BibleProject - Design Patterns in The Bible Part 3: Crossing the Chaotic Waters

Episode Date: April 16, 2018

This is another episode in our How to Read the Bible Series. Today Tim and Jon discuss literary design patterns in the Bible. In part 1 (0-12:27), the guys discuss the ways Bible stories often pattern after each other. Tim explains that he is working on a project with other Bible scholars studying how many biblical stories build on each other. Tim says many Bible stories are set up in parallel, to replay key themes the writers are trying to make. Jon provides a real life example of Toy Story 3. The Toy Story 3 writers watched dozens of prison break movies in order to write the “daycare/prison break out” scene in Toy Story 3. Tim says that’s a good example of a layering technique being used in modern day. The classic prison break is layered into a children’s movie. In part 2 (12:27-19:15), Tim says the biblical authors were very intentional about building an entire universe of meaning in the biblical stories themselves. There are thousands of hidden “hyperlinks” of key repeated words, phrases and repeated characters that link all Bible stories together. There is no such thing as an isolated story in the Bible. An example of Bible stories linking together is David and Bathsheba and the eating of the apple in Genesis. In Hebrew, it says “(Bathsheba) was good of sight, very.” Tim says this links back to Adam and Eve seeing the “fruit was good of sight” which links back to God saying things were “good, very good.” So the reader is supposed to ponder upon who decides what “good” is in these stories. David? God? Adam and Eve? In part 3 (19:15-26:46), the guys dive into the creation story at the beginning of the Bible. Tim says Genesis 1 is set up in a very unique way. Tim says the fundamental image of chaos is dark, untamed waters. Jon offers an interesting comment about a new shark species that was recently discovered in the dark ocean. Tim outlines the first three days as the separation of realms. (Day 1) separating light from dark, (day 2) separating water from water, (day 3) separating water from dry land. Then the next three days, 4,5,6 are the creation of inhabitants of the realms in the first three days. In part 4 (26:46-35:18), Tim says, the creation account is presented in such a way that God separates the chaotic waters to create a stable habitation where humans can live. Thinking about the Biblical authors desire to layer stories on each other, Where else does this theme of God separating waters appear in the Bible? All over the Bible. The story of Noah is depicted as the “de-creation” of the world. The world sinks back into “chaotic waters.” God remembers Noah and causes a “ruach to to pass over the land” just like the original creation story, he is separating the waters from the land and re-creating a habitation for humans. In part 5 (35:18-end), Tim asks Jon “what was God doing with all this separating?” Jon and Tim discuss how the cause of creation descending back into chaos is human evil. Humans choose violence, bringing the world back to a place where God turns it over to chaos. The next story where God tames the waters to rescue his people is the Exodus story. God “remembers Israel” when they cry out about their oppression in Egypt just as he “remembers Noah”. Tim says when Israel crosses the Red (Reed) Sea, it merges days 2 and 3 in creation. Moses splits/separates the waters to reveal dry land. Israel also passes through the waters, saved by God, just as Noah passed through the waters, saved by God. Jon asks what’s the purpose of telling stories like this is. Jon is confused, is salvation really this complicated? What does all this mean for the modern person? Tim tells Jon to be patient, and that the ultimate end of the flood and water imagery in the Bible is the Christian tradition of baptism. Thank you to all our supporters! Show Resources: Our video on “Design Patterns in The Bible”: https://thebibleproject.com/videos/design-patterns-biblical-narrative/ The new species of shark discovered: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/prehistoric-frilled-shark-bycatch-deep-sea-spd/ George Lakoff: Metaphors We Live By George Lakoff: More Than Cool Reason Jon Walton: The Lost World of Genesis 1 Show Music: Rosasharn: Defender Instrumental Tae The Producer: Cocoa Tae The Producer: Fujiyama Tae The Producer: Mom Great Scott: Don’t Hold Back Show Produced By: Dan Gummel. Jon Collins. Tim Mackie. 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. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode. Hey everybody, welcome to the Bible Project Podcast.

My name is Tim. I'm one of the co-founders to the Bible Project Podcast. My name is Tim. I'm one of the co-founders of the Bible Project, and you were the wonderful person that you are. Welcome to the podcast. Normally, my partner and co-founder of the Bible Project, John Collins, does these introductions. This is actually my first one ever, so I'm a little bit nervous, but there you go. I'm just going to pretend like I'm talking to you, even though I can't see anybody.

