement of thought on the specific topic or idea, or sometimes it will be a paragraph has itself a progression of thought on a specific topic or idea, or sometimes it will be a

paragraph has itself a progression of thought within it, but it's a coherent, complete movement of thought, signaled by these words called logical connectors. So as you go through what you can often do is trace, and the translators will have usually done it for you, trace what are the paragraphs and identify the logical connector words that are the hinges between them. So for this reason and as for you, the logical connector word. Therefore on account of this, now then, so then you get the idea. Finally then, so visually when you're reading these help, but this is why listening to something, I find'm listening to something.

I find sometimes listening and reading, and you'll just start to notice these cues. So the first kind of step in tracing the argument and flow of thought. Would you recommend for someone then to have a Bible that doesn't already do it for you just so you can practice doing it yourself? You can, yeah, totally. Yeah, you know, a practice I've been getting into, in general, for study mode, is to get a digital Bible, get my computer out, copy and paste,

to a word doc, with no formatting. With no formatting. And just start doing the work myself. And it forces you to slow down, pay attention in a way you wouldn't normally. And these sorts of hinge words that summarize or transition paragraphs, they really stick out. And these sorts of hinge words that some arise or transition paragraphs, they really stick out.

And then there's some parts where you realize like, oh, the translators, my Bible made a decision to make a new paragraph here. I don't know if I would have done that. I would have maybe wouldn't have done that. But it gets you thinking in a way that you wouldn't. Or maybe I didn't see something that they saw. Correct.

You know, it's the difference between sitting down and eating a meal that's been prepared for you and then going back in the kitchen and getting the raw ingredients and then making it yourself. Yeah. Right. But it's been huge for me to just copy and paste.

When you copy and paste from an online Bible, when I've done that, it always pulls over the verse markers and oftentimes other kind of footnote notations. Oh yeah. So do you have any, or do you find a way around that? I don't know, for a study, I just do it in Logos. I do it in Logos, but I'll just copy and paste, usually the new American standard,

because it's the most kind of word for word. Yeah, but I try and find a version of copy and paste that doesn't have all the extra. So the first is just isolate the ingredients. The main paragraphs, the main flow of thoughts, one is the author shift from one idea and kind of finish up that idea and then go to the next. Correct.

And there's usually a logical connector of sorts like a therefore or finally. Correct. That's right. And that's usually a logical connector of sorts, like a therefore, or finally, that's a hinge. That's right. And that's a hinge. And again, they're designed to be listened to and feel like a short speech. And so usually those logical connectors will stick out as oral cues to the transition.

So the first to just find, like, get all the main paragraphs for Romans that take the long time. There's a lot of them. There's so many paragraphs. But in Ephesians, there's only 13. Ah! Yeah, there's a few debatable points, but there's 13. And that's just for the body or is that for the whole thing?

That's for the body. For the body. Yep. 13 in the body. Yep, that's right. Okay, so that's the first step. And these steps are cyclical. Okay.

The more you go through them, the more you'll be like, oh, I see. I think that is a paragraph. I think what I thought was a paragraph is actually two. Now, step two, set each paragraph aside and you're going to do individual work on it, just studying it. So first, is pay extra lavish attention to the opening paragraph. So very often, extra lavish attention to the opening paragraph. So very often, and especially Paul, wow, it's repeaters like this too, the opening paragraphs are of little symphony, condensing all of the main kind of like Thanksgiving prayer, but then ratcheted up, where it's, here's the basic thing. Everything that spills out of this is going to be coming back to the vocabulary and ideas of that opening movement, opening paragraph.

So for example, if we're going to go with Ephesians, the opening paragraph of Ephesians is so remarkable. It's a beautiful poem that works in three steps. And ends each step with the same phrase, a little refrain, to the praise of God's glory, or to the praise of God's glorious grace. There's three movements. And in good Hebrew Bible form, the first and third movements are symmetrical, invulcabulary. They're trinitarian, where he's praising the Father, the Messiah, and the Spirit for blessing and choosing us.

