BibleProject - Design Patterns in the Bible, Live from Milpitas! Part 2

Episode Date: April 9, 2018

This is part 2 in our live conversation from Milpitas California! Tim and Jon continue their discussion on design patterns in the Bible. Tim outlines the layering of Adam and Eve’s story with Cain and Able’s story. In both stories, there is a change agent that tempts the humans. In the first story it is “the serpent”, in the second story it is “sin crouching at your door.” God calls out to both Adam and Eve and Cain saying “where are you?” and “what have you done?” Both of these stories mirror and reflect each other in many, many ways. The pattern that sets up in these first two stories becomes a template that other biblical stories use. Tim shares another example of Eve mapping onto Sarah. Eve shared the fruit with her husband Adam, and later God reprimanded Adam saying “because you listened to your wife.” Similarly, at Sarah’s suggestion, Abraham “listened to his wife Sarah” and slept with Sarah’s servant Hagar. Tim says these stories are meant to mirror each other as well. Abraham is struggling with the same human condition, the same inclination to sin that Adam was. Tim shares more examples of Israel at Mt Sinai and Israel at Jericho. Israel is told not to make any idols. The first story told after they are given this command is the story of the golden calf. This story is a combination of the earlier stories. Aaron listened to the people like Adam listened to Eve and Abraham listened to Sarah, Aaron shifted the blame like Adam shifted the blame. Then in a later story, when Joshua leads Israel to overthrow Jericho, Achan takes and hides a “gold tongue” after having been explicitly told not to take any of the plunder. Joshua asks Achan, “What have you done?” Why do the Biblical authors record this story? Because they want to continue to drive home the point that when humans listen to a voice that tempts them to “take” after they were explicitly told to not take, it leads to death. Q1. (56:15) In light of word repetition do you recommend a particular translation? Q2. (57:55) How would you approach reading the Bible with reluctant readers? Q3. (1:00:25) How do you talk about the humanity of the Bible while still honoring the divine? Q4. (1:05:55) How does a non Phd stay current with this topic? (Part of Tim’s answer was later recorded in studio) Q5. (1:12:10) How do you know that any patterns you find are real? And that you’re not just seeing things and reading things into the text. Show Resources: Robert Alter: The Art Of Biblical Narrative John Sailhamer: The Pentatuch as Narrative Seth Postell: Adam as Israel: Genesis 1-3 as Introduction to the Torah and Tanakh Jerome Walsh: Style and Structure in Biblical Hebrew Narrative Michael Fishbane: Text and Texture: A Literary Reading of Selected Texts Our video on Design Patterns in the Bible: https://thebibleproject.com/videos/design-patterns-biblical-narrative/ Show Music: Defender Instrumental: Rosasharn Music 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. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Hey, this is John from the Bible Project. Today, on the podcast, we are going to finish the conversation that we began last week. It's a live conversation that Tim and I had in the Pita's, California, at the end of last year on Design Patterns. If you haven't listened to the last episode, I highly recommend you do that. We introduce the idea of design patterns and walk through one in particular in detail so that you can understand what it is and how significant it is to understand the Bible as literature.

This conversation, we complete that and we have the video on design patterns up on our YouTube channel that you can watch. It's youtube.com slash the Bible project, but without further ado, here is the rest of our conversation from Milpitas, California. So we're talking about biblical narrative and the sophistication that biblical authors have in

linking together ideas through repetition, just to talk about repetition. And at this point to me, it kind of seems like, okay, this is pretty simple. This doesn't seem unexpected to me. I mean, it's intuitive. Yeah, and when you've been telling me, oh man, it's been blowing my mind, I didn't think you were just going to talk about how words repeat. No.

No. No. But you know me, I like to, if I, we're both the same way. If we want to understand something, we want to build it from the ground up. Okay, so we'll go in deeper. Totally. We'll spawn one again. Yeah.

But it's the first basic, if you don't have this tool in your toolset, you won't track with anything else that happens. Okay. You have to become a skilled observer of repeated words. That's where you start. That's level one, correct. Yep, that's sweet. So what we'll do is we'll go to the next level.

And then we'll stop again for an extended Q and R. That can just be open to anything at the end of this. At the end. Could sound good? OK, cool. So we'll do a couple more. However many we can do, and then we'll do that. All right.

All right. Well, but here's, I mean, Robert Alter, he's great. So it's just a good summary transition. OK. Quote. Robert Alter. Yep. He says, yeah, a coherent reading of any work of art,

whatever the medium. oh wait, that's, we already did that one. So different, Robert Alter quote. Yes, here we go, the one that I didn't make big. Sorry, just a control A and then just. Well, let's kind of mess up my charts. Oh, charts. Well, let's switch back to PDF for the charts. I don't know. All right.

Okay, here we go. Sorry, guys, we should have the only one. Whoa, whoa, what just do I look like I'm text-abby, but I'm actually not. Okay. All right. Yeah, here we go. One of the most imposing barriers that stands

between modern reserves and the imaginative subtlety of biblical authors, good phrase, is the prominence of repetition. We are accustomed to stories in which repetition is far less obvious. And so this is probably the feature of biblical narratives that looks the most primitive to the modern eye. In order to appreciate the artfulness

of this kind of repetition, a modern reader has to cultivate a new, even opposite set of expectations, than what they bring to literary works. Modern stories usually attempt to mimic this important, and I think this is a good observation. Modern stories mimic reality by giving us large amounts of information that aren't crucial to the plot. So that one is expected to detect the repetition of key themes and words against all the

other background noise. Biblical narrative is precisely the opposite. Here we're confronted with extremely spare narrative with a high degree of repetition and similarity. What we're expected to notice is the small, but revealing differences among the sea of similarities. This is how new meanings emerge in patterns of expectation. About there's just such a concise way of putting it. You've said it in different ways before

that we're used to stories that tell you all kinds of stuff. The famous example is in Leigh-Misraub, where it's like a whole chapter on the gutters of Paris. Something like that. Or just, you know, in like many classic works it's like whole chapters on the main character's grandmother or something. And so we know Biblical narratives not like that. But what it means is that paying attention not just to these repetitions, but to how they differ in their variation, that's the skill. That these authors assume you're going to cultivate as you read these texts. Cool.

Okay, so let's, oh yes, I had my own illustration with Star Wars. Yeah, okay, deal. Deal. We have a lot of... Yes, what's that? Yeah, okay, deal. Deal. We have a ball. Okay. Yes, what's that? Yeah, we can do this. I think it'll appear up there.

Great. Okay, so here's what this is. This is somebody who chose scenes from the Force Awakens. Right? The most recent trilogy installation. And then, oh, actually, from the whole first trilogy. And just, can you guys even see? Okay, good.

All right. There's bad angle from here. But what is, actually here, just watch it, and you'll just see, hmm, what are these movies about? Well, let's see. They open the same. They begin with an introduction to enemy spaceships that make you realize they're gigantic, but then there's robots. These rescue robots, that somehow,

then there's the smoky introduction of the evil enemies and the soldiers, and then lots of good people are dying. But then there's little robots that are the crucial elements. They're gonna save the whole world. So there's these crucial robots, and then the smoky entrance of the bad guy. Are you guys, you guys get it?