Anyway, this is episode three of a four-part series that John and I did with a whole set of conversations we had in our How to Read the Bible series, both of conversations and videos that are coming out on our YouTube channel. Here, these four conversations are about a feature of biblical narrative that we're calling design patterns. The first two episodes were actually done live

before a live audience where we did Q&A. I really recommend listening to the first two episodes of this series on design patterns. This episode and the one following won't make a lot of sense without those previous episodes. But basically, we're talking about the way that biblical authors have designed and coordinated different stories across the whole of the Bible and how they have embedded repeated key themes and words in all these different stories so that as you read through the Bible over and over and

over again, you start to connect the thread and Are able to follow the developing theological claims and arguments and ideas that are being worked out in all these coordinated Pattern stories. In this episode we're going to finish up the example We were developing the previous ones about the temptation pattern of human failure. In this one, we're going to start a two-part conversation about a pattern of God's salvation, specifically about God providing salvation at sunrise by rescuing his people through the dangerous waters.

And it all leads up to the practice of early Christian baptism. And if that sounds weird to you, trust me, it's so incredible. So there you go. This is going to be fun conversation. I learned a ton. I hope it's helpful for you, and let's dive in and learn together. So we're having a conversation about how to read biblical narrative. This is the last installment. Plot character setting and now... Plot character and setting and then... Those are basic ones. Pretty basic. Yeah, elements to any narrative whatsoever.

And then this last one is actually combining all of those together and learning to pay attention to design patterns in biblical narrative. And it's actually a technique that all narratives draw upon in some way. Yeah. But it's something that the biblical authors have refined into a supreme form of artistic expression and communication. It's just part of how the biblical narratives make sense and make their arguments and communicate is through these design patterns that are asking you the reader

to compare narratives and characters and settings and plots, both the ones that are right next to each other, like we looked at Cain and Navel and Adam and Eve. But then also to begin linking together so that you compare narratives that are distant from each other, but united by these design patterns. Yeah, and we looked at a bunch of examples when we were down in Milpitas with that crew. And I was really surprised at how many stories pattern

after each other. Like it's almost kind of ridiculous at how much they do it. Yes. Almost the extent of like, wait, is this all the Bible is doing? You know, I guess just rehashing these ideas again and again through different characters and different times.

Yeah, this whole discussion represents a project that I'm working on with a number of other friends and scholars. These design patterns, it's something people have noticed for a very long time, especially when you read Jewish literature about the Bible from the period of the second temple early Christianity When you look at how the New Testament authors the Apostles use the Old Testament They're paying attention to all this stuff, right? They're super keyed in so this isn't a new way of reading the Bible right actually one of the most ancient ways yeah, and It seems to have been woven into the fabric of the composition of these narratives in the first place. So you're right. It almost seems like it was the main thing on the author's mind.

It's like one of the main vehicles of how these authors use the narratives to make claims, to make an argument. If there was different levels of how much you're using this technique as an author, right? And one level was, I wrote this really an interesting story. Oh, I have an idea. I could take this one scene of my story and connect it back to this other scene in the story. Oh, that'd be neat. So there's like one level of like, it's an afterthought.

But then on the other side of the spectrum would be every time you come to the new story, you go, okay, what's this patterning? This needs the pattern something. And I'm actually gonna pattern a number of things. It's the first thing on your mind. And if that's the spectrum and anywhere in between, it really feels like biblical authors

are on the far end of the spectrum of, it's like the first thing on their mind. How is this connected to the other stories? Correct, yeah. So plot setting, characterization are all different ways that they can create design patterns between stories, but the patterning and design so that you begin to compare parallel elements in different stories. It's like the bread and butter.

You can say it is of how they communicate. And even we looked at a long example of the temptation narrative. Temptation narratives, yeah. So the first humans to distrust God and make a stupid decision whereby they embrace their own destruction. So it makes perfect sense that that's the narrative that would become like a template. Yeah. They get to replay it because what's that narrative is trying to make a claim about the human condition. And so, of course, all these key junctures where significant characters in the biblical narrative are faced with the moments of decision. It's like, oh, that's what you would expect.

It would be a replaying of the humans on pages one, two, and three of the Bible. Well, and so in cinema, this happens a lot where you have, you have a template for how a story's told, like a buddy cop movie, right? Like there's tons of those, and they all kind of have the same beats, and they all share the same beats, and you can actually dissect them and put like what's what's Eddie Murphy one Hollywood?

Hollywood gobs or something Anyways, you put them next to each other and they kind of mimic each other in fact One reason why Pixar has been so good at their early storytelling is they would like to toy story three for example. Do you remember toy story three? I didn't see it. You never saw toy story three? No, I just saw one. Oh really? Yeah. Oh wow. I just showed it to my kids for the first time. Oh yeah. They like it. Oh, they were so into it. I can't wait to show them to you. Watch them too. Two, three. Three, there's a scene where all the toys are, I'm gonna spoil, a toy story three or three times a little bit.

It's totally fine. My hopes aren't set. What happens? All the toys get sent to this daycare, and it's like prison for them. So it's kind of like... Getting slaughtered on by officers. Yeah, they're just like, it's a nightmare.

