BibleProject - How to Read the Bible Part 6: Jewish Scripture Meditation vs. Modern Meditation

Episode Date: August 11, 2017

This is part 6 in our How to Read the Bible series. In this episode Tim and Jon continue discussing the story of Cain and Abel in the Bible and why its a good example of Jewish Meditation Literature. The Cain and Abel story is famous for its lack of detail, mysteriousness and brevity. Most of the things that modern readers find frustrating in this story are actually key features of ancient Jewish literature. The first half of the show, (0-25:30) the guys finish the discussion on Cain and Abel. The second half (26:00-end) Tim outlines Psalm 1 and how it describes the ideal reader of the Hebrew scriptures. The guys also have a brief discussion on the differences between modern meditation practices and ancient Jewish meditation practice. Tim talks about the Jewish community that gave us the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, and how their habits of Scripture meditation give us a window into the kind of meditation described in Psalm 1. This episode is designed to accompany our How To Read The Bible video series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhmlJBUIoLk Thank you to all our supporters! You rock :) Show Resources: Jordan B Peterson Podcast Jerome Walsh Books Show Music: Defender Instrumental by Rosasharn Music Capital by Silent Partner Voyage by Lemmino

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

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

This is John at the Bible Project. And this week on the podcast Tim and I finish a conversation on how the Bible is ancient Hebrew meditation literature. Last week we talked about the story of Kane and Abel that you find on page 4 of the Bible. It's a classic story that highlights the Hebrew narrative style. It's short, confusing, ambiguous, and foria, people have studied and meditated on it. This week, Tim and I continue our conversation on the Canaan Abel story, and we discuss why meditation literature encourages this type of wrestling. So why do we use the word meditation?

It's actually the way the Bible portrays the ideal reader of this kind of literature. If you think about things like the Canaan Abel narrative, gonna bring good things into your life. And that's what the Bible's designed to do. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. What do you want to summarize right now? Do you want me to try to?

I think we could summarize while looking at Psalm 1. Oh, good. Great. But before we get to Psalm 1, can we just blitz through a couple more things in Genesis 4? Because I mean, like, since we're here. We're here, and we're saying it's genius. And let's just like continue on.

So we got to the point where Cain is angry and downcast. We got to this really brilliant God's statement of, do what is right. So this crushing your door desires to have you. Yeah. But you must rule over it. That's verse seven. And we talked about that. All right. Yeah. Verse eight. Now Cain said to his brother Abel, let's go out to the field. And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Yeah. That's a pretty in two lines there. It's like all of a sudden you're like, whoa, what just happened.

All right, that's a good, so think about the narrative technique here. We had Keynes response, anger, fallen face. God says, you got a choice here. And what we don't get is a whole depiction of the interior struggle of Keynes, the scene of him. It makes such a great scene. If we were going gonna make like a movie out of this him walking away from Talking to God. Yeah, I'm being like oh yeah, this is the breaking bad moment. Yeah, he could be like it could be over five episodes right now of Kane like totally struggling with the decision. Yeah Yeah, it would be of him like having dinner that night in a dark room and he starts to plot like okay I think I know what I'm gonna do.

Yeah, totally. No, what we get is the next thing happens is his cane talks to his brother. So let's go out to the field. Look out to the field. And you're like, wait, okay, the field, well the field is where Abel works, or excuse me, where Cain works, Cain's a farmer.

And so let's go out to my territory. And then all of a sudden just that he rose up and slew his brother. And so you have to fill in the story there. What was he, why did he do that? What was he thinking? And you go back to the previous verse. And all you have is... He allowed the, he allowed the animal. The predator sin to devour him. He allowed sin to eat his lunch. And one of them is like, have his way over. He chose not to rule over it. God's point was, you have a choice here. You can choose good and resist or you can allow sin to overwhelm you, but you have the

capacity to rule it. And the consequences are so severe, like it's killing your brother. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. It's not just taking a piece of fruit like in the parallel. Yeah. Previous chapter. Yeah, it's kind of like what was a big deal about the fruit? Okay. Yeah. What about the story? Yes. Killing your own brother. Yeah. So intense. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. So yeah, and think about there's two things happening here. Once again the previous verse seven if you choose good That's the hyperlink back to the good and not good good and evil of the dogs are getting the chapters one and two And then the phrase since crushing your door, but you can rule yeah, really