And then in the very center of the Messiah and the Spirit for blessing and choosing us. And then in the very center of the opening paragraph, he has his key point, which is going to unfold. Literally every paragraph in Ephesians is going to unfold something related to the thing at the very center of the opening paragraph, which is, in Ephesians, Paul calls the Musterion. God has made known to us the mystery. It's translated mystery sometimes. I like the translation of Leslie Newviggan. He translates the word mystery as the open secret. The open secret. Yeah. In English, mystery means something...

Something that's still hidden. Something hidden, yeah. In Greek, Musterion means something that was hidden. But now it's out. Available. Yeah. Yeah, do we have another word for that? I guess we don't if.

Lastly, I'd add that to word. Yeah. The open secret. So these are the sentences at the center of the open paragraph of Ephesians. He made known to us the open secret of his will, according to his kind intention that he purposed in the Messiah. This was in accordance with this purpose that he pre- planned in the Messiah. For the purpose of arranging the fulfillment of the times, so this paragraph's remarkable. Clearly the point is God's been up to

something, a plan, and that plan came to its fulfillment, and it's all been worked out. And what is the open secret that has been pre-planned? It's to head up or summarize, we'll talk about this, to summarize or head up all things in the Messiah, things in heaven and things on earth. So it's all about the heaven and earth coming together, becoming one in heaven and earth coming together, becoming one. You're even heaven and earth. In the Messiah through his death,

life, death, resurrection, and ascension to become the cosmic king. There it is. I mean, he's made his main point in the first paragraph and not all of the opening paragraphs are designed quite as exquisitely as Ephesians, probably. Well, is this likely a likely a prayer poem that he had, and then he goes, oh, that'll be great to open the letter.

It's a great question. It begins the way a number of Psalms begin in the book of Psalms. So it's, he's written as a Messianic Jewish Psalm. So, but it's so clearly dialed in to the vocabulary and ideas that are going to repeat throughout the letter. It's adapted it. Even if it had a pre-existence, you've adapted it to be the introduction to this letter. So, one step too, we take one paragraph and we just, you can even break that down. You can see, for example, in this first paragraph in Ephesians, it's got a three-part flow.

It's a chiasm of sorts. And in the center of it, he's making a point that ends up really summarizing the whole book. That's right. That's right. And gives you the vocabulary that he's gonna work out through the rest of it. Because what he's gonna go on is then begin to talk

about how God has brought together Israelites and non-Israelites, the nations, together into one body. That's going to be a major thing in the letter. Then he's going to talk about how, within just the community of Jesus, slave and free and the poor and the rich, you've all been brought together into one. Then he's going to go to the household. The husband and wife are brought together as one.

The slave and master are one. This is heading up all things. It's about all things being unified in Messiah. So he's introducing it here and then the rest of the letter, he's going to be working out how it is exactly that heaven and earth and all things on heaven and earth are made one in Messiah. That's the basic idea.

And it's usually the case that his first paragraph does this kind of work. We'll have. Yep, the Thanksgiving and then the opening paragraph are often these places where he introduces. So what you're going to do then, step three then, is to then go forward. And if you've isolated all the paragraphs, and you're just going to now kind of work your way through them, and just study each one. So step two is just the first paragraph.

One is isolate all the paragraphs. Step two, then give a little extra love to the first paragraph. Because it's usually very strategic. Step three is now, go through and look at all of them. Go through and just, and I find over time. Do you just summarize, like, oh, this paragraph's about this, and try to create your own headers almost?

Yeah, I'll create my own summaries, identify, ah, repeated words. So this is where repeated words come in really. Repeated words with inner paragraph? Studying repeated words within a paragraph. That's what we're focusing on right now. And this is the most intuitive thing. It was one of the first skills I learned reading the Bible.

It is learning to pay attention to repeated words. Which doesn't mean the identical word. It can be a group of words or related words. This happens a lot in Hebrew Bible. This is what a German scholar Martin Booper called, we call it in German, light word. In English means lead word. It's a Israelite biblical style of communication

and the apostles pick it up where they'll have a word group or a key image that just works through a whole paragraph. And I find getting colored markers and isolating repeated words and ideas. And then you can just see it in color. You can just see a flow of thought through the ideas. So I have one example. For podcast listeners, this is not going to be that helpful, but I just put Romans 8.