And so they need to get out of this daycare. So there's this whole like jailbreak scene and The authors the writers of Toy Story is a bunch of people working on it together in order to write that scene they watched dozens of Prison movies and paid attention to all the just the tropes of like in the prison movies There's always the old man who's in prison. He's kind of a wise old man He's a salty guy, but he gives you like good advice. There's just all these beats for how like a prison escape

Works in Hollywood and so what they did is they just took the best of that and then they like retold all of those in their toy story. Yes, okay, so that actually makes it so good. That's exactly right. Yes, okay, so that's a great example of both similarity but also different than what the biblical authors are doing. Okay, great. So the similarity would be when you're reading through key narratives about a character in the Bible being faced with a choice in this. You'll start to notice odds are that you're gonna see the garden temptation and then all of its iterations each time another iteration happens like with Abraham and Sarah. Then the third repetition will pick up key phrases and ideas, not just from the first one,

but from both the first and the second. Remember, so this was why I later on in the Saul's story, when Saul's hiding among the baggage, that's parallel, not to the garden, but to Aiken hiding the coveted Babylonian cloak and gold hiding in the back. Yes, so in Aiken's story, the gold is his fruit. Whereas in the Saul's story, Saul becomes the fruit. But he also maps on to the idolatrous plunder of Aiken. So in its narrative argument to say that Saul has become the idol, the people that have installed a new idol in the place of God.

It's a human king. So that shows a similarity. There are these repeated patterns. But the question is, where did these patterns come from? And in the example you just gave, it's the writers looking to all these other literature outside the narrative world outside of the toy story narrative world outside of the toy story narrative like look at every other jailbreak and that was actually the way Robert Alter the scholar whose work I was drawing on. That's the way he frames it is there were just these israelite ways of telling about marriage how people meet and get married it usually happens at a well and this hero coming and the woman's there and yeah

But his point is there's some Pattern that exists just out there in Israelite culture and then all these different stories are mapping onto it What I'm saying is different okay in that when you see these patterns what you're watching an author do is not Metrain mold the story to some just common way Israelites told fall narratives. It's you're watching a narrative being formed in light of that author's own pondering and reflection on the genesis narrative itself. It's internal. It's internal to the narrative world. It's all within that same can. That's right. Yeah, so the analogy with Toy Story would be,

if they modeled the jailbreak scene off of a jailbreak in Toy Story 1. Right. It's gonna be hard for them to really have much material until like Toy Story. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's right.

And then the reverse would go. It would be that they actually had mapped out Toy Story 1 to 18. And you can go back and see they actually designed Toy Story 1 to have within it all the buried Easter egg clues. Yeah, for the rest of the... For the rest of the unfolding story. But you're not going to recognize any of those until you've read it

seen all the way through to 18. And then you go back to one and you're like, oh, that's, whoa, that's why, they've talked about them being naked and not ashamed. Like, what do, that was interesting, but what did I have to do with anything? Yeah. And then you see that those little Easter eggs have relevance for later iterations of the pattern.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So it's not like they just looked out into culture and said like, well, how does culture at large talk about temptation narratives? I mean, obviously they would be influenced by culture at large. Yeah, that's right. The question is, like, primary influence. Where's the first place I go to look? But primarily they'll go, okay, well in our scriptures,

how have we talked about this before? Correct. And let's start there. Let's start there. And because again, the first instances of these patterns begin with the stories about human and life. Yeah, on page one through three. So the narratives, even the names of the characters

are trying to tell you that they're giving you like a template or a playbook of sorts. The every story after this is gonna be riffing off of this template in some way. So, so if I remember correctly, what we did last time was we started with looking at how words will clue you in to patterning. Yeah.

Key repeated words in vocabulary. And then we also then... Clue you into the linking together stories across a long spectrum. Like the whole Saul story is linked together by that word to see. Oh right. To look at or to see. And it's a big stretch. It's like eight or nine chapters that that key see. Oh right. To look at or to see. And it's a big stretch. It's like eight or nine chapters that that key word just keeps developing.

So that can happen in stories next to each other. Where key words clue you in to connections and comparisons being made. Mm-hmm. Seeing. Yep. Then we went broader. And then we saw how the same technique, key repeated words, can connect stories together that are really distant from each other.

I see. That was the idea. That was the... And it's not just words, it's also phrases. Frazes, that's right. Like situations. Parallel plot, situations, parallel settings, parallel, all that. Cool. And so we were going through a bunch just a Flyby as we did that underneath story. We saw how it was connected to Canon Abel story how it was connected to Abraham and Sarah Abraham and Sarah. Yeah, I never

Mm-hmm. How about that? That's really crazy. Yep connected to Aaron to Aaron and his relics in the Golden Calf. In the Golden Calf and then the whole story in Joshua about, what's that guy's name? Aiken. Or Ahan. Ahan. I say Ahan. I'll go Aiken.