I was really has appeared only one time in the story so far And it's what the humans are giving. It's the image of God to rule Over the world on God's behalf and now we hear that you can rule your moral decisions Mm-hmm if you choose The implication is okay, well if I don't rule over sin Sin will have a Twitter sin will apparently rule me. Yeah, which sounds a lot like how Paul views sin in Romans chapter 6 Which he's almost certainly been reflecting on this very story and it's vocabulary So what does it mean to let's he's meditated on what does it mean to let sin rule you?

It means that I now define as good that my brother must die. That's the good thing That's the right decision. Yes, the right decision that my brother must die. That's the good thing. That's the right decision. Yes. The right decision because my life isn't working out the way I want it to work out. I'm not getting favor from God. What should I do? Well, maybe if I kill my brother, then I can get some of the favor. Yeah. Or I'm now angry because I've been left out. I'm the one who didn't get what I deserve. That's true. We don't get his motivation. Yeah. We just know he's angry.

And now he's going to kill his brother. Yeah. For some reason. That's good in his mind. That's right. And so having, this is a good example of what Jerome Walsh was talking about. You have to fill out possibilities. Yeah, we just filled out two. Yeah. And then you could bring those four. I don't, I don't deserve what I've got in life, and I'm angry about it.

This other person is getting what I deserve. The good thing for me to do is whatever, to absorb, right? Make my life more important than theirs. And so I kill them. That's one totally legitimate way of viewing what's going on here. And if we could probably imagine two or three others. Yeah. But the point is that we're intentionally not given

what Keynes motivations are, so that we'll go through the exercise. And wrestle with it. And wrestle with it. And you walk away from that cup of tea, pondering Keynes motivations, learning a lot about yourself. So like success in reading the Bible,

like a devotional time which is the phrase was used in my tradition or your quiet time. Success isn't coming away with necessarily some more understanding or some clear principle. Success could just be coming away with an ambiguity that you need to wrestle with for the rest of the week. Yeah, that's right. That success in and of itself, which was an, that's the, when I say freedom and excitement, that's what it brings is like, oh, cool. This is something that I get to carry with me and wrestle with and it can shape things. It's not, it's not like some textbook that I

have to go and memorize answers and then be done. Yeah yeah that's right that's exactly right and every story is just a universe of this kind of thing right now personally and for a project I'm working on I'm studying first and second Samuel yeah so I'm in the thick of the narratives about Saul and David in the period where Saul goes from the Chosen King, everybody's happy to his descent in the madness. And dude, I'm telling you, it's like, it is breaking bad. Or whatever Godfather series, it's a whole story that through this level of brilliance,

every, there's like 40 episode stories, I'll pack next to each other, and everyone is this brilliant, and you're watching this man descend into selfish madness, destructive madness. And it's so, I'm telling you, every time I read a new part and I'm taking notes and thinking about it, I'm walking away going like, oh my gosh,

I am so screwed up. Oh, so help me. Sput's the fear of the Lord and help me. It does, it does, because you're just like, I could do this. I see these on. I'm completely I could unravel. I see these on patterns and my own behavior

that easily lead me down a path. But you have to allow yourself to enter into the story of this ancient character. Yeah, you can't just float above it and try to pick principles from it. You got to enter into the world of this narrative. And it's the same kind of thing. Why did it all do that?

Why didn't he listen to Samuel? Why did he offer the sacrifice then and not wait? And you're wondering. And then it precisely gets you in the same headspace of oh Am I ever impatient? Oh? Geez, I think I am. I'm just like this guy. Oh, no, it's so good. Yeah, but you have to take the time Can we keep going? Oh for I just I was just oh you want to Genesis four. Yeah, okay Okay, it's gonna keep moving on you want to keep going. Okay. All right deal. No should we move on then? No?