And you highlighted keywords. Would you consider this one paragraph? Oh, I just have the whole chapter. Oh, you have the whole chapter. Just have the whole chapter here. So forget even the paragraphs within the chapter, I'm just paying attention to words. So you're doing repeated words across a whole string of paragraphs. Yep, within one chapter.

That's right, totally. I should have technically broken it into paragraphs. And obviously there's no like one correct way of doing this, but you're kind of giving a progression. And in your progression, do you isolate the paragraphs and then you look at just the keywords within a paragraph first. That's right.

Before you start seeing keywords that go across paragraphs. Correct. Yeah, that's right. Romans 8 is itself a whole movement that culminates chapters 5 through 8. And then Comet and a new movement of the letter begins. Yeah, when letters get really long like Romans, you don't just have paragraphs that lead up to the body. That's right.

It's almost like you get these paragraphs that lead up to whole movements and movements that build the body. That's right. The main movements of Romans are like 1 through 4, 5 through 8, 9 to 11, 12 to 15. And then within each of those, there's paragraphs and stuff like that. This is more just an exercise to say, here's Romeus chapter 8, and you can just see the spirit

is through almost the entire chapter, in almost all the key important movements of thought. This contrast between spirit and flesh goes all the way up through verses 1 to 13. And then you don't see flesh anymore. What you see is spirit and family language. So the spirit is dealing with the flesh in the first movement and then the spirit is creating the new family of God. Children, father, heirs, children, childbirth, censorship, firstborn. And then the whole chapter culminates in this dense

repetition of the word love, the love of Christ, the one who loved us, the love of God. And so, even just like going through and with a marker, and you can just start to see big movements of thought of the spirit, of dealing with the old humanity creating a new family and it all culminates in the love of God. And just that right there is like cool to notice. You can even just see a movement of thought by paying attention to the color of your markers. And noting repeated words. It seems like this is the most valuable when you do it across paragraphs so you can see the flow of thought. But let's just say versus one, if you're looking at Romans 8 versus 1 to 13, what you'll notice is a dense repetition of spirit

and flesh and a dense repetition of death and life, well, vocabulary. So this would be like right in here, versus one through 11 would be like a paragraph. And then as you begin, verse 12, you get a therefore, new paragraph, you get a little spirit and flesh, it's like a hinge, and then you start moving

into the spirit and the new family, my language. Yeah, this would be like one paragraph to study versus one through 11, and just noticing what's going on here, isolate the next one, noticing there. But it's the same skill set as you do the next step, which is start to notice patterns, repetition across. Yeah, because once you've done it for just individual paragraphs, then you can step back and look at the whole thing.

Yeah, and usually it's happening simultaneously. So I think visually what we can do in the video, I think we can communicate this all pretty simply to say there are ancient-style speeches. They have movements of thought broken into paragraphs, indicated by logical connectors. It's one step. Second step is start noticing we can use color or something,

repetition of words within individual bits, and then how whole thing is they're carried across a letter to repetition. It's a pretty simple point. individual bits and then how whole thing of the carrot cross-letter's repetition. It's a pretty simple point. But at least for me, it's taken me years of reading and rereading to really get it because there's a dent. Yeah, I mean, once you've done this,

it's not like, oh, son, oh, it's all makes sense now. Yeah, totally. Yeah, sure. There's still individual bits or paragraphs. You're just like, what? How does that fit in? I'm going to go to the next one. This is step three, that was a step four. Step three is identify repeated words within individual paragraphs. The next part of step three is follow it throughout paragraphs. So what you're into is here.

So if you do it through Ephesians, for example, if we wanted to do it through Ephesians, it would be about the unity of all things in heaven and earth and Messiah. And then what you would start to pay attention to is, okay, this image of many becoming one. Things coming together, things unify, things coming under the head. This is the verb being to head up, yeah. It's all gonna be connected. And so alone behold, the next paragraph culminates

with Jesus being made head over all things. Chapter two has this long thing about Jew and non-Jew, the two becoming one in one body. In chapter 3, it's about my role as an apostle that Jews and non-Jews are fellow airs in the same body. Chapter 4 has this long bit about how we're all really different, but we all are part of one body with one spirit and one hope. So you can start to see the key vocabulary of unity and oneness and bodies summary. And it's just like a red thread throughout the whole letter from beginning to end.