Yeah. And he's hiding that plunder. The plunder, the Golden plunder. The Golden plunder. And then that is all these ideas and link to Saul being raised up as king. And he's the becomes the idol, the temptation of Israel. Yeah, the Israelites become the Adam, the human, Adam and Eve figures, redefining good and evil according to their desires.

I think you said offhand when we were there that this could be a theme video, the temptation. motif. Oh, at some point. Well, I'm wondering if it should be the primary example in this video. So maybe this is kind of a theme video and temptation, but showing how patterning works. Yeah, that's right. That'd be interesting. And then what we didn't do with the group, is David Bessier. It's the last example. It's just a short one.

After you've got the pattern, the way that David Bessierba's story is introduced is David's on his roof. He sees a woman, the man sees the woman, and she was good of sight. Very. Is that an awkward way to say in Hebrew? No, often you'll put it like that,

but very good to see that something is good. And then to see that it's very good. Adam and Eve saw that the fruit was good. That's right. Which itself is ripping off of God's seedings. Good, that's right. So it's this whole battle of who decides what's good. Yep.

And then once David sees that she is good, he takes her. Okay. And it's just kind of this crown jewel. All you need is a few little breadcrowns. And now you, and the story now is connected to everything before it. That's right. And it's a really rich way. Yeah.

Because of a couple of words. So let's pause. This example is a really rich way. Yeah. Because of a couple of words. Yeah. So let's pause. This example is mainly about human characters and their behavior. Yeah. So this isn't just a way of being artsy and fancy. Each of those stories is developing the Hebrew Bible's claim about the human condition. Yeah.

So we redefine good and evil. We see that things are good. Yeah, yeah, and that can we want to take all these different portraits of human failure. It can take place in power, sexual abuse situations, Abraham and Sarah and Haker. It can take place in one person's selfishness overflowing to ruin for the many, like Aiken. It has greed. It can come when people idolize political institutions or people and turn them into God-god-like figures and will compromise and redefine good and evil if we could just get that person as our leader. So profound.

Yeah, really profound. So it's a way, it's a really sophisticated way of these narratives making their theological claims about humans and how we operate, how stupid we are. So the second example I want to look at, which when we're done with it, we might choose to make this the prime example in the video. I can't decide.

This one's about a pattern in God's behavior and a way that God typically acts to bring salvation. It's usually at sunrise. Okay. The next time. And there's usually water involved. God's romantic. Totally.

Yeah, right. Yeah. But so again, the same technique repeated words parallel scenes all this and pages one through three is where it all begins. This usually does. Yeah. And it's a packed, dense, piece of literature right there.esh. Okay, so should we go. Literally the first sentences of the Bible. God creates sky in the land and God's spirit is hovering over the dark abysmal waters, right, wild and waste. Yeah. So that's the foundation image.

The foundation image of uncreation or the natural state of things that needs to be ordered is dark water. Yeah. Which is very intuitive to land creatures. Yeah. Right? Like, that's not really out there.

Yeah, I don't belong out there. I don't belong out there. I belong. It's chaotic out there. Yeah. And man, they just found this, I feel like we talk about this kind of thing a lot, but they just found this creature. That's like a shark that we didn't know existed.

And it's like prehistoric. And it's like this snakey like crazy shark. He's got like um... We just see this unwired or something. I hope I hope this legit thing. What did I see it? It's got like always like needle teeth and it just looks creepy. It just lives in the deep deep ocean. Discovery of new shark. Oh, yeah, dude. July 31st on National Geographic at Mopteris Lai Lai. It belongs to the Lantern Shark family. It was found a thousand feet below the Pacific Ocean off Hawaii's Northwestern island.

Yeah, like some guys were just trolling. It looks like a crazy dinosaur snake. Yeah. Whoa. Ancient shark with a snake head. like a crazy dinosaur snake. Yeah. Whoa. Ancient shark with a snake head. Now can you imagine if you ran into one of these things and then you just had to tell stories

of like what you experienced? Look at that. It is gnarly. We do not belong in the ocean. Ha, ha, ha, ha. That's not our place. Look at that thing. Just been hanging out on our planet with us.

Wow. The chaos dragon, the sea dragon. Yeah, totally. It's got like 20 different rows of these crazy teeth. Okay, yeah, do tohuvavuhu, wild and waste. Yeah, man. Okay, so yeah, we got the dark abysmal water. So the fundamental image is what must be overcome

and done away with is that. Yeah. The dark chaotic waters that belch up terrifying creatures. Thousands of feet. Yeah. So how does God's spirit hovering over the waters do that? Well, remember the whole thing of breath and word. God's breath Others the word the first word is let there be light So light becomes a fundamental image of light opposed to darkness. Yeah Light representing God's creative life and energy just flooding the darkness and God separates light from darkness. Okay, yeah. Day one.

