BibleProject - Characters In The Bible

Episode Date: January 15, 2018

Have you ever wondered what Jesus looked like? Or maybe why the Bible rarely tells us what a person what thinking? Characters in Bible stories are described and portrayed very differently compared to characters in modern stories. In this episode Tim and Jon discuss character design in the Bible. The guys start out (0-9:50) showing how our modern tradition of telling every detail about a character in a story, where they are from, what they look like, what their inner thoughts are, comes from Greek story telling tradition. This is the exact opposite of ancient Jewish storytelling. The biblical authors didn’t rely on telling you about a character, instead, they would tell you what they did. The characters themselves remain very mysterious. Tim says this lack of detail is done intentionally so the reader has to work for an interpretation. In the second part of the episode (9:50-21:13), Tim explains the two ways biblical authors use character details. One, a narrator will use “direct characterization.” A specific detail will be given because it is useful in the story. We are told Saul is tall because later, we find out that David is short. We are told Joseph is handsome because later, Potiphar’s wife attempts to seduce him. Jon asks if this technique is used because the of the constraints of passing stories on pre printing press. The second way is the names of characters. In Hebrew literature, a character’s name represents the very essence of their being and shows their role in the story. Saul means “The one who was asked for” because Israel asked him to be king. The two sons of Naomi in the book of Ruth, their names are Mahlon and Chilion mean “one who is sick” and “to die”. Their only role in the story is to die and set up the plot conflict. In the third part of the episode, (21:13-25:56) Tim explains that just because a character does something in a story, doesn’t mean the author is endorsing the action. Many authors use a minimalist technique of telling the reader the character’s choices but not saying why the character made these choices. A famous is example is when Moses kills the Egyptian who was beating the Hebrew. We don’t know why Moses killed him, we only know that he did. Biblical narrators refuse to tell us if a character is “good” or “evil” instead they let us decide for ourselves. In the fourth part of the episode (25:56-end) Jon asks why. Why would biblical authors take the risk of their work being misinterpreted? Tim says the Biblical authors want readers to puzzle over the ambiguities of their stories because it is meant to represent the ambiguities that are inherent in life. The big narrative of the Bible puts meaning and purpose in the world, but individual stories are meant to create a feeling of opaqueness and mystery. More Bible Project resources are here on the website: thebibleproject.com Watch the accompanying video to this content here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EQDGax19xk Thank you to all our supporters! Show Resources: Shimon Bar-Efrat, ​Narrative Art in the Bible​ Adele Berlin, ​Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative​ Meir Sternberg, ​The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading​ Robert Alter, ​The Art of Biblical Narrative​ Yairah Amit, ​Reading Biblical Narrative Cormac McCarthy, ​The Road​ and ​The Border Trilogy: ​(1) All the Pretty Horses, ​(2) The Crossing, ​(3) Cities of the Plain. Music Credits: Defender Instrumental: Rosasharn Music Educated Fool: Jackie Hill Perry Ruby: CJBeards Flooded Meadows: Unwritten Stories Produced By: Dan Gummel. Jon Collins. Matthew Halbert Howen.

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 in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Hey, this is John at the Bible Project. Today on the podcast, we're going to talk about characters. Here is... Failure to communicate. Kill me, small! Not just any kind of character. We're specifically going to talk about characters found in the Bible. You see, we're in the middle of producing a series of videos called How to Read the Bible. What you'll notice reading the Bible is that there's a lot of stories, and every story has characters. Now, if you're like me, you might have wondered,

why is there such little detail given to characters in the Bible? I wanna know what did that person look like? What were they thinking? Why did they do what they did? I want rich, filled out characters. The lack of detail is intentional and strategic. And it's frustrating for modern readers.

We mistake it as just this is a primitive, poorly told story. Look, all the characters are simple, and that's just totally missing biblical narrative style. Often times when we read the Bible we have a tendency to put the characters and categories that we understand. You're either a good guy or you're a bad guy, but to biblical authors, people aren't always that simple. For the most part, biblical narrators refrain from sermonizing or moralizing characters. What they do is just set their choices in front of you, and then you have to be the one to evaluate.

This minimalist style is trying to recreate in the narrative your experience of your own life. Moral realism of the human condition, most people aren't only good and only bad. We're all a mixed bag of different amounts. That's today on the Bible Project Podcast. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. We are talking about how to read the Bible. We're in biblical narrative and we talked about plot and setting. Yeah, we're talking about the toolset that the biblical authors who are also artists have in their repertoire. The techniques they use.

Yeah, all the different size brushes and colors and techniques that a painter uses. The biblical authors have equivalents, all storytellers. And when it comes to the role of characters in biblical narrative, I think this is actually one of the biggest hurdles that modern, at least modern Western readers have because our narrative tastes through movies and through modern literature have been shaped to expect a certain way the characters are described and developed. And biblical authors just have a really different way.