Questions you have just keep going well, okay, so keep going. Okay, all right, deal. No, should we move on then? No, well, questions you have. Let's keep going. Well, okay, so verse nine, we're in verse nine. Kills his brother, yeah. Then the Lord says the cane, where's your brother able? This should probably help us, or in the last chapter when Adam and Eve, Yes.

Eat the fruit, they hide, and then God comes, Where are you? Where are you? Yes. So it's like total hyperlink back to that, that detail in the story. It's the same thing in Genesis 3, like why did God ask where they are?

Exactly. Why is he now asking where canis? So now he asks, where's your brother? Where's your brother? Yep. I don't know if he replied, am I my brother's keeper? Okay, so let's pause right there. So now it's another narrative statement.

Just instead of the narrator telling us and Cain thought to himself, you know, I'm not. You can't make out of it. You're the one who didn't regard my offering. Why are you? All we have is two words in Hebrew. I don't know. And then in my brother's keeper. And then I get to you thinking, well, no, you're his

brother. Oh, yes, that's right. But in my, the, the guard or the protector of my brother. Yeah. Am I the one to make sure my brother stays safe? Yeah. No, that's your job. You're the one to give him favor.

Yeah. Yeah. In my, it's such a rich question. Oh, man. It gets you thinking my my brother's keeper. Well, I so in one sense I am Yeah, I'm everyone's in no way. Yeah, he's a fellow human. Yeah, yeah, within the narrative world These are the only four humans So are they they're married at this point right? No, yeah, you can find his mystery-wise and a few paragraphs. So yeah, such a rich line and so you think, well, and once, yes, I guess you are. I wouldn't have put it that way, but now that you've put it that way, what a classic line.

First ten, the Lord says, what have you done? Listen. What, hold on, what have you done? It's exactly what he said to Adam and Eve. Oh. And to the serpent. Okay. What have you done? What have you done? Yep. Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. Yes. Holy cow. And so that's going to become very significant idea in the Bible. Yeah, innocent blood crying out from the ground. Yeah, that's weird statement. crying out from the ground. Yeah, that's a weird statement. Hmm. Well, okay, so there's some cultural things underneath there, and then once some little details.

So maybe let's just start from the ground. The word ground is the word Audamah, which is the same connected to the word Audam, human, Adam. So Audam comes from, humanity comes from the automaw. And they're supposed to return back to the automaw. So if you were reading this in Hebrew, it would be like, your brother's blood cries from the automaw. Yes. And it triggered your triggered like, oh, ground, humanity, our role to cultivate

the ground that we came from the ground, like all this stuff. It's like all in the... You came from the ground into the ground, you'll return, right? Genesis 3. But here, Abel has returned to the ground, so to speak, but not in a legitimate form of dying at a ripe old age. Rather, it's his blood that's been spilled on the Audemars, the ground. So then the innocent blood lying on the ground, instead of this person being buried in the ground,

the blood on the ground, and then there's a cultural thing about, and actually it's true, still on our culture, I think. Barriol is burial or cremation in the, you know, what do we call that, depositing the ashes in a certain kind of space. What we see that is a form of closure. Yeah. Most cultures are looking for a way to find closure for the end of a human life.

So many cultures have different practices and ways of doing this, but it's appropriate or we equate also with honor and dignity. Like if this person deserves burial as the proper way to honor their who they are and so on. And so most cultures have an awareness that to die in a way in which your body is not properly dealt with is somehow unjust. And so, especially true in biblical culture, to not be buried is one of the most dishonorable horrifying things you could imagine, to have your body just lie there in a field, being rotting, and your blood spilling on the ground.

And so you get this phrase that blood spilled on the ground becomes like this megaphone to the just good creator God, and that he notices all of the innocent blood spilled on the ground and it cries out to him. It's very powerful and it's not the only time used in the Bible, this image of the unburied or the blood crying out from the ground happens. It's the same phrase that's used of the Israelites in slavery and they cry it out and their cry rose up to God in Exodus chapter 2, it's the same phrase, crying out. What about like the in the song where the rocks will cry out, is it the same kind of, is it the same phrase?