So in Hebrew thought, they must know that light comes from the sun. Correct. Yes, yes, that's right. Right? Yes. So what are they talking about here? Hmm. Yeah, that's right.

Because in the narrative logic, the sun hasn't been created yet. So two things going on here. One has to do with the literary design of Genesis one. This is a little off topic, but that's okay. So it's set in two parallel panels. The six days are set in two parallel panels. Oh, okay. Of separating light and dark.

They once connected day four. They want to separate water from waters. Day two is separating waters from waters. Day one is separating light and dark. Day two is separating waters from waters. Day one is separating light and dark. Day two is separating waters from waters. Day three is separating waters in dry land. Then what Day four, five, and six does is go back through that triad

and name and provide inhabitants for the realm. So the separating becomes an act of ordering, bringing order to the chaos. Yeah. And then in that ordered space, inhabitants are connected. And so the inhabitants would be the sun? Are the, yes, in the ordering of time, light and dark.

The creatures that inhabit that space, give that order physical reality, the sunman stars. The creatures inhabiting the water above and below the fish you can see that's days two and five. And then days three and six is the land inhabitants. So what this patterning tells you is that even the sequence of those six days is more literary than anything else. Yeah, or it's about the theological claim being made that God is the one, especially, I don't actually just read this, and I actually think it's right. Tohu-va-vo-vo, the Hebrew words that introduced this account, wild and waste connected to unformed and uninhabited.

And what's God doing on days one to three is forming order, and what he's doing on days four, five, and six is creating inhabitants. So precisely the problem of the dark cable. Wait, so to who, Vavo,, is that the literal meaning of that word or informed and uninhabited? A wild wasteland. Yeah, wild meaning unformed, unordered.

Oh, okay. And waste meaning uninhabited. And then that precisely corresponds. So the point is that the ordering of the six days seems more determined by a literary theological agenda than like we're watching security camera footage of the first second. And you know what?

Why don't we make that video? Mm. Just that point right there. Just that point. Mm. Okay, little video. Could be an awesome video. Yeah. What this allows you to do then is,

once you've separated these days from God bringing into physical material existence, things that did not material. That's just not the framework here. It's about ordering and filling with inhabitants. Yeah. Then all of a sudden, it makes perfect sense that the ordering of time can be separate from the inhabitants of the Sun, Moon, and stars. Because God's not creating photons here. He's establishing an order of light and dark. Oh, and when he names what the light and dark are, he doesn't name them photons.

He names it day and night, which are categories of time that are meaningful to humans. Right. It's an ordering of the time. Yeah. Yeah, it's just kind of Watson's point, right? Is it, same, John Watson? Oh, Walton. Walton. Yes, that's right.

That's correct. And what he called it, it's like a functional versus, it's kind of when you, I think as an example, is when you're creating a business. Yes. Yeah, that's right. You're putting together the paperwork and stuff. You're not actually creating anything. You're just forming the structure in which it makes sense.

Correct. But you're not like. You're bringing order and creating structures so that something new can operate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So my point in bringing up days one through one, two, and three, it's actually related. It's that each of the first three days involve an act of separating and ordering. So separating of light and dark, day two is separating waters above and waters below by the dome or some translations have firmament or expanse, but it's a solid thing. The rakia. The rakia, the blue thing up there that separates the waters above from the waters below.

So it gets separating, but now waters from waters. And then day three is, now the waters under, the waters. This is the same waters as water as the chaotic waters. Am I supposed to be imagining like this big, just chaotic water getting separated? Well, yeah, it's as if some waters that were all won. Yeah, turn it into two.

Turned into two. Yeah, waters above and waters below. And now let's focus camera pan down. Okay. Focus on the waters below. Those waters gather together and dry land emerges. So now it's a separating of water from dry land. Okay, so that's the fundamental act of this, let there be light.

Right? If like sunrise, at sunrise, God begins separating. Three acts, one, two, three, and dry land emerges. That's where the humans can go. So God's providing out of the chaotic waters, God's separates and provides a safe, reliable place for humans, and the dry land is called Yabasha. Yabasha. Yabasha.

Yabasha. Alright. So you just read forward, keep reading the story and wow that's cool. Alright, just tuck that all the way. Where's the next story where I'm going to come across waters, chaos waters that are destructive and where waters need to be separated or rolled back for somebody to be saved.

There's actually not that many. Yeah. But there's a really big one. There's a really important one in just a few pages about the flood. About the flood. So when the flood story, there's the introduction with the sons of God in Noah, well, once the waters start getting talked about, what God says is he's going to bring waters that wipe out the living nephesh, the beings. And the first narrative statement of the flood is in Genesis 7, verse 11. It says, the springs of the cosmic deep,

split open. So have I heard of the cosmic deep before? Yeah, the waste and wild. Yeah, that's the wild and waste. This is why, as we've talked about this before, the flood narrative is a D, is an uncreation story. It's God. It's creation reversal.