I mean, it's crazy. The innocent, like victim is slain. Then the person who gave the robot the information, and then the robot escapes into the desert. And then, did you guys notice this stuff? If you saw Force Awakens, if you're a Star Wars nerd, did you notice these things? I mean, look at this.

Just right then, the person who's captured gave away the information. Then there's a whole torture scene where it's trying to get laid. It looks kind of laser-mashing. Actually. You know. Right.

Now, what's interesting is that different scenes get overlapped in different ways. So this is escaping from the desert planet, the millennium Falcon escape. That was so obvious. I don't know if you spotted that one. Yeah. And then the gun scene, right, with the old-school sights. That's right.

I mean, look, just look at this. It's great. And what's most fascinating is, for example, we'll just kind of move down here. This is, oh yeah, the discovery of the lightsaber, but notice, okay, this is important. So notice there are all these different scenes where people discover the lightsaber. So in the first one, it's Ray opening up. And so here she's mapped on to Obi-Wan opening up. Yeah, and a lot of people have the theory that she's,

well, it's not square. That one's tracking, so it'll be yes. That one theory. Yes. But so, but then notice, but then the parallel, when Luke turns on the light saber is paralleled to when, yeah, Finn, of course, yeah, sorry, when Finn turns on the lightsaber. So the discovery of the lightsaber

is something that's about the Jedi. Finn, as far as we know, yeah, it doesn't have Jedi, it's Ray, who's the Jedi. So notice. But he knows how to use one. But he knows how to use it. Some salmon. So you have the same motifs that can swap characters in these repeated scenes.

It's not just that the same character always does the same thing. It's that the composition of the frame makes you all of a sudden compare two characters you would have never thought to compare before. But then once you see it like this, you're just like, oh, yeah, I get it. And you're seeing. Another good example is in comparing the destruction of the Death Star and this, the battle for the trench scenes. Because in the battle trench of the Death Star in a new hope, who is the one who scores the winning shot? It's Luke. And that's where one of his first times of cluing into the force, where he becomes aware of his ability, and that's how he can get the thing down the tiny little tunnel. But in the Force Awakens, who is it? Who goes down the trench? It's Podamaran. And is he the budding Jedi in the story?

He's not. Who's the budding Jedi? It's Ray. So notice there, it's, but what's Ray doing? At that moment in the story, where Poe is up there doing this thing, Ray's down on the planet discovering her Jedi powers. So they've taken the motif of Luke discovering his Jedi

powers while destroying the Death Star, and they split it up between two characters. Yeah. Do you see that? And you're just like, that's brilliant. That's brilliant. Yeah. JJ did a good job.

I, yeah. So OK, now you could have a hold debate on how this is so an original, what an original way to write a movie. Yeah. But it doesn't feel that way. It felt thrilling. It was a great, it was a great idea. Yeah, but it doesn't feel that way. It felt thrilling. It was a great, it was a great idea. Yeah, you could watch it by itself,

never having seen the first one. And you used to be like, that's an awesome story. Right? The Force Awakens. Then you could go back and begin to reread the epic. And then you would see all of these things that you never noticed before through these parallels. How much of this did you notice when you saw it the first time?

Quite a lot. Quite a lot. Did you, um, we saw it together, right? Was that your second time? That was my second time. That was your second time. That was actually my third time. No!

That was my third time. That was my third time. That was my third time. That was my third time. That was my third time. That was my third time. That was my third time. That was my third time. That was my third time. That was my third time. That was my of honesty. That was awesome.

That was my first time. Okay, so here's my point. This isn't some, we get this. This is like real time in like cinematic art in 21st century Western culture. So the question is, you know, is this a new thing to create story, epic story worlds, where later characters are playing and riffing off of earlier characters and stories, in such a way that you actually grasp deeper significance of what's happening here, only if you grasp how there variations on the theme.

And so we kind of expect this in the Star Wars universe. There's different things like this going on in many epic narratives. I've never read Harry Potter, but the way my wife tells me how the stories work, it's very similar iterations. Lord of the Rings is like this. Are you with me? Is there a common? So I'm telling you guys, the biblical authors,

it's uncanny, it's uncanny, the level to which they're doing this kind of thing. And it raises all kinds of questions about how the narratives came into existence or the stages by which they do. And that's a fascinating conversation about how the Mona Lisa came into existence. And that's a fascinating conversation about how the Mona Lisa came into existence.

But don't ever let that distract you from just staring at the Mona Lisa and seeing what it's doing. And it'll blow your mind. Let's go. Here's an example. Often, this will happen in stories that are right next to each other. And I chose this example because we've actually

talked about it. We've talked about it. It links before. Yeah. Which is how the story of the temptation and rebellion of the first human characters, whose names are human in life. Human in life. It's important. How they're precisely mapped on to each other, just like Luke and Podamaran in the Death Star Trench. So for example, you have a human who has a significant choice

set before them, but for kind of an unclear reason. The knowledge of the tree. Eat from any tree. Not from this one. I know. It's a pet peeve of mine. It's like a new puts it in the middle of the truth. Eat from any tree. Not from this one. I know. It's a pet peeve of mine. It's like a minute he puts it in the middle of the dark. Yeah. Just put it off to the side.

Yeah. Totally. It's ridiculous. But see, that's good. It's a gap in the narrative that it's so clearly forcing you to see like, okay, I can't ask. So notice how, without repeated words, the next story has the same thing going on. Here it's about Cain being given a choice about what he's going to do with his anger, that God has chosen and favored able sacrifice but not his own. So here it's just a thematic overlap, right?

You have two characters who now... The whole story is about their choice. Yeah. And both of it's a choice, resulting from something God did and the humans don't understand it. And so their lack of understanding God's decision or God's behavior is what creates the conflict in the story. So then what's interesting is the agent of the human failure is depicted

as another entity. So in for human and life it's a snake animal. We talked about this one in the Cain story, it's the first time the word sin appears in the Bible. It's sin, and then sin is described with poetic animal language. It's an animal. The crouching word is what animals do. That's right. Yeah. Where they're going to lurking or something. Yeah. Pounds on you. What does crouching? That's a good one. Usually you're crouching because you're gonna leap for pounds. Yeah. Yeah. So once again, it's not a repeated word. It's cool images, isn't it? Have you seen the new planet Earth? No. No. It's really good. Oh, the snake scene. Oh,

no. Oh, it's not that. But they show this mountain lion, I don't know exactly what it was, but just bouncing. It's amazing how high these things get. They're just like really slowly moving, watching every step. And then also just blast in the air. Yes. And just like such a... Unbelievable. It's frightening if you were a mouse. Yes. Right? Like this also, this is massive. Yes. And just like such a... Unbelievable. It's frightening if you were a mouse.

Yes. Right? Like this also, it's just massive. Yes. Mammal. So flying at you. Actually, so that's a good example. Notice the intentionality there.

Yeah, animals that crouch, or they are like that. They're, would you say they're surprising? They're, you don't realize how much muscle in an energy. Yeah, wow. It is in there. There's little crouching animal right there in the team. So this is the poetic nature of these narratives.

Notice how that has this thematic overlap with a snake, which doesn't pounce. But it is also mysterious and sly and crafty. There's something, there's more than meets the eye here. And somehow the temptation is depicted as you wouldn't expect that this thing's gonna ruin your life. Oh yeah. Right? When you first see it, it's weird of what's going on,

and it's the thing that's gonna destroy it. Strike you quickly. Yes, and it's an animal. And it's also the first word of sin, appearance of sin. So here, the snake figure gets overlapped with a more abstract concept of sin. It's brilliant. Yeah.