Really different way of employing employing characters. In biblical studies, the most important voices in this field of it's called narrative poetics or the poetics of biblical narrative. They're Israeli Jewish scholars. Oh yeah. It's just right down my book list. And I look up and there's Shimon Bar-rat and the Delberlin and Myr Sternberg and Robert Alter and I think it's that... Would you read those in Hebrew? Oh, some of them write in Hebrew, but they're writing their main works in English. But they either grew up in Israel or their Jewish and have been reading Hebrew since childhood. And actually I think that's the key. I think

for readers who were able to read biblical, specifically Hebrew Bible narrative as a part of their first or second language, you just experience it completely differently. And when you've grown up on this literature, it doesn't seem foreign to you. And it sure doesn't seem like children's literature to you. And so I just thought that's interesting. The most important works in the last 50 years have all been by Jewish or Israeli scholars. So speaking of Robert Alter, who wrote one of the most significant works on biblical narrative, it's called the art of biblical narrative. He has a couple chapters on the way characters work in biblical narrative. See, this is a great quote.

He says, The Greek storytelling tendency of loading the story with details is one that modern literary practice has by and large adopted and developed. So his point is, is our modern taste for all kinds of descriptive characters, what they look like, where they grew up. He has this whole idea of when you introduce characters. They're inner psyche. Yeah, you're constantly beginning to have a window into their psychology.

You get a little miniat biography, right? We're just used to all of that. Yeah, detail. That's the Greek thing. And that comes from the Greek narrative tradition. So he says, precisely for that reason, we have to adjust our habits as readers in order to bring an adequate attentiveness to the different narrative maneuvers that characterize the Hebrew Bible. This is great.

The underlying biblical conception of people's character is that they're unpredictable, constantly emerging from and slipping back into ambiguity. What does he mean there? What does he mean by ambiguity? Well, finished lessons. Thus biblical narrative style is marked by the art of reticence. Such a great phrase. So biblical characters are rarely almost never described it with very much detail.

There's just a small handful of characters whose appearance is ever described. You are seriously on the count of two hands, moments where you're given the inner thoughts of a character for why they're doing something. And so the art of reticence, biblical, narrative, uses characters as a vehicle, primarily through showing what they do and what they say, rather than telling you about them or telling you why they do what they do. So showing rather than telling is the shorthand for that. In other words, biblical characters are incredibly mysterious. That's what he says, the underlying biblical conception of people's characters that they're unpredictable. So God called Abraham to leave his family and go to this new land and then the last and so Abraham left his family and he went to the land and lot went with him and you're like what? Wait,

no that that wasn't the plan like he wasn't supposed to do that. Why did Lot go with him? And then you're just left with this gap in the strange detail, you're never given Abraham's inner psychology of why he did what he did. You're just, you are shown his choice. And then as a narrative technique, it's a way of you're showing a choice of a character but the reader has to work for an interpretation

And this is typical all the way through Genesis 22 God test Abraham take your son your only son and offer give him as offering Mm-hmm, you know on the place. I'll show you and the reader you're scandalized you're like why is God doing this? Yeah, why is God saying this right and what's going on inside Abraham's mind and you're like, why is God doing this? Why is God saying this? And what's going on inside Abraham's mind? And you're never once given psychology. You're just given he wakes up early in the morning, he packs his bags. And then, you know, Isaac speaks up, Dad, where's the, we have the wood, we have the fire, where's the ram for the offering? God will provide my son. But the richness of the story is precisely in

the lack of detail because it makes the reader ponder and fill in the details yourself until you are given more information. So the lack of details on purpose. The lack of detail is intentional and strategic and it's frustrating for modern readers. We just think it's a poor, we mistake it as just, oh, this is a primitive, poorly told story. Look, all the characters are simple, black and white, or not. And that's just totally missing biblical narrative style. So that's what Alters saying. We have to adjust our habits from constantly being given the inner dialogue of characters and learn how the

biblical narratives force you to work. They're engaging you in a wrestling match. By the stretch, think through all these stories of the Bible. And I'll just say, and you'll start asking, oh, why did you do that? You know, why did God accept Abel's offering, but not Cain? And oh, was Cain jealous? The story actually never says that. The story just says he got bombed. So almost every biblical story is capable, ultimately, of about three or four different interpretations.

In a way, at a first pass, because you realize, oh, I'm not being given information. Half the information I wish I had to make sense of the story. And you think it's an error in the narrative, but in fact, it's the intentional technique. And you're saying the value of it, is it forces you to wrestle with it more?

It forced, yeah, we'll get there. We'll get there, but just, it forces the reader to do a lot of things, forces them to work. Ultimately, it's a very powerful tool that biblical narratives use. It might help us just get into some examples. And you can just kind of see it. So there's two ways that biblical authors can use characters.

