BibleProject - The Purpose of The Law - Law E1

Episode Date: April 29, 2019

Welcome to our first episode looking at laws in the Bible! In part 1 (0-4:00), Tim explains how this set of conversations will be different than the previous podcast episodes that looked at biblical law (the first two episodes of this podcast). In parts 2 and 3 (4:00-17:45 and 17:45-35:00), Tim and Jon discuss ancient law vs. modern law. They talk about the importance of biblical law, but how these laws often cause hang-ups for modern readers. Tim notes that for centuries, interpreting biblical law has been a major point of debate among Christians, Jews, and everyone else. In part 4 (35:00-end), Tim explains a debate over the number of laws in the Old Testament Torah. Some say there are 611 commands; others say 613. So which is it? This is one small but significant example that illustrates how important interpreting the law was in Israel. Here’s a glimpse into the debate to give you a fuller picture. A few centuries after Jesus, rabbis still firmly held to both views. The main disagreement came down to two passages where a commandment could be implicitly read. Consider: Exodus 20:1, “I am Yahweh your God” = Believe that Yahweh exists. Deuteronomy 6:5, “Yahweh your God, Yahweh is one” = Believe that Yahweh is one. Yet even though the number of laws in the Torah can be debated, early rabbis recognized the ability to “reduce” many laws to just a handful that fully captured the spirit of the law. A famous passage illustrates this in the Babylonian Talmud (one of the primary sources for interpreting Jewish religious law and theology). It states: Six hundred and thirteen commandments were given to Moses. David reduced those commandments to eleven. (Psalm 15) Isaiah reduced them to six. (Isaiah 33:15-16) Micah the prophet reduced them to three. (Micah 6:8) Isaiah again reduced them to two. (Isaiah 56:1) Amos reduced them to one. (Amos 5:4) Habakkuk further reduces to say, “But the righteous shall live by his faith.” (Habakkuk 2:4) Throughout the episode, Tim highlights differences in the law. For example, Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 (both presenting the Ten Commandments) talk about the Sabbath in slightly different ways. Or consider another instance, where Moses gives two different commands about how to prepare the Passover. Should you roast it or boil it? According to Exodus 12:8-9, you should roast it and not boil it. But in Deuteronomy 16:6-7, Moses tells the people to boil it. These problems we see in the law are more than just ancient interpretation. To modern readers, some of the laws seem noble and inspiring, while others seem odd, primitive, or even barbaric. We encounter all three of these examples in two adjacent chapters in the Torah: In Leviticus 19, we read about God’s command to leave the extra gleanings of the harvest for the needy and stranger. God shows his care for the least of these. A few verses later, we find laws about tattoos and beard etiquette. Weird! One chapter later, we read the command that “a medium or a spiritist shall surely be put to death.” (Leviticus 20:27) Now these laws leave us feeling a tension around how to understand the idea of “biblical authority.” What does obedience to the laws of the Torah mean? Do we obey all of them, some of them, or none of them? This issue has caused many conflicts in both Jewish and Christian history. For example, what is a Jew supposed to do about sacrificial ritual laws when the temple is destroyed in 586 B.C.? Or for a follower of Jesus, how do these laws relate to us as the messianic new covenant family? We see that Jesus said, “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.” (Matthew 5:17) So what can Paul mean when he says, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” (Romans 10:4) Yet Paul still quotes from the Ten Commandments in places like Ephesians 6:1-3. Overall, Tim makes the case that the law presented to us in the Old Testament is not a “code” in the same way modern readers often think of a law code. Instead, we see how Moses, the prophets, Paul, and even Jesus handled the laws. Each held a deep respect for the underlying meaning and ideals presented by the law to the people of God. Though times and customs changed, God’s law served as a bedrock of guiding ideals to help the people of God (both then and now) live in such a way as to love God and love neighbor. Thank you to all our supporters! Visit our website: thebibleproject.com Show Produced by: Dan Gummel Show Music: Defender Instrumental: Tents Pilgrim Instrumental Roads by LiQWYD Skydive Loxbeats Show Resources: Jacob Neusner, The Babylonian Talmud: A Translation and Commentary, vol. 17a (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2011), 120–122.

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.