Letting, yeah, it's a reversal of Genesis 1. It's God allowing creation to sink back into chaos again. So the deep waters split, just, so tuck those both away. Okay, deep waters and split. Deep waters. And really, it's the spring split open. It's the idea that the cosmic waters

that have been submerged by the land Yeah, are now it's all oh Coz the idea is the waters on top now they're close to us. That isn't the chaotic crazy waters It's really the stuff that's out and deep it's either out there around the disc of the land. Yeah, we're on or it's the waters under the land Yeah, okay, We're on. Right. That you can tap into when you get it well. Right.

But then sometimes those will split open, like a geyser. Yeah. Yeah. So the water's below burst up and the water's above the windows in the rakia. Burst open. The doors, literally, yeah, no, no, it's windows. It's the windows in the ronkey is open. So exactly, remember the waters were separated from the waters.

Yeah, so yeah. So even right there, it's picking up the explicit words and ideas from page one and God allowing creation to fold back in on itself in wild and waste. So then we're told later in the story, everything that had the breath of life is hard to do in English. It's Nesha-ma, Ruachhaim. So the breath of the breath of life. The breath of the breath of life.

It's the two words for breath. Nesha Ma, the breathing in, stuff, breathing in, and then the Ruaq. And the Ruaq, which is the of life. So the everything, breathing in of the Breath of Life. Yeah, everything that entails the Ruaq that sustains life. Everything that entails the life giving breath. Yeah, yeah, got it.

Everything that has that that lives on the life-giving breath. Yeah, yeah. Got it. Everything that has that, that lives on the dry ground, it died. Yeah. Every being was wiped away from the face of the ground. Human, Adam, beast, creepers, birds of the skies. So he just named the list of the creatures from days two and three. That's just precisely the list. Days four and five. Days four and five, excuse me. Yep. So you read this list and you're going like, oh no.

The right, all the ordering of Genesis one collapsed. All the inhabitants going away. Decreation's happening. It's decreation. There's no hope. Yeah. There's no hope. The next thing would be all the waters. Well, all the waters have come back together. Decreation is happening. It's decreation. There's no hope. Yeah. There's no hope. The next thing would be all the waters, well, all the waters have come back together.

Yeah. The next thing would be light and darkness. Yeah, yeah, that's a self-wrapping. Claps. But instead, the next sentence is, but Noah remained. There's one, the idea is there is a remnant saved out of the collapse of creation.

God preserves a remnant, Noah with him in the ark. So Genesis 1 is undone, but now it's just the one riff. Remember in Alters example of the gunslinger, but then the one appears with the rifle. This is that moment where you go like, oh no, Genesis, all it's all happening. It's all being undone. Oh no, no one's gonna, we're all gonna die. And then Noah's there. And then right there, but Noah remained. Oh, there's hope.

There's still hope. So then Noah's out there floating. And the key hinge moment in the flood narrative is a statement, but God remembered Noah, which is kind of like, did you forget about him? But he remembered Noah, which means this is the moment that Noah can see that he's not forgotten, because something's about to happen. God caused a Ruaach, a wind, to pass over the land, and the waters began to create a creation story.

Yeah, it's sentenced to. It's God's Ruaus passing over, but now over the land and beginning to push back the water and the water is turned back from upon the land. So it's this reestablishing order by means of the Ruach separating against separating again. And it came about on the 601st year of the 1st of the month, the waters dried up. 600 first year of what? This is the Genesis 1 through 11 chronology. It's mapped into the genealogy of chapter 5 and got it. Yep.

By the 2nd of the month, on the 14th day Noah looked up and behold Yabasha the waters have been separated from the land. Just like they were on day three Mm-hmm of Genesis one and after the end of day three of Genesis one God called the dry land Yabasha after God Causes the wind to blow back the waters to separate water from dry land, Yabasha, who's two, we have these two stories here. Yeah. This is one, Genesis narrative.

You see all this. Somebody's trying to talk to me. Yeah, what are they trying to say? What was God doing with all the separating? Yeah, He's creating a room for life, but ultimately human life. And so He's separating chaos to create the space for life to flourish. And so we see that in Genesis 1.

Yes. And then in Genesis 7 with the flood, where's it starting to 6? Start to 6, but what we looked at was on the 7 and 8. Is that all deescalating and collapsing back on itself? Sorry, let's pause. Let's think back. I didn't talk about this, but what's

the cause of creation descending back into chaos? Why did just God do this? Oh, because everything in human's hearts were evil all the time. So, in violence. In violence. Violence, evil in violence. Okay. So humans are the ones who cause creation to descend back into chaos.