One is what's called direct characterization. So the narrator will actually describe the character for you or tell you about them. So this would be like physical appearance on a small list of people whose looks described, and it's only ever because it's irrelevant, it will play a role in the plot. So Joseph is very handsome. Pot of far's wife is gonna get after him. Lie with me, right? Saul is very tall when you first meet him and you're like,

okay, why is that important? And then you get into the story. David is short. And David is short, And David is short. But David's good looking. And Esau, he's red and hairy. He's covered with red hair. All these kinds of things.

And the looks are only described when, for functionally, because they'll play a role in the story. Occasionally, the narrator will just straight up tell you, yeah, this guy's bad, but it's very rare. It happens a lot like in the kings, the stories of the kings. Yeah. This king was bad because of this. But for the most part, biblical narrators refrain from sermonizing or moralizing characters. What they do is just set their choices in front of you. And then you have to be the one to evaluate.

So, um, one Jewish scholar, her name is Adele Berlin. She has a really great way of talking about this, about when the biblical authors do directly describe characters, it's very rare, and it's always very strategic. And she compares it to impressionist painting. So again, similar to Rene Maggreet about his contrast with realism and saying it's always representation. So he's a part of a surrealist movement. The impressionist movement was explicitly trying to draw attention to the fact that we can never describe things as they are.

And so this was a movement that didn't try to achieve detail, but they did try to achieve the same effect that an image would have on you through minimal detail, through tiny strokes, or pointalism was the same, through tiny just thousands of tiny dots. So that when you getalism was the same, through tiny, just thousands of tiny dots. So that when you get up close to the painting, it's like, hardly anything here. But then you back up, and it's the impression actually creates more. So for example, by just telling you, Esau is hairy. So what else is her animals or hairy?

You know, and he, we were told he's an outdoorsman. And then he goes on in the story to behave like an animal. Accumulating wives, he sees women and marries them on the spot in narrative time. The whole thing is that he's hasty and he's hungry. He give me this food and he's actually his he's actually, his heroness creates an animal primitive man like impression about him. But it's just two words, and he grew. Right, small brushstroke.

And all of a sudden, his whole persona has this aura of animal likeness about him. Eli, the priest Eli, the beginning of Samuel, he's old and blind. But then he is also morally blind to the horror of what his sons are doing. And he's old and feeble, like physically, but then he's feeble because he can't stand up to his sons. So his blindness and age and weakness actually become his character. And the same thing you already brought this out, that Saul was really tall and David's short.

And that actually describes the whole plot conflict of the Saul and David narratives, where Saul's this oppressor, but his height betrays the weakness of his character, flaws in his character. Trays the weakness of his character, flaws in his character, and David's short, but David's shortness and radical faith and humility is exactly what allows him to be exalted to this position of power. So Berlin's point here, well actually here is a great quote from it here. She says, in Impressionist art, the of a thing, may be more convincing than a detailed portrayal. This is due to the tendency of our brains to project meaning onto images in order to

complete our expectations. She's talking about impressionist art here. We see what we expect to see and the surrounding information guides our perception. This is why we fill in a partially drawn And in some cases, too much detail might destroy the image. So the trick from the artist's point of view is how much detail to include and how much to omit. That she applies this to reading biblical narrative. This is a good corrective for those who wish biblical stories provided more concrete details. But this is precisely its narrative technique. The gaps left in biblical narratives are intentional. So the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the idea of the for those who wish biblical stories provided more concrete details. But this is precisely its narrative technique. The gaps left in biblical narratives are intentional, so that with a few deft strokes,

the biblical author engages the imagination of the reader to construct a picture that's more real than if he had filled in David or Abraham or Joseph Portrait with more detail. Minimal representation can give maximal illusion. It's brilliant. Do you think that this technique was born out of the constraint? That's interesting.

Because to write down a story, you need scrolls, which are very limited. To memorize a story, you want to keep it as tight as possible, so that can be passed with some sort of fidelity. So you're constrained to be as minimal as possible. Yeah, yeah. And so then now, anytime you bring up a detail, it's got to be so important. That's right.

And so it's kind of like giving a painter and saying, paint the scene, but I'm only giving you this much ink. That's right. Right? And so every stroke they make is like like they're maximizing as stroke. Because of that constraint, their literary genius bears out something that's very different than what we have when we don't have the constraints. Yeah, that's interesting.