Oh, well that's more about creation. Having this voice that praises God. That'd be interesting. Things that cry out to God. Things that cry out to God. Creation does. And also the suffering of slavery is a cry that God hears. God hears the cry of creation and praise. And God also hears the cry of innocent blood. So now we hear this is the statement that, oh my gosh, like human life matters to the creator of life. And so much so that God notices even the cry of an innocent death in the middle of a field where you thought nobody was listening. Why do they go out of the field? No one's going to know. No one's going to find him in the field. But then you realize God knows in the years. Yeah. Okay. Okay. First of all, now you're under a curse.

Now you're under a curse. You're cursed from the Audemars. Yeah, you're driven from the Audemars. And what in Genesis three, he's cursed, but the curse is actually the ground is gonna be harder to deal with. Is there some sort of link here? In Genesis three. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah, that's right. So yeah, in Genesis three, you're set to cultivate the garden. Yes. Excuse me. This Genesis 2. Right.

Here's the garden. Cultivate it. Work it. Become farmers. Yeah. Genesis 3, now that you've chosen to know and define good and evil on your own terms, the environment, both relational environment and your experience of life here is going to be one of hostility and tension rather than ease and peace. But you're still working

the automat, the ground in Genesis. And you're still working it. It's just hard. And now, and now what he's being cursed from is now you don't even get to stay put. You're in one place. Right. To work the ground. You're cursed away from the ground meaning and what is what he says you're going to be a wanderer. You're not going to have your own model land. Correct. And that's like an even worse situation. Yeah. Yeah. It's becoming the exile and sojourner who doesn't have a home anymore a restless wanderer on the earth Yes, and so Cain in verse 13 says that's harsh Yeah, yeah, my punch is more than I can bear you're driving me from the land Yes, and I will be hidden from your presence which by the way if you're like reading carefully you're like God didn't say

He'd be hidden from your presence. So Cain's like putting words in God's mouth. Yeah. Well, yeah, he assumes that, yeah, if I'm a wanderer, then God is no longer with me. Yeah. Which I guess you can understand why you would assume that at this point, but it is an assumption. Yeah. And it's the introduction of a phrase that the hiding of God's presence, or being hidden from God's presence becomes a negative image of God's judgment, or of the God's angry, or withholding His presence from Him. Oh, if God's presence is not with me, I'm in danger. It's interesting that Adam and Eve are the ones that hide.

Yes, yeah. And glass. Yeah. Story. Okay. And the last one. Yeah. Yeah. Story. Okay. And then everyone who finds me is going to kill me. So if your presence isn't with me to guard and protect me.

Yeah, that's over for me. So basically you're punishing me to death. Yeah. So I think it's really interesting like he's being such a whiner for having been punished for killing someone. But I'm a whiner too. So I get it. Yes.

Sorry, one more detail there. In verse 14, he says, You have banished me. It's exactly the word used to describe and God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden in chapter three. So another parallel story of being banished. But the banishment is away from the presence, so to speak, in Genesis three, which means away from the Garden. And then here, in Genesis 3, which means away from the garden.

And then here, it's another form of banishment. It's a banishment from having a place to call your own, become a wanderer. Yeah. And so this sets up the image then, to give in to sin, to not rule over it, but to allow bitterness and anger and resentment to rule me, and then to begin to make choices and have habits of behavior that have destructive relational results. That will result in greater and greater isolation, becoming a more and more isolated wanderer in the world with no home.

And that's the phrase it's used is to be hidden from God's presence. I'm in God's world But I'm becoming more and more hidden from God through my own Moral failures. Yeah, and who doesn't know that experience? Destructive choices that break down your relationships that I Continue to isolate you more and more as you go on through life. And that experience of being in the world as an exile because of my own stupid decisions. That is such an important image in the biblical story. We're going so much so we're going to make a whole video just about this concept of exile in the banishment.