It's brilliant. Yeah. So when the human gives in, they make the wrong decision. So in the woman's in life's case, it's taking from the tree, and then giving to her husband. In Cain's case, he was angry, gave into his anger, kills his brother. God's first response in both stories is identical, both in Hebrew and English. God called out to the human, where are you? Which is what God said to Cain, where's your brother?

God said to the woman, what have you done? God said to Cain, what have you done? There's good, it's verbatim repetition. In fact, that might be when you're reading through the story, you're just like, oh, it's a new story, Cain enabled. That's the first verbatim repetition. And all of a sudden you should be like, wait a second. Yes, it's a new story, it can't enable. That's the first verbatim repetition. And all of a sudden you should be like, wait a second.

Yes, it's like that's the little trigger word. And then you're like, wait, that's what God said to hold on. And then you stop. Then you go reread Genesis 3. Then you reread Genesis 4 again. And then, oh, I said. And then you went to me? Then you spend a week just reading these chapters of the Bible, creating

all the connections. It's the dense German bread. So the human dodges the question, so the man, Adam says, well, there's the woman. She's the one who gave it to me, and then the woman says, it was the snake. And Kane dod was the snake. And Cain dodges the question, I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper? Yeah.

The perpetrator's cursed, in which case it's the serpent, and he's cursed more than or in Hebrew, it's your cursed from every beast, and then the ground is cursed for the humans. And then Cain, it's the same phrase, you are cursed from the ground is cursed for the humans. And then cane, it's the same phrase. You are cursed from the ground. In both cases, working the ground will be more difficult. In pain, the humans will eat from the ground. Whereas cane says, you'll work the ground, but it won't give you anything.

So you're going to be a wanderer. And then both cases end, again, with an identical, uncommon Hebrew word banish. So the only, it's not that common of a word. So the only verbatim key words are what have you done and banished. But then the moment your radars triggered, then you are meant to go back and re-read the narratives and start seeing Poe Dameron and Luke flying through the trench. And so think of what this does, I'll just ask you, like what, all of a sudden, how does it

reading these narratives as overlapping? How does it enrich one's readings of the story? What do you now start to think about the tree story? And what is, are you? Yeah, yeah. And we've talked about this before, and I think what I was, what unlocked for me, was seeing that these stories and genesis are have a bigger motivation at hand than just telling us what happened with first interesting things that happened the last time it happened with first humans.

I tell you a story about my great-great-grandpa. Yeah. It's, it wants you to key in on one idea and really drill it home. Yes. And that idea being, look how tragic it is when humans decide what is good and Give in to this mysterious evil and and I guess the question is like well. Yeah, why not just one story? Yeah, that's right. I would have been good enough. Yeah, let's pick one good story But instead then you get to that

Parallel each other. Yes, so closely. Yeah Yeah, that's right. It's as if parallel each other. Yes. So closely. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. It's as if, and remember, the name of the characters and the first one, human. A dome. Human. So the first story in the Bible about people

making a stupid decision, it's human in life. And you go through the list, right? They redefine good and evil. Actually, it will be good for me to do the thing that God said not to do, even though I don't quite understand why. It's all you go through. Then the first story given to you is about a human, another human, replaying the same exact thing. And then the moment those two are set there, replaying the same exact thing. And then the moment those two are set there, it's like the Western quick-drop pattern. These stories are giving us the fundamental template

of the human condition. I should see this pattern in my life. And then I should expect to see this pattern again in the story. And I should expect this pattern in biblical stories. Yes. Yeah, and it's as if each now that I've been given like the base template, the human story,

pages two and three, then all these other portraits that come after are giving me, it's doing what we're gonna talk about in the characters video, which is different examples. So maybe the one with Saul doesn't land or something, or maybe the story of Samson doesn't work, but then maybe this one, I see myself in Abraham, or I see myself, and it becomes a whole wall of family portraits of stupid humans. And then there's no way you're going to escape the Hebrew scriptures without seeing yourself

in many of these characters. Yeah. Because they're also reflective mirrors. Yeah. Because they're all about humans. And who am I sitting here reading this text? I'm a human. Right.

So it's exactly right. Yeah, the more I ponder how Genesis 1 through 4 works, it's amazing. It's kind of like you talked about the musical analogy. It happens in music, classical music, it'll be introduced to, like, what do they call it, a phrase? Oh, like the open melody, with the opening sentence. Yeah. And then you'll hear it again and, oh, okay, I'm going to expect the opening sentence. Yeah, yes. And then you'll hear it again.

And oh, okay, I'm gonna expect to hear that. That's right. And so now your ear is tuned to hear that melody. Yep. But you hear it in different ways. Yes, it's that. And you hear it overlap with different things. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. So that's what we're supposed to be listening for this, this melody of the human condition. Yep. Like, from right off the bat, I'm on page four of the Bible. And like, I'm now, OK, I'm paying attention. I know what's coming.

I get it. I get it now. This whole book is going to be wrestling with this thing. OK. So those are in two stories right next to each other. Yeah. Well, once you hear the melody or C, right, the thematic repetition or patterning, then you just tuck it away and you keep reading in the store.

I'm going to skip some examples because we're on this train and this is just a set up for the next examples. So these are two stories next to each other, human and life, next to Cain and Abel. Let's come back and just revisit a couple things then. I go back and I'm going to, I'm on example, yeah, that's right. So now I'm like, oh, OK, I need to go back and reread the human and life story just to make sure I didn't miss anything that was important there.

Because I know this is the template now. It's very thorough of you. Yep. So let's track with some details. And I've just put in bullet points here, all the ones that are going to be important for everything that follows. So here is the divine command here.

From any tree in the garden you may eat, from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat from it from the day you eat of it. You'll surely die. It's a crystal clear divine command. We might not understand the motive. Right, yeah crystal clear divine command. I may not understand the motive. Right. Yeah. But what it is I'm supposed to not do is immediately obvious. Yes. There is a tree. Do not eat it. That's right. Got it. So, and what is the narrative of

the failure, Genesis 3.6, when the woman saw, we're talked about this, it's the woman doing what God has been doing. God sees what is good, because he has the knowledge, he provides what is good. But now it's the woman seeing, what else does she see? She sees that it's desirable to the eyes. I want that.

It's good and I want it. Yeah, must have been a nectarine. It's like, oh, it nectarine. So I wanted it. It's also desirable, Nechmad, desirable, to make me wise. God's holding out on me. There's actually some more to know. There's more maturity, there's more experience that's accessible to know. There's more maturity, there's more experience. That's accessible to me. If I do, the thing that God is prohibiting me from doing.

Yeah. And she never thought that. That's right. Yeah, I'm just saying. So she took from its fruit, she ate, she gave to her husband, he ate. What's the result? Their eyes are open and, oh, we're naked.

It's all this nakedness, which keys back to the thing of they were naked at first, but no shame. Total vulnerability. But now they see that they're naked and they hide their bodies from each other. Then they heard the voice. They heard the sound. This is a Hebrew thing.

The Hebrew word, coal, is the same word for voice, a personal noise, or sound. It is from an impersonal object. Okay, it's just coal. That's important. Trust me, that's important. So they hear the sound of Yahweh God walking in the garden and they hide themselves. So then God says, where are you?