I think we could probably list a number of different factors. So yeah, they're not typing on digital documents. They don't have infinite amounts of space. Also, the Hebrew narrative tradition grew out of, as far as we can tell, the oldest narrative style in human literature is poetic. The epic poetic style. Like the illiad in Odyssey and the castles? I really had an Odyssey in that question. I really had an Odyssey. The oldest canonite and Mesopotamian Babylonian literature, that way predates the Bible. It's narrative in that it's telling a story, but its literary form is poetry, which is hyper condensed, really condensed, so it's language. And it has a rhythm to it. It has a rhythm, and certainly, this is the oldest,

that was the oldest form of Israelite writing. And there is some of it is preserved in the Hebrew Bible. Like Exodus 15, the song of the sea that describes Exodus. Or we talked about this in previous my guest conversation, or the song of Deborah and Baroque that describes the battle. So, and there's different snippets, quotes from these,, old Israelite epics, but for the most part, they've been converted into prose narrative, which is what we have before us, 43% of the Hebrew Bible.

So I think that's also to the evolution of, or the development of the narrative technique, developed from a condensed form into more prosynerative. But I think it's the same challenge we come across. Just think of any biblical story that's ever confused you. And I guarantee it's from some lack of detail that would unlock the whole thing for you. Why did Moses strike the rock and instead of speak to it? And why does he get disqualified for the problem for that? We don't know. You know, the Gospels represent a continuation

of this tradition, the New Testament. So the stories of the calling of the disciples, the guys getting out of, right, the sons of Zebede, leaving their boat, leaving their dad. So what? There's so much more to say about that. You know, like, what did their dad feel like? Did he say anything? Didn't you know? Jesus did their dad feel like? Did he say anything?

Did he? Do you just just waltzes up? Did he say anything else? Did he only say follow me? Like, you know, we're just given the bearous minimum, but also that bear minimum forces the reader to create a fuller story at the same time in your imagination as you read. And that, it seems like that's exactly the aim of this economic storytelling style. It's to make you do some of the imaginative work.

That's right. And yes, that's right. So that has to do with how characters are described. It's very minimal. So the very minimal details you're ever given, you make a lot of. And then that forces you to think, well, how do I learn how to evaluate characters?

Characters become important vehicles for narrators to communicate their message. And they'll often speak through the characters instead of about them. So there's different ways that biblical narrators will show you indirectly what characters are like. Names, first of all, is names. And this is not something that's very common in modern Western literature.

Yeah. But it's almost over the top, Bible. And it's not just when parents name their children, although that is significant, like all the tribes of Israel are given their names in Genesis 29 and 30. Judah, you know, I praise God, I don't praise God for giving me a child. Judah means praise. Lots of that going on, but many times, characters' names embody their role in the story. So Saul's name is the one who is asked for.

Right? And he's just like, oh yeah, totally. He wanted a king. He wanted a king. We've talked about Abram as exalted father. Israel means struggles with God. Adam. Adam.

Adam. Human. Humanity. But then you get some that are like almost too good, like the two sons in Ruth chapter one, the two sons, Mochelon and Kilion, and Mochelon means sick man, one who is sick and Kilion comes from the word Kala, which means to die or expire.

And the, they're only role in the story, is they're introduced in one sentence and they die. And they call them the sick one. And their names are in the dead. Yeah, so I call them sicko and the dead. Yeah, so I call them sicko and done for. Like, that's the thing. If you're reading this in your language, that would be what you would hear.

Yeah. There's these two guys sicko and done for and they die. And they're dead. Yeah, totally. And that's their role in the story is to die to set up the plot conflict. So this happens all everywhere. It's unbelievable, and cool. So the name, the character's names, that's a small brushstroke that can have a huge effect

on your perception of them. The main ways that biblical authors will evaluate characters for you is mostly just through their choices, what they do, or through their speech. So this is where the minimalism of biblical narrative comes in. Instead of editorializing biblical narrators will just think of half the scandalous things that biblical characters do, you know. Really screwed up people, you know. And so think of all the classic questions of like, oh, there's all these polygamous marriages among important biblical characters.

So, and then the question is, so is God endorsing this? So you have to back up and you have to say just because a character does something in a story doesn't mean it's being endorsed. It's being endorsed. And look at all of the characters who have multiple spouses and just look at how the narrative shows you the consequences and it's always bad. There's not, are you with me? Like there's not, and so that's the narrator's technique of depicting this as an extremely poor choice.

So it's not like going around saying this is good behavior, this is bad behavior, it's just, this person did this and now look what happened. Now look what happened and it's all bad. Parents who show favoritism. Yeah. Multiple stories about this. Always bad. So a good example of this art of reticence or minimalism as the scholars call it is like Moses.

So he goes out one day and he sees an Egyptian taskmaster abusing an Israelite. So he mergers him. Yeah. And it doesn't produce a good result because he goes out another day and some Israelites are like, Hey, you're the murderer. Yeah. You know, are you going to kill me too? And so you're left wondering, Oh, was that, was that good? Did he did that? Was that justice? Or was that bad? Was that the first evidence of a bad temper? Because this temper is going to come out a time or two later in the story. It seems maybe, am I supposed to read the story of him striking the rock in the book of In the Wilderness as another story of his bad temper? Neither story said, and he got angry and boiled over.