So once again, the story is loaded. Loaded. All right, we can stop there. Okay. The market can't snax, but we don't even get to. Okay. What's your doledging me? So what just happened? We were showing how a chapter in the Bible is so for not even half a chapter 14 14 verses. Yeah. So packed, so dense, full of ambiguities and we could sit there and we can start to see as we wrestle with

those ambiguities how it connects to the rest of scripture and in that way not only is it telling us what the story is about it's actually messing with us and we're realizing like whoa when I get bitter I'm letting sin devour me and the consequences of that is being left without a home being isolated and wandering. And I get that when it comes to this story, but I also get that when it comes to my relationships with people. Relationships with my wife or whatever it is. And so now by meditating on this, it's becoming much more significant. So that's the Bible as meditation, literature. Okay, so that's a good summary. Now watch this. The story is giving us language and

imagery, especially the way sin gets personified, that's going to find greater clarification way later in the Bible. There's this little paragraph in the New Testament in the letter first John, chapter three. And he's talking about people who are children of the devil and children of God, chapter three verse seven. He says, little children, make sure nobody deceives you. The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just like God is righteous.

The one who practices sin, remember, Genesis 4, the first time that word occurs. The one who practices sin or does sin is of the devil for the devil sin from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose to destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God appeared for this purpose to destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God does sin because God's seed abides in him. He cannot sin because he's born of God.

So John's got this idea that you can either be a child of God because God's seed is in you and therefore you are a part of God's seed, or you can be the seed or the child of the devil because you do sin. And you realize this whole, all this vocabulary comes from Genesis 3 and 4, that there's the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. But there is coming one, a seed of the woman who's going to crush the head of the serpent and the seed of the woman. But there is coming one, a seed of the woman, who's going to crush the head of the serpent, which John phrases here as the son of God, who came to destroy the works of the devil. But even though that's happened, in Jesus,

victory over sin and spiritual evil, you and I still have a choice of what seed we want to be a part of. So, at verse 10, he says, by this, the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious. Anyone who doesn't do righteousness is not of God, nor the one who doesn't love his brother. This is the message we've heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not like Cain, who was... Yeah, at this point, you didn't think he was referencing to these stories, no, it was like, let me just name drop Cain.

Yeah, not like Cain, who was of the evil one. So, I think Genesis three said there would be the seed of the serpent, and you entertain two possibilities, there at least, this is talking about baby snakes, or it's talking about people who give in to the serpent's temptation just like. And then you get Genesis four, which is somebody facing another temptation,

and the temptation is called sin, and you watch Cain do it. Now you realize like, oh, I'm supposed to see people who give in to sin as allowing themselves to become the seed of the serpent. Part of the legacy of evil. The legacy of evil. And so that's exactly what he says here.

Don't be like Cain, who was of the evil one and so murdered his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Remember, that was the question we asked. He just says, because his deeds were evil and his brothers were righteous. Yeah. So what he's done is he's... Well, what he's saying is that Cain and Abel are these archetypes of the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.

And the more that I make, give into evil and act on those evil, whatever, temptations or purposes, I become of the evil one. It becomes my nature. Identity. Yeah. But there is a different seed, a different nature that I can receive as a gift, and it's to become the seed of the woman leading

to the overcoming of evil, which is, that's the story of Jesus. So why this little paragraph is great, is one, it shows us a New Testament author who's read- Just meditated on Genesis 3 and 4. But also, they're also reading that story in light of where it all led to in Jesus.

John is reading the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus and then he goes back and he meditates on every single story of the Old Testament, now in light of the whole story. And so it's both allowing each story as to become a little universe of meditation to reflect on myself and life and God, and then it's also learning how to read backwards and forwards and read every story and poem in light of every other story and poem as a unified whole. And this is what we mean when we say reading the Bible as ancient Jewish meditation literature. Yes, that's great. So why do we use word meditation? That's an intentional ambiguity.

We have not answered that at this point. Well, because the idea of meditating is slowing down and concentrating on something. But did you pull that word out of a dictionary or a thesaurus and go, oh, that's a good word. Right. Yeah. So I didn't just think it up. It's actually the way the Bible portrays the ideal reader of this kind of literature.

And the place where the Bible describes the ideal Bible reader as in Psalm one, Psalm one. So, this is great, now we're looking at poem. Yeah, we did, we did, we did, we did, we did this story, now we're looking at a poem. And we looked at some discourse in John and now we're looking at. Yeah, so it begins with how blessed, how fortunate is a person who doesn't do three things.