Where are you? And then he finds human. And human says, the woman, right? The blame shifting, blame excuse. She gave it to me and I ate the question, what have you done? And then there's interesting little phrase there. He holds the man, he holds both the man and the woman responsible, but he uses this phrase. He says, because you listen to the voice of your wife. So the humans hear the voice of God walking, and then he says, because you listen, not to me, what I said to you, you listen to the voice of your wife.

There you go. So those are other interesting things that I noticed in the story. I move on. What's the next story in the Bible is you're reading about a husband and a wife trying to navigate a difficult decision. If you just read through it, what's the next story about a husband and wife navigating a difficult decision about a divine promise that was given or a divine word? Abraham Sarah. Now this story is about how God promised that they were going to have children, great family, which is quite remarkable.

Because they're super old. They're super old. Yeah. So, but God was crystal clear, like a family's going to come from you. So that's in the previous story, chapter 15, look up in the stars. Yeah. A child will come from you, not in, you know, someone else in your house, that's kind of thing. All right. So the story begins. Now Sarah, Abram's wife, had no children, but she had an Egyptian slave named Hegar. So, notice how the female figure

is the first main actor in the story. She says to Abram, go now, have sex with my female slave. Perhaps I will be built up from her. It's the word for literally constructive building. It's a very odd turn of phrase. I will be built up from her. This is also something biblical authors, they love to do this. I'm discovering.

And it's something like what's going on in Star Wars is they'll introduce some glitch in the story, a weird turn of phrase. Oh, okay. And it's not a normal way to say that. It's not a normal way to say that. Why would you say, that's a weird way to say that. I will be built up from her, like I'm a building. Can you think of anywhere earlier in the story where the woman was built up from her, like I'm a building. Yeah. Can you think of anywhere earlier in the story,

where the woman was built up? And it's precisely the Hebrew word used to describe the creation of the woman as the companion for the man in Genesis 2. God took from the side of the human and built the woman. And the word built appears just two times in the Bible at this point in the story, right there and right here.

So now you're thinking about, oh yeah, about the building of a family. And it echoes this relationship, it echoes the Adam and Eve story. Okay. Are you with me? Just subtle little cue. Yeah.

Maybe we wouldn't think anything of it until you notice some other things. Correct. little cue. Maybe wouldn't think anything of it until you notice some other things. So Abrams is like, hey, I get to have more sex. So he listened quite happily to the voice of his wife. Yeah, he didn't argue. Which he didn't argue. Right? I mean, the whole story is to pick this very odd, especially after he's become the paradigm of faith in the previous narrative Yeah, right so there are areas and and Sarah speaks first Right have sex with my Egyptian slave and it was like okay And it's notice the phrasing he listened to the voice of Sarah. Oh, there it is

There it is okay, so it's in bold. So Sarah, the wife of Abram, the woman took Heghar and gave her to Abram as a wife. Right? Do you get it? Do I need to, you get it? Don't you? And he had sex with her. When she, that is, Hegar became pregnant and when she saw Hegar sees that she was pregnant and her mistress became despised or became less in her eyes. So what goes on from the story here is, so Hegar is the one who sees. Notice the first story was the woman saw, but now we're riffing off of her seeing. Sarah was the one who took, gave to her husband,

but it's Hagar, the other woman who sees. And what does she see? Oh, now I'm going to be the favorite one in the family. Sarah gets super ticked off, and then she's like, it's just as she oppressed Hagar. And so she goes to Abram and says like, look, you know, she's pregnant now and she's being rude to me,

and so what's Abram's response? Look, your female slave is in your hand, due to her what's good in your eyes, good for the eyes. Come on, it's too good, right? And so Sarah oppressed Hagar, Hagar fled before her, and where does she go? She's banished to the wilderness. Precisely like Adam and Eve in Sendage. So let me just, do I need to say anything?

Like you, right. Well, actually here. You tell me what you see is going on here. Yeah. That what seems to be going on here is that, yeah, the author wants you at this point to not just, it's not just a story of Abraham screwing up. This is a story of Abraham wrestling with the same mysterious evil that all humanity's

been wrestling with. Yeah, Satan mentioned in the story. No. No. But he doesn't need to be. He doesn't need to be. He was on page three. He was in there.

He was on the story about human. Yeah. It was going to story about human. Yeah. And we get the template. Yeah. This, the melody's coming out again now in the story of Abraham. Yes. And it's texturing the story. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah, it makes it way more meaningful. Yeah. Yeah. You might, you would read the story, and it's like, it's so weird. Like, the last story, they were like heroes, but now they're like oppressing this Egyptian slave.

And, right? Heggar is the victim here in the story. She's the victim of their stupid decision. Yeah. And it's going to produce conflict in their family. Think about, right? She's going to give birth to Ishmael. Yeah. It's going to produce all this conflict in the family.

So the biblical author could have said, look, they made about decision. It's gonna be some family strife. But instead, he, Yes. Like crafted this story in such a way that it's now echoing from this previous story. Another iteration of the theme.

And notice here, in the Garden story, it was the response to a divine command that I didn't understand the motive. Here, they're responding to a divine promise that seems incredible. So God said, it's going to come from you. And Abraham is very like, it's not happening. So let's find our own solution. So it's a way. So we said, it's going to come from you and Abraham is there like, it's not happening, so let's find our own solution. So we don't get it. It's like we want to find our own solution.

Yeah. And it's going to importantly. Yeah. So Hegar becomes the fruit. Yeah. She becomes the way that they are redefining good and evil in their own eyes. And then all of a sudden you have a very realistic narrative portrait of the human condition. Things are difficult, things aren't working out the way I want them to. God said this was going to happen this particular way, I don't think. You know, sometimes you've got to take things in your own hands. And who hasn't lived to that story like a hundred times yeah anyway yeah yeah so powerful yeah want to do another one yes do one more deal just one more well ten minutes and then and then Q&R or okay how many I don't know all

right I have a lot more. I have a lot more and they actually just keep getting better. Oh, how you guys doing? You want to do some more? Okay, right, you know, all right. So here's the Israelites that mount Sinai. They just got the 10 commandments. Smoking fire god shows up on the mountain, right?

Right. And the first two commandments are, don't have any other gods. Don't make any idols. The crystal clear. Yeah, it's just crystal clear. Right. What's the first narrative after they make an idol of another god?

And when the people saw that Moses was delayed, this is another one of these, that's a weird way to say that. Literally, it's when Moses bocheche, it's the word shame. Like the nakedness in shame. And if you look, the last time, the word shame is not a common word

in the Torah up to this point. And the first time that it appeared was the shame of the first humans. So Moses was making them ashamed by how long they had to wait. Do you remember how long it was? Oh, 40 days. 40, yeah. 40.

In coming down from the mountain. And the people gathered against Aaron and said, hey, get up. Make us some gods who will go before us, as for this man Moses who brought us up out of Egypt. We don't know what happened to him. So the people end up doing the last thing, right, you get it.

You get it. OK, so here's what happened. The people took their gold rings, and Aaron took from their hand. He makes the golden calf and he saw and he built an altar before it and proclaimed. Now just stop right there. He saw what? The calf.