Though if you look at movie depictions of the Moses story, they'll always depict that as like a justice moment, positively. The murder. The murder, yeah, that's right. As like the moment where his conscience is反fic. He stood up for being a saint and me. Yeah, totally.

And narratively, it's way more ambiguous than that. So this is a good example. It's a little brushstroke, but unlike Issa, where his hairiness embodies this kind of negative evaluation of him, here you're just left to sit with it. And then you have to watch him as a character develop. And then you have to watch other moments where Moses might act in anger.

Maybe you have to make the call as a reader. And this is how it works. Abraham gives Sarah away twice because he fears for his own life. Right. So what's this, is this a cultural practice? Is this him selfishly saving his own skin when the kingdom passes on from Solomon,

or excuse me, to Solomon from David. And David says, follow the Torah, be faithful to the covenant. And you're like, oh, yes, good David. And David says, follow the Torah, be faithful to the covenant. And you're like, oh, yes, good father, son, moment, deathbed, scene. And then he gives this hit list of like, and go assassinate this guy and take out this guard. And you're like, what, oh, what?

Wasn't there that one commandment, don't murder? And like, and so you walk away going, was that good or bad? And then Solomon goes and does this. And then the whole Solomon story, is he a that good or bad? And then Solomon goes and does this and then the whole Solomon story is a good guy or bad guy. You know, all the way through. This is it. And so it makes these stories so frustrating to read. Well, you can experience it differently. You could experience a frustration. Just tell me the point. Am I supposed to be like this

guy or am I supposed to not be like this guy? And biblical narrators just refuse to give us things on a silver platter. They force you to work for it. Because they could, I mean, there was nothing keeping them from telling you. They're totally capable of saying, and he was evil in the eyes of the Lord. Yeah. He was bad. So don't be any go okay. And they've done that a time or two. Yeah, and they do it sometime. But the first part they don't be any go and they've done that a time or two. Yeah, and they do it sometime But for the first part they don't

Because they want you to wrestle with it We still haven't really gotten to why. What's the value? Because here's the downside. The downside is you come up with a bad interpretation. You're filling in the gaps and you create a picture that they weren't intending. So if that's the risk, what's the upside, right? That makes that risk worthwhile. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, I've been saving this quote for last. Okay. So this is the single most important work on biblical narrative in the last long time. It's by a Jewish scholar, Meyer Sternberg, called the Poetics of Biblical narrative in the last long time. It's by a Jewish scholar, Meyer Sternberg, called the Poetics of Biblical Narrative. It's absolutely brilliant. It's a long quote, but this is worth the price of. The expensive book.

The price of the podcast. Yeah, that's right. So he says, once you realize that the Bible's anti-di-dactic style, anti-di-dactic,. Anti-di-dactic. That it doesn't use a lot of words. No. Didactic meaning moral education. Oh, okay.

In other words, it's not giving lessons. Well, it's moral literature. So and so did this. That was bad, wasn't it? Don't be like that person. The boy who cried wolf. Yeah, that kind of thing. It's just on the surface. Be like this character. Don't be like that character. Yeah.

He calls the Bible anti-dietacty based on this quality. Okay. That even though it tells you all these stories of people making good decisions or horrible decisions, it never explicitly says, be like this version. Don't be like that. Which is so funny because we that's what we turn it into. Precisely what the modern West during Christian tradition has done with biblical narrative. Yeah. Yeah.

And he would argue, we've ruined it. We've actually, we're working against the how these are. It does feel like you're working against it oftentimes. Yeah. Because it forces you to fill in gaps and make interpretive decisions on behalf of the story. Whereas the point of the story is to make every reader do the work themselves. Alright.

So he says, once you realize the Bible's anti-diagnetic style is its narrative policy, you gain insight into the role of the aesthetic subtlety of these stories. They almost always shun extended commentary or explanation, let alone homiletics, that is, sermonizing. These authors intentionally leave gaps for the readers to puzzle over, discontinuities, indeterminacies, non-sequitors, unexplained motives, and they're fully aware of the disorienting effect this has on readers as they try to draw lessons from the past. So he's going to keep describing the problem. The problem. Well, we experience this problem.

Biblical narrators conceal the meaning of their stories to an extent seldom equaled by any other literature in history. Interesting. He's a comparative literature professor. This guy knows. Yes. He reads a lot of different ancient literature. This style, look what he says, this style was not

inherited by Israel's neighboring cultures. It was invented and elaborated in the Israelite tradition of narrative, and it's nothing less than deliberate. So in the ancient world, there's no parallel for this style, and in literature ever since then. So this is a uniquely biblical narrative trait. Huh, super interesting. Okay, so here's his take on the effect that this is designed to have. He says, in day-to-day life, our day-to-day life, knowledge and information, the ability to understand the meaning of events, is power. But in reading the Bible, we're constantly puzzling over the gaps in the story.