And it was all given to you in that first paragraph. And then you notice it in each individual paragraph, and then you see it like a thread uniting all the paragraphs. So the last step is go back and you've got repeated words in each paragraph throughout. Now come back to those clues that helped you identify paragraphs in the first place, those logical connectors, and then take them seriously as like a building of an argument. So the opening prayer of Ephesians, verse 1 and 15, chapter 1, verse 15, for this reason, chapter 2, verse 1, and as for you. And then really allow those to inform the logic of how the paragraph's progress

as a flow of thought. Yeah, there you go. And you feel like you're being taken on a ride. And all of a sudden, the role that a paragraph plays within the larger hole, you begin to see it more as like a little movement within a big symphony. And what I have found is, as I begin to read the letters as holes this way, the old mode of like treating these letters as theological dictionaries, and coming to a paragraph and just taking one verse out, it almost feels wrong.

Because what I'll be asking is, no, wait a minute, this paragraph comes at this point in the argument, and in light of the whole, it's making this point. And I mean, I guess you can quote it out of context and use it to make this point. And I mean, I guess you can quote it out of context and use it to make this point. And sometimes we'd be like, oh yeah, that's what Paul was trying to say. That's a good point. I should build that into my theology. But it'll also really help you spot verses that are taken out of context. And then you'll kind of be able to see maybe when there's some verse or some idea that you had that was you being built on the verse being totally taken out of context In the pull of thought. Yeah, so here's what I I find is my experience in the letters

I'm now imagining okay, I'm gonna do this exercise is I'm gonna get to a paragraph and I'm gonna get to a sentence in a paragraph And that sense is just gonna confuse me. Oh, she can found me. Yeah Yeah, and it's gonna use a word that just loaded in my mind when I can predestine or something. And then I'm gonna start thinking about everything I think that might mean. And I'll just get stuck there. And my intuition is I gotta solve this.

I gotta figure out what Paul means here. Yeah. And I guess what I'm hearing potentially is some freedom to not try to solve all the like, what does Paul exactly mean by this term? And what is his theology behind this and that? It's to just move on and really try to see what's he doing in this letter. Yeah. And not get tripped up by those questions.

Yeah, well, yeah, but I build lists of those questions. You start marking those questions. Yeah, I just start marking them and then I go back and sometimes it's a word study. So it'd be like, okay, let's dive in. How else is this word used? Pre- destination vocabulary. So you get out of concordance.

Where else did Paul use this word? Look at all those. Where else is the word used in the New Testament, the rest of the Bible. So sometimes a word study will be the next step, that fits a word that's throwing you. And if it's just like this sentence that doesn't make any sense to me,

then you go ask, go to your nerd friend Tim and say, do you have any commentaries on Ephesians? And I'll be like, which one? And there you go. But if you want to understand these texts, the easiest skill set to develop is what we just went through. That's not going to solve everything.

It's going to highlight all kinds of things. But my hunch is that you would have a sense of, okay, he's at this point in the argument. And it seems like this is what he's doing. I can see that's what this paragraph is about. It helps me organize what I do and do not understand. Yeah, that's right. Where oftentimes I'll come to the part of the letter and it's just like,

Yes. What is, what is he talking about? And, and I have like a dozen questions. Mm-hmm. I feel frustrated that now I have so many questions. I don't even know how to prioritize the questions. Yeah. If I go open up someone else's commentary, they have different questions

that they're trying to answer sometimes. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Not's right. Not my questions, so now I've got their questions and my questions and I just often find myself like this too much work. What I hear this doing is at least it's helping me organize my questions and understand where they fit within the whole flow of the body of the letter and give some more shape to it. Totally. That's right. And yeah, give us some more shape to it.

Totally. Yeah, that's right. This is a process that I was introduced to in my second class on how to study the Bible. Yeah. So I didn't even know Greek. And I just started doing this in English. Yeah.