No, the altar? The what? What? There it is. He fashioned the golden calf and Aaron saw and he built an altar before it and proclaimed It's it's a completely unnecessary Verde to say that it's all in the sentence. Yeah, it doesn't say what he saw Yeah, and it doesn't say how he's seen totally. Yeah, it's like I wasn't all of a sudden like

Totally this guy's not paying attention with his eyes anymore But it's just like it's completely unnecessary to the story. Yeah, totally. But it's just like, it's completely unnecessary to the story. There can be only one reason why this unnecessary verb is introduced in the story. Lazy writing. That's right. That's right. It's silly green creature in front of me.

Yeah. That's right. Yep. So he builds an altar before it, and he says, hey, feast for Yahweh tomorrow. So they got it really early the next day. They offer all these sacrifices. They're doing the very thing that God said not to do. And then the people sat down to eat.

And they rose up to play. Now this is a whole other set of hyperlinks of playing with all of these sexual layers to its meaning that's fascinating, but it's their eating results in something sketchy happening sexually. The first thing God says to Moses, go, get down. The narrative shifts. You see the people doing this, then all of a sudden, you shift up to the top of the mountain. And God is the first one who speaks.

He speaks to Moses and he says, go, get down. Moses walks up and as they're walking up, Joshua is with him. And what is Joshua? Joshua. Here's Moses coming. Yeah, what's... Oh no, it's Moses and Joshua. Moses joins Joshua and then they're walking into the camp. Oh, and they're listening to the voice of the people. Yes, totally. Yes. So, and Joshua listens to the voice of the people in the camp.

So this one's great because the first time that appeared was a human in, hearing, listening to God walk into the garden. Yeah. This is flipped. That's right. Yeah, it's flipped. Yeah. It's like Poe Dameron versus Luke and Ray. They're playing the role of God here,

while we're in the camp. Yeah, that's right. So what does Moses do? He gets angry. He takes the calf. He burns it with fire. So just sit with that one, he burns it with fire. He asks Aaron, what did this people do to you?

And Aaron said, oh, don't let my master's anger burn. You know, these people, they are in evil. So he says, they're in evil. It's the same word for the evil. They're in evil. And they says, they're in evil. It's the same word from the beginning. They're not good. And they said, make us a God. And I said, well, who has any gold? Take it off. And they gave me the gold. I put it in the fire and out came this calf. Okay, so notice the question is asked, yeah, what did this people do to you you and what the first thing he does?

He, he pounced, yeah. Blame shift with a terrible excuse. Yeah, it's really bad. Well, he just was a part of a drunken orgy, so it's all along the way. Okay, so notice here, what have we got to work with here? We have the C and taking, we have listening in terms of repeated words. Yeah. But now it's all out of... And taking. Yep, taking, we have listening in terms of repeated words.

Yeah. But now it's all out of... And taking. Yep, taking. Yeah. Did you say that, sorry. Mm-hmm. But notice, it's kind of, it's out of order. Mm-hmm. Things aren't in the same order they were in.

Yeah. But this is the third. This is the third time. Yeah, it's getting, they're playing around with the melody a little bit. Yep. So we're, yeah, that's right. It's like, yeah, when you get into a symphony and it's the fourth time around, you know, and it's the, whatever, the French horn doing the riff, the little, can play with it creatively

to make its own contribution. Yep, okay. You want another one? And actually, to understand this one, you need to have done, you need to have noticed the golden calf one. Okay, so that we can make a video in five minutes. Yeah, we can figure it out.

We can figure it out. No, actually, we totally can, because with visual composition, you can tell the stories with characters in same positions. I know we can. It's perfect for video. It's perfect. Yes, great. Yeah.

Okay, so you have the Battle of Jericho. It's the first moment of trust for God's people in the Promised Land. Yeah. Oh, dude. Yeah. And the Battle of Jericho is itself designed all around these patterns with Genesis 1, the most obvious one being March around the city for six days, then on the first one, stand and do nothing except below the trumpets. Six work, one rest. Yeah. And then God gives this command in Joshua 6.

Watch yourselves, don't take any of the dedicated plunder, less you take from the dedicated plunder and place it in the camp of Israel and bring trouble on it. All the silver gold and all the articles of bronze and iron are holy to Yahweh. So then they conquered the city and so on. And then there's a little narrative aside. But the sons of Israel committed treachery

with the dedicated plunder. Namely, one is relied, Aiken, whose name sounds a lot like trouble. Akhar, Akhan, Akhar, Akhan, wordplay. It's good. And what tribe does he belong to? The son of Kharmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, the tribe of... He took from the dedicated plunder.

Switch scenes, battle scenes, we go from the battle scene immediately to Yahweh and Joshua. Who's the first one to speak up? Yahweh says to Joshua get up. Get up, go. Go. He said to Moses, yeah, go down, right? Go and go down. He says to Joshua, get up and go.

It's a little reversal. It's great. Verse 11, Israel has sinned. They've taken my covenant, which I command, broken my covenant that I commanded. They've taken the dedicated things. They've lied and placed it in their baggage. So then there's this whole weird scene. It's one of these things where you're just like,

why is this here? It's this whole weird scene where they select by rolling dice, who committed the sin. It's very odd. Okay, and it's all about these repeated words. When somebody gets chosen by the dice the word uses their captured And then when you take the captured one and you bring them near so they capture by lot It's it's the little genealogy you were just given in reverse order

You can just see Really full of repeated words they They finally get to Ahan, Aiken. Okay. Joshua, first thing he says to Aiken is, what have you done? What have you done? Which is what Moses and... To what Moses said to Aaron, it's what God said to Cain,

it's what God said to Adam and Eve. Reveit him. The first and Aiken's response, I saw among the plunder a Babylonian cloak, a cloak of Sheenadr, a good one. It is a cloak of Sheenadr. I mean, whatever. But it's a tove. Tove one.

It's about 200 shakles, a silver, also a tongue of gold. Not a brick of gold, it's the Hebrew word tongue. It's very odd phrase, a tongue of gold. About 50 shakles. And I desired them. and I desired them. And I took them. And they're hidden in ground in my tent. So Joshua sent messengers, they ran to the tent,

and there it was. And so what's the response? They do to him what Moses did to the golden cow. So it's interesting because, notice how the motifs are switching here because the gold thing is the fruit. But then the way that the thing that represents the fruit in the golden cap story is the golden cap and it gets burned. But now it's the perpetrator who suffers the fate of the Golden Cat. Yeah. Yeah, what seems cool about this is like at this point, you know, you're just saying everyone's tracking,

you're like, oh, OK. Yeah, how are you guys tracking? It's so obvious once you see it. I mean, you do have an underlying in bold. That's true. That's true. But it's true. It's also easy.

Yeah, totally. OK. Well, you don't have time. Let me just quickly show you the next iteration. And then we can land the plane on this one here. But there's a whole bunch of things in the Aiken story that don't make any sense like that weird lotcasting scene to it.

Dude, watch this. We're back to the story of Saul and Samuel again. OK. Got it. For Samuel 8, the people approach Samuel. Give us a king like all the other nations. And God says to Samuel, listen to their voice. Now that's interesting. Because up to this point, listening to the voice has been a sound of... Someone's coming to... Oh yeah, someone's gonna show up to deal with the sin. Oh, that's listening to the sound, yeah. Yep.