Why did Moses do that? Why did God do that? And this is strategic. Our puzzlement is an imitation of our real position in life. It exposes our ignorance about the meaning of history and our lives. Biblical stories imitate our real life conditions of inference as we too are daily surrounded by ambiguities, were baffled, were misled by appearances, were reduced piecing fragments together by trial and error of interpretation, and we're often left in the dark about the meaning of our lives until the very end. To the very end. To the very end.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Not until the very end. Oh, I'm so sorry. To the very end. Yes, yeah, that's right. He goes on, the scarcity of commentary by the biblical narrators forces us to constantly evaluate characters' motives and the meaning of the plot as we look for clues.

It is only by sustained effort that the reader of biblical narratives can attain to the point of view that you come to realize God only God possesses all of long. Making sense of biblical stories is to gain a sense of being human. So his first point is that this minimalist style is trying to recreate in the narrative your experience of your own life. Like the same difficulties that I have interpreting why I had that conversation yesterday and what that weird thing that happened yesterday and why I got that email and why that fender bender happened.

You know? Well, I mean, isn't that the reason why we tell stories is to give clarity and coherence to events. So when we think back at the past, we tell ourselves a story and we begin to tell ourselves why it was important, why that thing had to happen. Whatever it was, we tell it in the story and what is so enriching and wonderful about other stories is it gives us an opportunity to discover the meaning. To discover the meaning of things.

Yeah. And that's why stories are enjoyable. A large part of reason why stories are enjoyable. Yeah, that's right. And so he's saying the biblical authors are trying to strip you from that intentionally. Yes. That thing you want in the story,

they're keeping out of arm's length. Or they're making you work for it. And you can never be fully certain. Yeah. Why did Moses kill the Egyptian? They don't want you to know. Or they want you to... They don't want you to... They want you to be left. They want you to be left with options. Options. He was in righteous indignation. That's another way of saying they don't want you to be left with options. Options. He was righteous indignation. That's another way of saying they don't want you to know. Or bad. Right? Yeah, this point is they can...

They don't want you to be certain. They conceal. Because in life, we can't be certain about things. That's right. We crave certainty. And we don't have it. So we pretend we have it. And so we tell ourselves stories and we allow ourselves to believe things we often deceive

ourselves. Sure. Yes. But in order to have some sort of stability. Mm-hmm. So, I mean, are you kind of saying they're trying to create some instability in you as your... Yeah, that's what... Yep.

That's what... I think that's what Robert Alter is saying, Adele Berlin. That's what all these scholars are saying, is that the large biblical narrative is constructing a very meaningful story of our world. The bones of it. The big of it, yes, that's right. And how God interacts with these characters is taking them somewhere.

So the fact that God is an anchor character from page one to the last page means that there is meaning and coherence. But when it comes to the individual human characters in these stories, it's very minimalist and their motives and the moral evaluation of many of their decisions is really opaque. It's not transparent. And what he's saying is because the story's trying to place us in precisely the same experience we have with our lives. That's why Robert Alter, the beginning of that quote, he says, the underlying biblical conception

of people's characters that they're unpredictable. So Abraham, why did you give Sarah away the second time? Yeah. And then, right, and then you give Sarah away the second time? Yeah, and then, right? And then you start to feel morally superior, because you're like, oh, I would never do the same mistake a second time. And then you pause, and you're like, dang it. No, I did that thing for the fourth time yesterday. And it was both frustrating but brilliant.

Many times the biblical characters can seem like bumbling idiots. And you're wondering why they're doing what they're doing Until you realize this is a this is actually a fairly accurate description of my moral progress and regress Yeah, on a month by month level and oh, yeah, why did I yell at that person yesterday? Was that really just righteous Ignition or maybe I was just being selfish. Or I don't even understand my own motives half the time. How could I possibly hope to understand Moses' or David's? The book of literature has this unique style of intentionally

withholding a clear interpretation of the characters. I think that could be an argument made that some of our some of our newest storytelling techniques when it comes to TV series and stuff is starting to embrace that again. Yeah, it's disorienting. It's disorienting when the moral character, a character in a story isn't clear. Is this person bad? Is this person good? Think through the Biblical story. You come on one hand, count name the characters who are flawless. And you might be able to count Joseph if you discount his teenage brat

years. Maybe, but that thing he pulls with the selling the people's land and then buying interesting. You've got maybe Joshua, but even he has a blender with not seeking God when the Ghibbi Knights come to him. You've got Daniel. Boaz, short story, but he's. He's legit. And Jesus. Yeah. You know, even Paul has a couple moments.