Anybody can do this in a translation. It's learning how to follow the big picture flow of thought, looking at each step of the journey and beginning to profile each paragraph. And then it gives you a place to hang all your questions about each paragraph and how it fits in or the words. Yeah, it brings order to the chaos. Otherwise, you're just like, what do you do

with these huge bodies of these letters? What you do is you just find a part of it, you read that part, you meditate on it, and you hope that... Yeah, that's right. ...it gives you something. That's what most of us do. So this is more just kind of a... Here's a way to take it easy next step, that can take you really far.

Yeah. And what I find then is when I do start using commentaries, I'm coming with some insights that I've already gained to my own. I'm not a blank slate anymore. Right. To just take whatever they say at face value. It's that I'm invested, you know. So, we haven't addressed this.

This is work. It is work. It's work. It's work to really understand these letters and internalize what they're trying to communicate. I'm going to put it on the top. 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc

1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc So another step, which would be like next level would be when they quote from the Old Testament, go look it up. Yeah, you know what I'm realizing is there's a couple of things like word studies

or looking up things in the Old Testament. Yeah. These are like almost like meta skills that we could add to the how to read the Bible. It's true. Oh, to the series of words. Yeah. Like, I mean, we did want to design patterns, which wasn't originally on your list. Correct.

It's true. So it's kind of the same thing with word studies that kind of gets you in the same world. There is a sense in which I think we could maybe build it into this video. I feel like we could do, even though it's taken us a while to talk through all of this. Yeah.

I feel like this is all. Yeah, it's a very visual thing that is. Visual, we can communicate it pretty simply. We could do like a quick little, it would just take 30 seconds of like a little bonus. If you really want a supercharge, you're reading. Notice that there's always quoting from the first three quarters of the Bible.

Start going and looking at it. Go look that up. And read them in context, and you'll, and you'll either be confused, like I was actually most of the time, or you'll see cool things. And then the second would be word studies, which is essentially a concordance.

And that technically that could be its own video, how to do word studies. But looking up, your translation will likely show you when there is a reference to another part of the Bible. And it's a quote in front of the Bible. That's right. And it's their quoting from another Bible. Yeah, and sometimes they quote directly, and sometimes it's more of a summary.

The paraphrase, they'll use a couple words. Yeah, that's right. And what I found is most Bibles to a pretty good job of showing you those in footnotes. But then what I find is I go look those up, and now I'm in another text, where I'm even more confused than the text I came from. Yeah totally.

And so it's truly like a two-letter level. That's right. So this video is about the literary context, reading the letters as holes, crafted written speeches. Notice when they're tweaking the forms. And also learn how to follow and trace the flow of thought through repeated words over the course of many paragraphs. There you go, that's the whole... That's a lot of work. That's a whole lot of work and potential. Just right there.

Thank you everybody for listening to this episode of the Bible Project Podcast. This series on how to read the Bible, it's done. We're going to release a final Q&R episode for this series on the letters, but this How To Read the Bible series, it's been years in the making, it's a long playlist of episodes in our podcast archive. Thank you for coming on this amazing journey with us, John and I have learned so much. If you want to submit a question for the last Q&R in the How to Read the Bible series, you can submit it by the end of the day, Tuesday, August 4th. If you

could record yourself asking a question, and then you can send it to us at info at Bibleproject.com and also Goldstar. If you could write out the question, transcribe it for us, and also we'd love to know your name and where you're from. Today's show was produced by Dan Gummel. The show notes were produced by Camden McAfee and the theme music is from the band Tense. This whole series of podcast conversations on how to read the Bible goes along with a collection of videos on how to read the Bible that we made for the Bible project. You can find all of that on YouTube or on the Bible project website, which is BibleProject.com. It's all available for free and that's because of the generous support of all kinds of people

around the world just like you all. So thank you so much everybody and thank you for being a part of this with us. Hi, this is Siri and I'm from India. I first heard about the Bible project when I watched one of their videos on YouTube. I used the Bible project for having a better understanding of the Bible. My favorite thing about the Bible project is the wonderful and engaging animation and how they break down complex theology into things that I can understand. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus.

We are a crowdfunded project by people like me. Find free videos, study notes, podcast, classes and more at BibleProject.com. you