Or you listen to the voice of Adam, listen to the voice. Abraham, listen to the voice. It's a part of giving into... Giving it a temptation. The temptation. So that same phrase has been used in two very different ways and now it's being used here. But it's God saying it.

It's God giving the people what they want. You're supposed to, at this point go, uh-oh, why is God letting them give into their temptation? Why is God, normally when God shows up, and we listen to the voice of God coming, it was to just- Give a clear command. To bring justice, yeah, or to give a command.

And here it's God giving the people what they want, which is not gonna be good for them. It's fascinating. Yeah, it's kinda like when you're parent at some point is just like, okay, do whatever you want. And you're just like, wait a second, what's wrong here? This happens all the time in parenting.

We both have kids. There's like, after a long day, and you know that they're gonna go in and do that thing. Yeah. But you've already dealt with them so many times, and you know that they're going to go in and do that thing, but you've already dealt with them so many times and you're just like, oh, yeah. You just give them over to destruction. They're not going to die. They're just going to get into a fight and do whatever you want.

So God says to Samuel, listen to their voice. It's not you they're rejecting me. And then the next line, God says, you know, they've been doing this since I brought them up out of Egypt. Yeah, we've been through this before, abandoning me and serving other gods. Now just stop, right there.

What does that have to do with wanting a king? Yes. So you're like, oh, somehow there's wanting a king is a lot like them wanting idols. Well, Samuel listens to their voice and then God says, but warn them what the king's gonna do. And Samuel give this speech where he says, five times, the king's gonna take your children. He's gonna take your sons. He's gonna take your daughters. He's gonna take, take, take, take, take.

And then the people say, nope, we want it anyway. Then we're introduced to Saul, who we know is choice and good. In fact, no one else was more good than him. Right? And we're already back to the one that we did. Samuel saw. He didn't know I was going to do this to you. So Samuel saw Saul. This in the Lord said, here's the guy. This whole thing about Samuel said to Saul, I'm the one who I'm the seer. Oh, this is fascinating in chapter 9. Samuel says to Saul, I am the seer. I'm the one who, I'm the seer. Oh, this is fascinating in chapter 9. Samuel says to Saul, I am the seer. I am the one who sees. And then he says to Saul, on whom is all the desire of Israel?

Isn't it on you, Saul? Hmm. The fruit. All of Israel desires you, Saul. You. They see you, and they desire you. Then Saul gets inaugurated and God gives this speech again saying, you know, since the days of the Exodus you've been rejecting me.

And then it solves inauguration. And there's this weird story about how Saul is selected by casting lots, which is really odd because he's already been anointed and presented to the people. There's double checking. It's very odd. Like, it's a glitch in the story is logic. But it's this whole scene, and it's about how

the Samuel brought them, they cast lots. They brought him near, they captured him, they brought their near, and finally, it's supposed to be Saul. Oh, it's Saul. And then it's the punch line, but they couldn't find him anywhere. They couldn't find Saul. Did you get this?

No, I'm missing it. Okay. So, all right. So Saul has been selected as King. Yeah. Then all of a sudden he needs to be selected all over again by rolling dice. Yeah. We're going to back to the... Back to the A. Yeah, we're going to back to the Aiken story. We're going to select the perpetrator.

Yeah. But we've already... Okay. Alright, so then we're selecting him. And we select, we get the tribe of Benjamin, captured him. We bring him near. We get the tribe of this. And then all of a sudden we cast the dice and it saw the son of Keish.

And we don't see him anywhere. Where'd he go? Where'd he go? And where is he? He's hidden himself in the baggage. He's hidden himself in the baggage. Do you get it? What other things have been hidden in temptation stories? Blender and... Yeah, so the humans hide themselves. And then in Aiken's story, it's Aiken took and he hid the object of desire under in the tent.

And now all of a sudden... Like the author is kind of like, if it wasn't clear enough now, I'm gonna have Saul hide in the living. Totally, yeah, Saul. And if you don't get it at this point, you're not paying attention. I would just why, what on earth is this story of the rolling the dice and Saul hiding in the baggage it's so bizarre?

Yeah. It makes no sense in the story unless it's deliberately echoing the, so do you see this here? All of a sudden, if I had time, I would create this chart. But all of a sudden, you start seeing these stories all aware of each other. And they all have been introduced with little turns of phrase

so that the Aiken story, the Golden Calf story, the Abraham story, they're all talking to each other. Yeah. Which really, I mean, it says something profound about the unity. We're talking about huge sections of the Hebrew scriptures that were originally different eyewitness traditions and different, right quilt pieces, but you start to realize that they've been woven together with these patterns of unity. This is just one. It's just one.

We could do this all day long. With different teams. With different motifs. And different themes. Yeah. But this one is beautiful because it's the fundament. It's the human condition.

It's the human condition. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So back to this question, I think, is it Kevin? No. Someone back there. How do we teach us to our kids to think about how this is done?

It would be interesting to have your kids like show this and then say, cool, now write a story with all these elements of the hiding and the taking and the seeing and construct your own story of something in our modern world. And it gets you to start to wrestle with the same themes. Because it seems like what God wants is for these ideas to become so embedded in our psyche and our soul that we just start seeing them everywhere. We start, it's a pattern that we're not just now seeing in scripture, we're seeing in our own stories. Yeah, the repetition does so many things.

It's linking all these portraits of human failure together. And if I don't identify with the sex with the Egyptian slave, one, maybe I'll identify with, I want a human. To lead us. I want a human who I know is the choice and good one. Surely that will be our salvation. And this whole story is saying, no, you know about humans, right?

From page three, you know about humans. You know what they're like. And in this case, the human soul becomes the forbidden fruit. And so you have all these variety of portraits, and then at the same time, to your point, they're actually training you to see the world a certain way, and to see patterns of my own decision making, so that I can recognize the snake. Even when he's not visible, the snake doesn't appear. In any of these stories, after page three. Oh, yeah.

But the clear implication is that he's underneath all of these. It's not just something that happened a long time ago. It's the human condition. Yeah, that's right. That's a good point. That's a good point. So, thank you, Kim's right. That's a good point. That's a good point. So, thank you, Kim. Yeah, yeah. I know we can capture and communicate this in the video.

I'm certain that we can. Yeah. And I don't know. Well, I just guess I don't know how to do it. You got to tell the story. You got to tell the story. I know. I know.

You got to tell the story. Now watch them all at the same time. Maybe that's... Oh, we could... yes. It's just you'd have to be really quick. I understand. But you know we just, you know, just a few examples. Yeah.

Right? We could tell three stories quickly. Yeah, three. And then do the side by side. We have to do like all five. That's very cool. So what we'll do is we have 20 more minutes and what would be great is if you have any questions for Tim regarding this, patterning and biblical narrative, or just any questions

in general. We'll take anything. And... Trapped again. Microphones, raise your hand, and we'll... And it's question response. So if you have a question, Tim will give a response, and it might be a good one, it might not. That's why we don't call it a question and answer.