Paul, Apostle. Where he and like Silas get in that argument, they can't settle that they part ways. Yeah. At least he's very humanized in that moment. Sure. And the point is that the more, it's not a lot. It's not a lot. Yeah.

And the ones you would expect like Abraham, Moses, David. They're all have whole narratives pointing out their flaws. Yeah. So what's that about? Noah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. What's that about?

Yeah. And you go back and reread those narratives and there's almost always multiple interpretations. You can make about why they made the decisions in the first place. And yeah, as a style, it's very engaging. It's realistic. It's moral realism of the human condition that like most people aren't only good and only bad. We're all a mixed bag of different amounts, you know.

Yeah, in terms of literature, the novels of Kormick McCarthy, he wrote the road. But he did this also this trilogy called the Border Trilogy about this cowboy character living on the US Mexico border before it was fully firmed up as a porter. And same people have compared his proson narrative style to biblical style, both in the way he verbalizes things and long run on sentences, but also the minimalist portrayal of characters and how the main character is this ambiguous and you never quite know what's going on inside his head. And that's kind of what drives the scenes is

Wondering what he's gonna do and what is he gonna shoot somebody is he gonna? So yeah, it's a narrative style that's in the point is it's intentional It's not primitive. It's not ain't just ancient. It's very sophisticated and realistic and and it was and it was contained To just Israel. Like the neighbors didn't use this. Yeah, this is Sternberg's evaluation. If you look at contemporary Canaanite, Babylonian Egyptian literature,

nowhere near this level of sophistication. It's beautiful poetry. But in terms of this pros narrative style, it just doesn't have a- And it's too intentionally mess with you. Well, we're to engage you. I mean, I like saying mess with you, because it does.

It's like it leads you down a path and then- I say it leads you down a path and then- But like, so does a beautifully depicted character is engaging too. I see. But engages you by messing with you, by not giving you what you want. Yes. Right?

Yeah. Correct. That's correct. You want clarity as to the person's motives. Yep. And you want, yeah, understanding of, of, um, why did that happen? Correct. Because the way the way characters work in narratives is by identification. You paint characters that the viewer reader identifies with, and then for whatever, a screenwriter,

right, movie director, you want your audience to connect with the characters so that their experience can map onto your own life experience, speak to you through that. And so we're now talking about a technique where you constantly are wondering who you're supposed to identify with. Yeah. Do I identify with Moses? Right. Sure. I've had moments of anger and injustice. Yeah. And then you go, Oh, but maybe he just has, you know, a hot temper and they got him into trouble. And then do I have that probably do I not? And so it forces self evaluation, but through a really different way than just being like, this person was good. Be like them. This person was bad.

Don't be like them. It's interesting. Yeah, it is. Well, I mean, if you just think about what were the earliest stories likely about, it would probably be like, hey, don't eat that berry because the other day, sure, you know, Joe ate those berries and he's dead.

Yeah. So it's like, okay, don't wanna die. because the other day, Joe ate those berries and he's dead. So it's like, okay, I don't wanna die. More of the story don't get the berries. Right, like, I suppose, man, that's really far back there. It's like one of the oldest literary works is the Gilgamesh epic. Epic, it's like Homer's Iliad,

but predates it by Millennium. And it's this really sophisticated poetic exploration of mortality and... Well, it's the earliest story we have record of. Oh, exactly. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. So, we're talking about a story that comes from, like somewhere between 3,000 BC. Yeah. So, yeah, we're talking.

You're talking. I'm going back further. You're reaching. I'm going back to where like, we're learning language. And I'm like, okay language, what's language good for? Oh, stories. Why would I tell you a story? Oh, I don't want you to die. I don't want to eat the whiteberry.

Don't eat that berry. Yeah. There's a bear over there. You know, like there's, these are the stories we would tell. And so that's where it starts to get to the point where you're intentionally leaving out details, just a mess with someone, you know, you come a long ways. Yes, yes, it's extremely.

Which is actually making me think, like even with the way we're telling stories nowadays, I mean, it's back to the whole thing. Breaking bad is a great example and all this stuff. It's like we are now getting more and more comfortable with making characters more dubious, or ambiguous, more complex, blurring the boundaries between heroes and anti-heroes,

creating mysteries and leaving out details that you would want. Would be the key to understanding. Yeah, just letting it hang, and sometimes never resolve. Yeah, yeah, that's what we have this appetite for it now. We have this palate for it. And it makes me wonder if this was such a literary,

literally saturated people that have developed the same kind of palate for that kind of storytelling, maybe. Yeah, that's right. But it's not what we think we want. But what we think we want is clarity. It's clarity. And what the best storytelling will do

is what this is doing, whatever it is, which is not giving you, but to your point, you back up and you get to the bones of the whole thing and the overarching narrative. There is clarity there. There's clarity of like, okay, God created this for a purpose,

here's the purpose. And God's gonna recreate it. And here's the things that God values this for a purpose. Here's the purpose. Yes. And God's going to recreate it. And here's the things that God values and all that stuff. There's a lot of clarity to those things. But then you get into the actual story work, like real time of someone living life on this planet under the sun, then the clarity begins to disappear. Yes, totally.