He doesn't walk, stand, or sit in the company of certain people. He doesn't walk with in the plan, the plans of the wicked. He doesn't stand in the path of sinners sinners or sit in the seat of mockers, stuffers. So each of these to walk is a very common image of your way of life. Okay. Life as a path or life as a journey. The metaphor is life as a journey. To stand is about where you're seated and stationed and rooted. Yep. Your position. Oh, excuse me, where you stand, your position, sorry.

And then where you sit is where you're rooted. So all these images of life as a journey, life as a position. Yeah, right. And life as a location where you're as a home base. Yeah, standing is kind of like your vantage point and sitting seems to be more like your home base. Yeah.

And so the wicked, the rush off, the sinners, and the scoffers. So that could be your way of life. That could be your point of view. That could be your starting position. Yes. And the fortunate human is the one who doesn't end up in any of those scenarios. So if the fortunate person doesn't end up pursuing those kinds of whatever life trajectory is, then what do they do that makes them so fortunate? And what we're told is the blessed person's delight is in the Torah of Yahweh. Yeah. Which if you're reading long, it says in the law of the Lord.

The law, excuse me, yes, the law of the Lord. But that's referring to the Torah. The Hebrew word is Torah. The teaching. Yeah. Which, in its most limited sense, can refer to just teaching that an elder gives a priest gives or a prophet. The phrase Torah of Moses or Torah of the Lord can come to refer to the body of covenant

literature connected with Moses. It can also come to refer to just biblical literature as a whole. So delight in the Bible. Delight in the Bible. Yeah, scripture. The Bible nerd. So they first of all find delight. Why is it that they find delight?

Or how do they express that delight? Well what they do is every day and night they meditate on the Torah. So meditate is English word in Vogue. Yeah. Right. Right. And we typically think of sitting quietly, emptying your mind. Yes. Yes. And maybe repeating a phrase. Yeah. No, that's right. Listening to your breathing. Yeah, that's a great point. So yeah, in terms of the way of influence, yeah, of like yoga or mindfulness, I mean, there's so much wisdom to engaging these habits of breathing and emptying your mind for the purpose of kind of calming yourself. That's not at all what's being described here.

It's not the meditation here. Rather than emptying your mind, this form of meditation is about filling your mind, but about filling your mind with something other than just your own thoughts. Right. So the word meditate in Hebrew is ha-gah. Ha-gah. And it occurs about like eight or nine times. So it's not a super common word, but it's used enough.

We have a very clear picture. And actually the majority of times that it's used, it's animals that do it. Oh, they're meditating. Oh, interesting. So it describes what a bear does over its prey. A bear, a bird, a cat is like a raccoon. It kills a raccoon or in biblical terms would be like a rock badger.

Right, absolutely. And so yeah, it's like eating it. It's eating it. So what sounds does a big bear make? Because it's eating animal. Eating sounds. Yeah. It's like how small Oh, right, yeah.

Like mouth noises. Right. Yeah. Right? Like growling. We have a English word we have for that is growl. Growl, but also the smacking and the enjoyment that we're having. Two times this word, once in Isaiah 59, once in Ezekiel 7, it describes

what doves do up in the little rock crevice or on, you know, in the eaves of a building, the doves will go up there and make a tape and haga. Ha ga. Which we have making their little noises. They're definitely. Yes, we have a very specific way for that. Ningle-cooing, yeah. Yeah. Coo-coo. So in both cases it's a low, it's a quiet, low, primal guttural sound. Yeah, right. While you're concentrating, it's something. Well, with a bear concentrate. Yeah, yeah. With the pigeons. Yeah, that's really good. So this is what the fortunate person does to the Bible. Day and night, they haggah in it.

And the word we use is meditate. So yeah, so meditate, it's fine, because it is about focus. But what we miss with meditate is the idea of quiet reading. What this is envisioning is somebody who quietly reads the Bible allowed to themselves. For the purpose of focusing on it, and I've begun this practice too, and I notice it all the time, in my habit times of reading the Bible, I read it aloud, quietly to myself, and it engages my whole body and mind in a way that's very different than when I read

silently. And so you read it aloud all the time. And then when you read it aloud all the time, you also begin to think about it all the time. It's what fills your mind. Why did Cain do that? Why did Saul do that? Why is Genesis 3 next to Genesis 4? And why is banishment used in both stories? And why is banishment an image for the consequences of sin? Yeah, and then ask it. And these are the questions that are filling your thoughts during the day, then when you encounter your own situation, these are the words and the images and ideas that you have to process your life, which is what the point is, is not just to read this, to read it, but for it to begin to shape you.