That's right. But it's probably going to be good. That's right. All right. In light's probably going to be good. That's right. All right. In light of the repetitions, do you recommend a particular translation? Yeah, you're right. A lot of these might be hidden in translations. Our translations, it's like what Robert Alter was saying. If our English translations actually mimicked

the repetitive patterns, which sound like bad English, which is why our English translations often render the same Hebrew word with two different English words in the same paragraph. So the translation that does that the least is the new American standard that's still comprehensible English. It's terrible English, but it's great Hebrew in English. So the new American standard can get you a lot of the way there, with what to do this kind of study. But I really want to underscore that the first things you'll notice is usually some really obvious clear repetitions that are so

obvious and notice it's also about narrative motifs and patterns. So you're like, hmm stories about husbands and wives. Like there's only two of them within that first stretch of Genesis and they're mapped onto each other. Stories about people doing exactly what God told them to do right after he told them. Like there's not that many, and they, once you look at them all, they're all talking to each other. So it's also developing an awareness of repeated words, but also parallel scenes and motifs. And it's this gillset, it takes practice. But once you start to develop it, you'll see it's actually a design convention, just like the Westerns and the quick draw sheriff kind of thing. I don't know whether this is a good context for this question, but I have a lot of reluctant

readers in my community, and I was wondering what you would suggest, because a lot of this requires a lot of study, a lot of reading, which is total, I work with youth, that's my community. So what would you suggest for reluctant readers? People don't want to open a book, barely want to read. Well, I've heard you talk about is just reading in community. Like, you don't have to go away by yourself, lock yourself up and read these stories privately. You can sit in a group of people and read them and then discuss them and have

unity around that. You have a small group, we just get together and read scripture. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, one way to make reading the Bible easier is to create, yeah, facilitate structures of people just reading it aloud together. That's one way. And that's a really ancient Christian Jewish practice.

But I know what you're talking about. And I think in a way, what we're trying to do with the videos is to tell the stories in a way that highlights this kind of artistry and intentionality to get people excited. So maybe the videos can peak some curiosity. But I'm with you. I also find these narratives assume a pretty high degree of ability to track with narrative arguments and themes like this. And so, and that's actually what makes you want to keep rereading them is once you start getting the goodies, you know.

But getting to people to that first stage to even see this isn't a silly green creature, this is the why the master. That's a challenge. That's an American phenomenon. Our brains are melted by TV and Twitter, and so you know what? We just don't, I don't know, I don't know. Do you know? No, I don't know. Except to, there is a structure called the church. That's a group of people that get together regularly

to retell the story of Jesus and the story that makes sense of him. And so there is one right there to work within and through. And I don't know, that's a good question. Let me know what you come up with. Yeah. Yeah. So when you talk about repetition and you talk about, and you compare it to Star Wars or these epic tales, it puts a lot of humanity

on the Bible. And even the Quill, and like, well, you know, they had to put the edges on, and maybe the edges weren't there when the first pieces came. And in the tradition I've grown up, and that's like terrifying to talk about the humanity of the Bible. So how do we help people move from like this perfect golden book

that fell out of the sky in the King James version, and then moving them then to the humanity that's there, and how is that not a scary thing? Yeah. Well, we were just talking about this. We're going to talk about tomorrow. Yeah. So actually, one of the main things

we're going to talk about tomorrow in one of the sessions. Or a key point. Yeah. I mean, this was really helpful for me. I mean, we were going through these videos. We're talking about this. We're talking about the literary structure, all these things. And I was having that exact same uncomfortable feeling of,

we're talking about the humanity of the Bible. Isn't the Bible a divine book? And in my tradition, you would say of the Bible, isn't the Bible a divine book. And in my tradition, you know, you would say that the Bible is both human and divine, you would hear that. Maybe, maybe, maybe don't, but at least most people would admit to that, that's part of orthodoxy. But then there's this kind of a weak nudge,

but really divine, right? We wanna like polish off all the thumbprints of its humanity. And what I found for me is that when I approach the book, and I just am like this fell out of the sky, and this is God's divine word, I get to things that have humanity on it, and it's actually scandalous. And I get confused, and it feels weird, and I'll give up, or whatever. But as we started looking at the Bible through its literary structure and the humanity of it,

something really surprising started to happen, which is when I just stopped and said, okay, this is a human book, too. And we looked at that. Suddenly, the human book started seeming so beautiful. I mean, we just saw, like, how the artistry of what they're doing. And not only is that sophisticated in its literary style,

it's wrestling with something so deep to me personally, and to the people around me, and that they've got a grasp on what's this essential part of being human, it's such a way that it just pulls on me, and just all of a sudden I'm going deeper and deeper, and then I'm just, I'm confronted with its divinity. It's like a backwards way of getting there, sneak attack. And I think it's actually a much more natural way to get to the divinity of the Bible, is to start with its humanity, at least for me, and I think probably a lot of people

who would have that inclination of being scandalized by that. Yeah. Just one quick response, and again, we'll talk about it more tomorrow. But it has happened multiple times in Jewish and Christian history that because of a desire, I think it's a right desire to elevate the authority, the divine authority, that these texts, the claim that they lay upon us, that causes what I think is an unnecessary sub-reaction, which is to try any race human agency from the origins of the Bible. And what that really speaks to is a deep division in our own seeking about if God is at work in history, it has to be with minimal or no human agency.

Like that's really what is the assumption driving, that fear of the humanity of the Bible. And once you say it like that, just stop and read the Bible. And ask yourself the primary way that God works through history in these narratives. It's through humans. And oh yes, I seem to remember the fundamental tenet of Christian orthodoxy is of Jesus' identity

as fully God and fully human, which means he spoke Arabic and he pooped his diapers, right? And he was actually so fully human, it was easy to dismiss him as if he wasn't who he really was. And so, in my mind, we're doing ourselves and people in our church communities at gigantic disservice when we ignore the very human creativity in origins of the Bible. The claim has always been that it's both. And the fact that when God's, this, and then the theology, the spirit, the spirit

is working through humans. And when gods that work in and through humans by the spirit, they don't become less themselves. They become more themselves by the power of the spirit. And so what else would you expect from spirit and power to humans than something as beautiful as this? So in my mind, this is a fundamental category reshape that Western Christianity needs to undergo.

When it comes to the Bible, it's just a dead end. The golden book from heaven is a dead end. I think it actually doesn't help us understand what the Bible is. Thank you for asking that question. Oh, hey. I'm wondering how a non-phd can state current with these type of ideas and maybe be engaged in the conversation to some chat room or something I didn't have to.

Yeah. Here is, I quoted Robert Alter a lot. There's some points where I disagree, but he is a Jewish scholar who represents a whole movement of scholarship mostly by Israeli Jewish scholars who were trying to tell the rest of the world like, dude, you guys wake up to how incredible this literature is. And so that's kind of mainly where the conversation lives at an academic level is among people who have been raised speaking Hebrew, which makes perfect sense.

They're the ones who are going in. And so then they're teaching the rest of us how this literature works. So, you know, I don't want to just say hang tight, but in a way that's kind of how, in most academic fields, you know, when there's a paradigm shift happening, it just takes time before the new handbooks and the new commentaries and the new introductions get written in light of the reason discoveries. And that's kind of, to be honest, that's where

a lot of the field of biblical studies is at. For a lot of complex reasons, I don't have time to go into, but this is a new edge to literary study of the Bible, and it's hard to find a lot of books. All right, this is Tim. This is Tim from the future interrupting Tim of the past. As I was listening back to this conversation and this question in particular, I was really disappointed in myself

about how I answered that question. So the question was about what are other people writing on this topic of hyperlinks and design patterns in the Bible, other resources to go to. And the person, the scholar that didn't come to my mind, I can't believe I forgot about his work because he's one of my most influential teachers and mentors. It's the work of John Salehamer, who was really the first one who introduced me to the set of concepts and how Hebrew narrative works.