And then God hands it over. That's interesting difference. God fights back the chaos, or right, Tames in Genesis 1, creates space for humans, but then humans create the chaos. Create the chaos. Bring the chaos back.

And God then God just says, all right, if you want me to let this thing go back to chaos, then go right ahead. And that's what the flood. So sorry. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, so these stories are trying to tell us that it's a good thing when God reigns in chaos for life,

but it's something that we can undo. And that it's something that God can redo. and that it's something that God can redo. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. That's right. Yeah, so God can read us his act of, here it's a form of rescue for Noah. Right. So then that makes you go back to page one and think, that is a kind of rescue. There's no people. Yeah, but... But he's rescuing just... Yeah. Resistance.

Yeah, or it's the beginning of the cycle, I guess. It's just the beginning of the paradigm. We're being given a template here for how God overcomes chaos or in this case evil. But yeah, always sparing and providing space for a means of escape or a remnant. That's what the no-story is. God's purpose is to cleanse His world of evil and chaos

so that there can be space for humans to be what He intended them to be. That's the fundamental storyline here between these two. Okay. So as we move on, what's another story where we're gonna have some kind of humans creating chaos, they're suffering, God remembers, and he fights the waters to save his remnant. All right, you can start to see a storyline. it. Fights waters? Or he does something, he confronts the waters. Uh-huh.

I'm kind of, I'm feeding this here. Yeah, totally. You know, you just, you just, you start to take those two stories in Genesis and you go through, okay, think forward. Where else am I going to find all these images packed together into one sequence? Yeah. And there's just, you know, usually there's not that many.

And so the Exodus narrative is the next big candidate. Because in Exodus narrative, the water is being the sea that they walk through. Yeah, it's the next conspicuous story where a separating of the waters becomes a way that God rescues. Oh man, so this, yeah, like it's funny because the story of Exodus for me and you get to the moment of the crossing of the Red Sea or the Reed Sea and it just feels like a really cool like parlor trick or something, right? Oh, okay, yeah. Look at how cool. It's a cool visual. Yeah, right? The big walls of water. Yeah, the gelatinous walls of water But you know, like that's it. It's just kind of like well, they need to way through. I guess that's a nice little trick

Yeah, but you connect it to this idea of God separating waters to create space for humans to flourish all of a sudden You're like, oh this is mapping on to a much bigger idea. That's cool. Yeah, so the Exodus story is what we're getting in these narratives is a portrait of the fundamental salvation story, which itself is just an expression of God's purpose for creation in the first place, is to push back the chaos, to separate and order so that human communities can flourish.

It's page one. And then that same creative purpose will get expressed at all these different points now where humans reintroduce chaos, and so God will replay it. But never a full replay, it's, you know, these creative patterning. Design patterns. So, just, I have a, the Exodus story mapped out, just key, relevant things here.

So, the Exodus story begins with Israelites enslaved. And the key hinge point is, is Israelites cry out, this is at the end of chapter 2, and God remembers his covenant with Abraham. It's exactly the phrase from Noah. It's the story of Noah. And then it's the moment where God appoints Moses. The next story, after God remembers, is raising up Moses. So a point to Moses, burning bush, all that. Moses says, no thank you. God convinces him otherwise. And he says to Moses at the end of chapter four, and this is actually planting a seed for what's

coming later on, is he says, this is what you shall say to Pharaoh, Israel is my son, my first born son. So I tell you, let my son go free so that he may serve me. So now God's remembering the plight of his son, suffering and slavery, and this whole narrative is about God freeing his son. And this is the first of an order. I'm trying to remember, first born means like first of a kind. Yeah, first born son, meaning status. Yeah, okay. Yeah, the one in whom I am represented in my legacy is carried on. Okay. That kind of thing.

Alright. So, as you know the story, there's 10 plagues, all that. I'm skipping a lot here. We're just touching down. Pharaoh eventually compels this compel to let them go after the Passover and the death of the firstborn, but then he regrets it. So I'm fast forwarding to the scene at the sea here at the waters.

So you have Israelites are down at the coast, and Pharaoh's like, what? Oh, no, why did I let them go? And so he gets 600 chariots, and here's Pharaoh and his chariots. Right? Advancing on this band of escaped slaves. Yeah. People start freaking out and here's Moses response. Don't be afraid. Stand here and see the salvation of Yahweh. He's going to accomplish for you today. The Egyptians that you see today

You won't see them anymore. Yahweh will fight for you as for you. Here's your job You stand here and do nothing keep quiet God tells Moses lift your staff extend your hand over the sea and Split them Split splitting the waters. That's the board from the Flood Story. From the Flood Story, it's the springs of the deep waters split open.

And this is a different than separate, but the same idea. Yeah, correct, yeah. So this is a good example where it's not a very common word. It's in both cases related to the key moment of God dealing with the waters. In the flood story, it was about the flood waters unleashing. Chaos unleashing. Here, the splitting has to do with the taming of the waters.