Yeah. So first of all, someone is saying that's the ideal way to engage the book of literature, is to read it aloud quietly to yourself on a regular basis, so that it's what you think about constantly. Yeah. It's one thing. The second thing is also the statement is saying that the Bible has been designed to be the kind of literature that you can read and think about for a lifetime. Hmm. Inplied here is that there's enough to think about. Day and night.

To read and think about every day for night, to read and think about, every day for the rest of your life and you will not have exhausted the depth and richness of what's going on here. So what does that assumes that the Bible is designed with the kind of depth to it that no one human mind can exhaust that even in the course of a whole lifetime.

Right. And I brought this up before, I'm some previous podcast episode, but about the Dead Sea Scroll community. Oh yeah. And we have their own literature about their habits and their practices. Oh yeah. It's called the rule of the community. They had to like read one passage for like 10 years. You had to be a Bible nerd already, be like 10 years immersed in what they call, and they called the Bible the scroll of meditation, and they use exactly this word from Psalm 1. They got the idea from Psalm 1. So they were trying to be a community of Psalm 1 type people. And what Psalm 1 is telling us is both the ideal readers because the producers of the Bible were

these kinds of people. Total Bible nerds. And so you both had to have a decade of Bible nerd dumb under your belt. And then the life of the community is decades of daily scripture reading, meditation, and prayer, along with other day-to-day life activities. And so, in their minds, it takes a whole community of people, a lifetimes worth of not even one human mind, can comprehend everything that's going on here. You need a group of people to read and meditate on it together.

And the outcome of that is this image of the tree planted by streams of water, which it's a garden of Eden image of the eternal tree. First three. The eternal tree, it's an unending stream. The scriptures are an unending supply of life and richness, which results in a human life that's fruitful. If you think about things like the Canaan Abel narrative, apparently, you'll be the destructive

life. Oh, but if you think about it, it's going to bring good things into your life. And that's what the Bible is designed to do. So yeah, this isn't a paradigm that either of us knew about, you know, through our own growing up experiences. Like the Bible was just not this. Yeah. And then once you grasp that the Bible is this, the Lord said, and you realize,

oh, like biblical narrative is gonna be a unique kind of thing if it's written in this culture with this set of assumptions and design techniques. Biblical poetry is gonna differ from other cultures' poetry, biblical speeches, biblical laws, biblical, whatever. It's all going to have a unique flavor that we're calling ancient Jewish meditation literature. And so the idea isn't mastery. It isn't some sort of completeness where eventually you will crack all the codes and have all the answers.

But you are supposed to grow in your competency and confidence. Yes, but it's not about, yeah, I won't stay in big US and shallow. It'll continue to get deeper and more meaningful. Yeah, you do grow and you do learn, but at the same time, you're aware that this is a deep, deep well, so there's always more to discover. And that I could always be wrong, probably about lots of things. That after another decade of life and meditation on the scriptures

all have an even more developed view of things that hopefully will be more truthful and faithful. But there you go, that's the kind of humans this the Bible is meant to produce. It's like faithful humans who rule the world well in partnership with God. Because they're choosing the good. Yes. And not letting sin devour them. Yeah, not letting sin eat their lunch every day. Keep their lunch. Yeah. I love that image. Thank you for listening to the Bible Project Podcast.

We've got lots of other resources on our website. We've got videos and study notes. It's all on our website, thebibletproject.com. If you're new to the podcast, I'd recommend checking out our episode on what's the story of the Bible. It's a good overview of the entire biblical narrative, and it's not the story you would likely expect. We're a nonprofit in Portland, Oregon. We make these resources for free because of a growing number of supporters just like you, so thanks for being a part of this with us. 1.5% 1.5% 1.5%

1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5%

1.5% 1.5% 1.5% you you