Yeah. Two things are relevant. One is the title of My disappear. You know? Yeah. So two things are relevant. One is the title of Myrster and Bird's book is called The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, and then the subtitle is Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading. Ideological meaning. Ideological meaning. This is narrative literature that has an agenda with a message. It's trying to mess with you. That's what ideological means. Yeah, ideology meaning a clear thought out message that it's trying to mess with you and get you.

Got it. So literature that has a message but that also reading it is itself a drama. Really, that phrase is a drama and not really that phrase the drama of reading. Drama of reading. And this is why you even though you think you know the story because you read the children's book of Noah or whatever, you can never replace sitting down reading it slowly from beginning to end. There's just something about that experience of biblical narrative. You can't replace it with teaching it. You'll always have to clarify and make it simpler than it actually is. And so the literature itself forces you to do the only thing with it.

It's meant for, which is to sit down and read it from beginning to end. And you cannot replace that experience because that itself is a drama. And that's how biblical literature is designed. Well, brilliant. Anyhow, that's the first thing. And then the second thing is about how God's depicted. And this is kind of landing the plane. But so God's the only character who unites the whole Bible.

He's the only character who's on page one and still around on the last page. And so there's a few things relevant, namely that that tells us something, that the ultimate purpose of these stories isn't even necessarily human centered, but that it's revealing something about God's relationship to the human story, God's character, God's identity,

and God's purposes for history. And those are all revealed in those same dramatic and big, uous ways. Why did God do that? Why did he do the whole Exodus showdown, the way that he did it? Why did he do it a different way? Why did he almost kill Moses in the middle of the night, in Exodus 4, right before the all this I mean just you know Yeah, God's a complex Totally in the biblical narrative, but then this was a she's this another Israeli biblical scholar who pointed this out to me And the moment she did her name Zia Yira

It was so clear and it helped make sense of many many biblical stories She calls it the dual depictions of God. God's dual roles in biblical stories. And she just says pay attention. Stories where God is super involved. Like God's talking to people, they're talking back to Him. God does this, and act. I'm back to the story.

Correct. Yeah, exit a story. Genesis 1 through 11. Abraham's stories. Exist story. Correct. Yeah, Exist story. Genesis 1 through 11 Abraham stories So these are stories where typically the human characters are less Developed and they're more simplistic and their moral evaluation is More black and white either they listen or they don't listen either they obey or they disobey right either They're blessed or they suffer consequences

either they obey or they disobey, either they're blessed or they suffer consequences. But then there are other stories where God is depicted more as a behind-the-scenes character. And so where God doesn't say a lot, but he's just said to be with somebody like the Joseph story. God doesn't explicitly show up, dear Joseph, do this, but we're just told God's with Joseph a couple times. And then it's just random coincidences keep happening. And so she puts it this way, she says, this is Yaira Amit from her book Reading Biblical Narrative. She says, the more God is depicted as a present character, commanding, or testing, punishing, or forgiving. The more the human characters are depicted in a flat manner, as singular types like rebellious, obedient, or sinful. But when God is portrayed as more absent or behind the singing,

there's more narrative space for multi-faceted human characters and the complexity of their motives. So the Joseph story, the David story, Esther. Yeah, completely gone. Yeah, Ezra Niyamaya. These are whole books where God doesn't show up a ton and interact just like one of the other characters. It's more occasional mention behind the scenes and then those are the scenes where these really complex characters come to the surface that

force you to work a whole lot. This kind of work. So that's an interesting dynamic too, that God's relationship, the way God's portrayed in a story, the more he's involved, the more morally clear that that narrative is, the more he's behind the scenes, the more it imitates our real life-dated experience, which is like, where is God involved today?

Sometimes I wonder, sometimes I feel really confident. Those days seem more clear to me. But then other days, I feel like, I don't know. And I question my motives, I question other people's motives. So it's another one of these ways that the biblical stories imitate our day-to-day life experience in the journey of faith, brilliant. [♪. This is Matthew from Portland, Oregon.

We believe the Bible has unified story that leads to Jesus, where a crowd-funded project by people like you and me find free videos, study notes, and more at thebioproject.com. Also, the latest episode in our How to Read series, Character in Biblical Narrative, is live on YouTube and our website now. you