So John Salehamer, he has a commentary on the Torah. It's called The Pentateuch as Narrative. And in the introduction, he has a whole section on how a design pattern works within the Pentateuch itself. And then there's a whole world of Jewish scholars that he introduced me to. I referenced Robert Alter in that question, even how I responded that question. But also, if you really want to take a deeper dive, check out the work of One If Sale Hammer students whose name Seth Postel. He has a really stimulating book called Adam as Israel, Genesis 1 through 3, as the introduction to the Torah and

the Tenak. And he, his basic thesis is every random little word and detail in Genesis 1 through 3, is previewing in seed form everything that's going to go down in the entire Old Testament. Yeah. What's his name again? Seth Postel. So we'll have his book in the show notes, like a reference to it. Great. But so hammer and post-el, and then Robert Alter, who I mentioned in my response, is also a great place to start too.

So this is Tim from the future. Thank you, Tim, for the future. Signing off so that Tim from the past can continue talking. So create your own group. I mean, I really, at the end of the day, you'll notice this stuff if you become Bible nerds, which is what Psalm 1 says. Psalm 1 tells you what to do. It's a metapollum telling you what to do with the book in front of you, which is to get it, you need to live in this thing. And that not sound good news to a culture whose brains

are melted on TV and Twitter. I know that. But it's just what it says. This is the cave goes eternally deep, and there's nothing for it. You just got to get a group of friends and explore the cave. I don't know what else to tell you. You showed me that resource you just picked up which was the the air make Oh, that be of any interest. No, no Yeah, I'm trying to think so I would say Robert Robert alters the art of biblical narrative. It's a wonderful introduction

He writes you'll need a little online dictionary sometimes, when he's writing, but it's a pretty accessible introduction that will blow your mind as to this kind of stuff. It's a wonderful introduction. That's a great place to start. But also, I feel like it's in the new testament, it's very obvious that all these authors are wrestling and riffing off quoting and trying to understand how Jesus making sense of Jesus and light of all these

stories. So what they're doing in these letters is basically kind of what we're doing which is like trying to in the New Testament totally. And so I mean that's a good place to just do. do. New Testament used to the old, the way Jesus and the Apostles read the Hebrew Bible has seemed weird. It does seem weird. Too much of Christians, throughout Christian history. But they're doing this. Because they're doing this. They read the Bible this way. And they do their theology of the Bible this way. And all of a sudden, the Paul can be talking about baptism and the wilderness wanderings.

And Jesus can talk about the snake lifted up in the wilderness. And they know exactly what they're doing. They're following the grain of these texts in a way that much of Christian history, the moment Christian history became mostly non-Jewish, and we don't, nobody reads the Bible in Hebrew anymore, to help teach this way reading the Bible. We just, we went for the allegory route to make it about Jesus. And so I'll talk more about this tomorrow.

I think we have time for one or two more. So, Bible is a big story, like Star Wars, that has a lot going on. And so often, like, John, you made the joke about Ray being a Kenobi. Like so much of that is based on, like, mislabeling and just weird things that, like this is my perspective.

But I don't think she's a Kenobi. So, as we're working through the repetition stuff, I think the potential is that when we don't have a set grid for what are we looking for, is we can turn raise into canobies, and we can actually make repetition out of stuff that isn't there. What would you say? Because we've gone through the grid for so much of this,

what's a helpful grid to have because we've gone through the grid for so much of this? What is the? What's a helpful grid to have in our like as we're reading through and going is this repetition and then as we come to we think this is it How do we check our check our work? Yeah? Yeah, she might be a can only She might be a can no she's not she's not to be honest. I'm still I'm still working through the skill set required set required is clear. Patterns, noticing patterns and repetition. Key words, I write matching scenes and so on. The question you're asking is what are controls on this thing? How do you know that you're not getting too weird? So we don't go wild.

And I actually am still, and I have an annual research group of friends that I mentioned. We're coming around this and working on it. And so I'm still trying to articulate to myself what the guardrails are. One thing that's clear to me, though, is that these narratives are designed in a way that is creatively generating new associations

and new meaning that I wouldn't have noticed. Just think of the way the different themes and motifs are now playing different roles in different stories. And so there's almost a sense, I'm not saying it's like a free reign, but there is a sense it's creative literature. It's meant to engage your imagination and a voc, wonder wonder and transcendence. And so I think there's an element of aesthetic play and pleasure, tove, goodness in it, that your mind is meant to entertain possibilities

and that dead ends will get closed off as you keep reading through the story. But I think you can go get irresponsible with it. And so right now the guardrails for me are, is there a whole bunch of repeated words in one place that some kind of, really you begin to build the case. If it's just one word and it's a super common word, well I don't know, I'll put it on my scale of probability of like two. But then if you, to me, these are so, once you add it up, it's just so obvious. So to me, it's more like the amount of connections

there are is right now my control. But I don't know. Well, we were talking about meditation literature. The question came up for me, which is, yeah, what are the guardrails? Like, if the Bible's so sparse and you're supposed to be meditating on it and seeing connections, yeah, what's gonna keep you in orthodoxy? And it sounded like you were saying that the design of the Bible

must be aware of this problem. It is aware that the trade-off is let you become aware of this problem. It is aware that the trade off is, let you become part of this versus the opportunity of mistakes. And it's like, in the same way God gave us free will and wants us to participate with him, when the trade off is, we're going to screw a lot of things up. It's like that same kind of generosity seems to be helpful.

There's a risk in writing this way that people won't get it, or that people will read too much into it, or read the wrong things into it. And apparently, these authors thought that was worth the risk to create narratives that over time becomes brilliant jewels to you because you had to work for it and discover it along with them.

And then you get to the top of the mountain and you see that the author's already there, you know? And so, to me it's becoming so clear that's how the Bible works. It's participatory. And so there is a risk in that. And the history of biblical interpretation is exhibit A. Right?

But I think in terms of a Christian, this is a story that's about coming Messianic King, who will rescue humans from themselves, and the death and destruction. We willfully embrace of our own will. Right? That's where the story's going. And so, if, I mean, there you go.

Jesus. Jesus. Yeah. So, unified story. Does it get to Jesus? Yeah. All right, well, it's five o'clock. Thank you, everyone, for-

Yeah, thank you guys for listening to us work to this. Thank you guys for listening to us work to this. Yes. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bible Project Podcast. I hope you enjoyed thinking about design patterns. We have a video on design patterns live on YouTube, YouTube.clomp slash the Bible Project. It's part of our How to Read the Bible Series. Up next in the How to Read the Bible series we'll be talking about biblical poetry. So get excited about that. This episode was edited and produced by Dan Gummel. The Bible project is a nonprofit in Portland, Oregon. We make

animated videos that look at the theme and structure of the Bible. You can be a part of this with us. Go to thebibeproject.com and see how you can be involved or just enjoy the content we make. It's all free because of the generous support people like you. So thanks so much for being part of this with us. This is David Mazarri from Raleigh, North Carolina. My favorite part about the Bible project is that I don't have to necessarily read the whole Bible before understanding it and then I can get that general summarization before I get motivated to read. 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, and more at thebibletroject.com. you