How someone with the Bible is, and you might get the answer, it's a book full of laws, rules for how to please God. The laws have throughout history and Judaism and Christianity have created different crises of biblical authority. And there are a lot of laws in the Bible, and if you've ever read any of them, especially the ones in the Old Testament, they can get really confusing. There's over 100 laws that get repeated, and if you compare laws that are about the same thing, you'll start to notice differences. Differences in the laws.

Well, that's something that's difficult for modern Westerners to understand. Isn't the law supposed to be some very clear clean document that uniformly applies to everyone? For most of human history and certainly in ancient Newaries that was not how law worked. So maybe I'm the one who needs to back up and get a whole different paradigm for what the tour is accounting for the laws and for the narratives. So today we talk about the laws in the Bible. That's one of the most rewarding set of conversations we've had in a long time. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. The law. Here we are beginning another conversation. Yeah, a second conversation.

Yeah. In fact, we're talking about how to read the legal or law parts of the Old Testament. Mm-hmm. Our first two episodes of this podcast ever were about a similar topic. Yeah, by the time we decided to do this podcast, that was the video we were discussing. That's right. Yeah. Was the theme video on the law. Yeah. So you turned on a microphone. Yeah. We were in, we were under the stairs. Oh, man, we were in that basement room. Yeah. Under the stairs. Yeah. That was a dark small little room. Small room. It worked. And that was a great conversation. But now you've got a lot more that you've been thinking about. Yep. And that conversation was on looking at the law from the point

of view of a theme that strings through the whole narrative structure of the Bible. Yep. And how it's fulfilled in Jesus. This conversation is more specifically on when you're in the Bible reading law code. How do you read it? And how do you think about it? Yep, that's right. Yeah. Which is a similar conversation, but slightly different.

Yeah, it is because how you make sense of the laws in the first five books of the Bible. Well, a lot of it is how they fit into the larger narrative context and where they fit in the plot of the overall storyline of the Old Testament. That's what our law video is about. So it's part of it. But there's also kind of another next level set of skills for how to read and engage the laws. That's really interesting, which is a lot of what we'll talk about in this conversation. Cool. Yeah.

Yeah, so the next level, 2.0. 2.0 conversation. Yeah, totally. Okay, let's start with some facts. Alright. And then... And then show the problems in the facts. Okay. There's a lot of laws in the Old Testament.

If you're doing the one-year Bible read through, or like the six-months read through the Old Testament, or something. First of all, when I think of law, I think of... Yeah, good. Start there. Just, well, I'm an American and we have laws like don't kill each other. There's all sorts of laws over everything. That's right. Every couple of years, we vote.

Okay, that's a law? Well, it'll be some form of legislation or an ordinance that we're voting that has been proposed. Oh, we vote on laws. We vote on new laws. Yeah, new laws. That's right, or changing laws. I'm trying to think when laws come into our day-to-day view. What do we think about it?

It's when we vote on them, when we hear about them being enforced or. But then also, like, you know, we think of, oh, you can't do that, it's against the law. Don't speed. Yeah. That's against the law. That's right. Then if you break the law, there's either fines or

even worse in person. That's right. So law can have this law enforcement. That's more on the enforcement side. Where you think of their prohibitions and there's enforcement. Then there's a sense of law in our common day to day life that that floats above that, which is just these are the rules of engagement that we've all agreed on. Yeah, but we live here in this city, in this state, in this country, and so on. That's really, that's all they are. There's, you know, some people, there's different views on whether you can say some of them are natural. They're innate agreements that humans have between each other.

We usually break those anyway. But if it's to be explicit and say, here's the rules for how we're going to live together in the city. Yeah. That's the law. But if there's no enforcement, then it's not really a law. It's more of a courtesy. That's a good point.

Yeah, custom. Or a custom, yeah. Yeah, practice. Yeah, and really the only punishment is social being a social outcast. We're not being accepted by the in-group. But as soon as there is a penalty for not adhering to the mutually agreed-upon way, then that's when I think of it as a law. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, the English word, you're right, conjures up both of those nuances of like just the rules of our community and then also this law enforcement.