So the same word has opposite functions in the story, but it's still meant to keep them. It can remind you. So the split the waters and let the sons of Israel go free in the middle of the sea on the Yabasha. Yabasha. So think through Genesis, days two and three, and chapter, excuse me, think through Genesis one, days two and three.

Day two is separating waters above and waters below. Day three is separating waters in dry land. Here, it's split the waters so that the Israelites may go in the midst of the sea, the separated waters, on the dry land. Yeah. So it's merging, days two and three, where the water's split, splitting the waters in dry land.land. Yeah, so good. All night long the winds blowing as we're going to see.

Oh, we haven't had the wind yet. No, no, sorry. Oh, that's about what's happened. Sorry. I should just read it. So then God set a pillar of cloud and fire between the camps of Egypt and Israel all night long. Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and Yahweh led away the sea, caused it to go back, by a strong eastern wind.

All night, he turned the sea into dry ground. And the waters were split. You can see all the vocabulary keeps getting repeated here. Oh, but the new thing is the wind. The wind, the ruach. The ruach. So that's the ruach from Genesis 1 and the ruach of the flood story that pushed back the waters. So the sons of Israel went right into the middle of the sea on the dry land, and the waters were a wall for them on their right and on their left. The Egyptians chased after them, every horse of Pharaoh chariots horsemen into the midst

of the sea, and it came about in the morning watch at sunrise. The sunrise. So just the whole thing is now being painted as God has split the waters. His people are being delivered on the dry land through the waters as the sunrise. So now it's all of days one through three of Jesus, the light, the separating waters, and it's all coming together here. Yahweh and the pillar of fire and cloud look down at Egypt, confused the camp of Egypt, and the waters began to turn back and cover the chariots. So now God's letting the waters turn back.

So they were in the sea, and not one of them was remaining. Not one of them remained. It's that remnant word from the Noah story. Oh, remnant. But again, the purpose of the word has been reversed in the flood story. Noah is the only one remaining in the waters. Now Israel is passing through the waters like Noah. And as for the bad guys, there's no remnant because they're consumed in the flood waters. Yeah. But the sons of Israel went through on dry land. So rich.

So this becomes the foundational salvation story through the waters at sunrise. They're like a new Noah and his family, the remnant, saved out of the waters. Pharaoh becomes like the sons of God and the evil generation consumed in the flood. And all of this is mapped on to God's creative intent to tame the chaos so that human life can flourish on the dry land. They're just, they all, these stories meld together in these really beautiful ways. Yeah. I mean, what's the purpose of doing this? I guess here's what I've always expected the Bible to do,

is to be really plain about like, what does it mean to be saved? Right? And let's get really, what's the word I'm looking for? Just be clear. If it's essential for your eternal destiny, you would expect it to be just crystal clear. Yeah, let's make it really crystal clear. But in the way that we're looking at these stories

and creation and now, and how salvation's kind of all tied into this, it gets more interesting and more rich and beautiful, but it becomes less clear. What's less clear? What becomes less clear is like, what does that mean for me? Right? Because if you said, well, salvation is this, say this prayer, do these things or something.

But if you say, well, salvation is God splitting open chaos for you to be able to thrive. And it's like, okay. Yeah, I got it. Okay, well, maybe I just have to finish we're all there in the second book of the Bible. Yeah, okay. I mean, where we're gonna land is baptism. Okay. Christian baptism is where all this comes together. All right. Jesus baptism, Christian baptism. But the point is that baptism becomes a symbol loaded with every one of these stories.

Yeah. And we're gonna watch the apostles do exactly that. They're gonna draw on all these stories to help understand the meaning of baptism. So it will become concrete for people who need to respond to Jesus. But it's this big, huge, beautiful thing that we're being invited into through baptism. All right, everybody, thank you for listening

to the Bible Project Podcast. I hope this was helpful for you. Our show today was produced by Dan Gummel with Music by Tay, the producer. The Bible Project is a non-profit crowd-funded animation studio. In Portland, Oregon, we make short animated movies about the books of the Bible, theological themes in the Bible. And we can produce these videos and this podcast because of your support.

We've got an army of amazing people and supporters behind us and through their generosity, we can make all of this stuff and then put it up online to give it all away for free. And so if you want to learn more about what we're doing, just check out our website at thebibletproject.com. Episode four of this conversation will be coming up pretty soon. So thanks for listening and we'll see you next time. Cheers.

Hi, my name is Eoriel Digisula. I'm from Portland, Oregon, born and raised, but I now reside in Baltimore. What I like about the Bobble project is they do a beautiful job with visualizing what the Bible has to offer, which is the truth. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. We are a crowd-funded project by people like me. Find free videos, podcasts, study notes, and more at thebibletproject.com. you you