Right. Yeah. I can't detach those two. It's true. Yeah. Am I supposed to in my mind? Well, let's just let's just note that that's the first thing that comes to your mind. Okay. And then as we read on, we'll find out. But at its most basic, it's just the rules that agree upon rules that humans create, and then agree and say, this is how we're going to live together. There's the rules of civic engagement. But it's about its politics in the classic sense. It's dealing with the polity, or the Poulis, the the Greek word polis, which means city. City. A group of people in a walled environment who agree on a set of terms for how they're going to live together. And one of the main English words is law. Also a statute ordinance.

I feel like when we, the last election or the last voting round in Oregon, we voted on ordinances. Oh, I remember having, oh, it's like what's the difference. Language is so complicated. Read these long descriptions anyway. So, if you're reading the Bible, you read happily or unhappily, I don't know, depends on if you're making any sense of what you're reading. I think you're glued. The book of Genesis is 50 chapters of action-packed narrative. Yeah.

There's some genealogies that make people bored, but I think they're fascinating. You can skip those. But 50 chapters, turn into Exodus, blazing narrative. I mean, just so excited. You get out into the wilderness by chapter 16 of Exodus. Yeah. And then you have crises of water and food, thrilling. You get to the foot of a mountain, you know, and then you have crises of water and food, thrilling.

You get to the foot of a mountain, you know, divine being appears in cloud and smoke, and then the narrative just grinds to a halt. And for the next four chapters, you're reading what feels like an ancient law code. It begins with the Ten Commandments. Yeah. God speaks to Israel, the Ten Commandments, and then 42 more follow. After the Ten. After the Ten. Then you're reading the Blueprints for the Tabernacle. Which isn't law. It's not law, but it is stated in the form of commands. You shall make

the ark as a box, this many qubits, this length, make the curtains this way, do just as I command you. So even though it's a blueprint, it's stated in terms of like a legal requirement. Interesting. It is interesting. But sorry, but it's not considered law, even though it's commanded. It is. Yeah.

And in Jewish tradition is considered part of the commands of the Torah. So when they add up all the laws, is that like one? The blueprints is one? The blueprints are all part of the make an arc, make the table of showbred. Is the table of showbred one and the arc is one and the curtains is one, or is it all together one?

Separate. They're all separate. They're separate. So how many laws in the... Wait, let's finish the... Over this finished tour. Okay. Then there's a narrative of Moses doing all this thing.

Yeah, yeah. Then they finish the tabernacle, and Moses can't go in. All right. God shows up. This is the end of episode. Live in the tabernacle and Moses can't go in. So you gotta solve that problem.

That problem solved by a block of nine chapters of ritual laws, like a priestly tech manual of how to get in the temple of the different types of sacrifices. It's all about sacrificial rituals and then appointing the priesthood. And then the priests are appointed, everything's great, and then two of the priests

blow it big time. They take upon themselves their dads responsibility to offer incense in the temple and that doesn't go well for them. That's an understatement. It's an understatement. They die. And then their dead corpses are in the holy place, which is not one of the main ways that things become ritually impure. And so what follows after that are six long chapters about ritual impurity and purity, how to make things purer after they've been made impure. After that is a whole block of laws about Israel's

as a whole, not just priests, moral, ritual purity, then there's laws about Israel being in the camps as like the organization of their camps, the desert, right, It laws about trumpets. Then they begin to leave Mount Sinai. Finally, you've left Mount Sinai. It's been like two and a half books of the Bible. And the narrative's gone nowhere except all the little

inners person narrative. Yeah, there's actually some important narratives. We'll talk about, but there's very few. Yeah. Then they're off into the desert and then it's just bad bad news. All these rebellion narratives and numbers, the road trip gone bad. And then each narrative of the people's rebellion and the wilderness is interspersed with a block of more laws.

Sometimes what seems to modern readers is like really random topics. You'd be like a rebellion of the priests, and then there'll just be a set of laws about Nazarite vows or additional offerings you make on this habit. I remember the first time reading through the Bible, I was in a haze through all of that stuff. Totally.

That's what at that point, law codes become a... It kinda starts to hold. Yeah, yeah, totally. Yes, very common. Then they go through the wilderness, they get to the foot of the Jordan, the edge of the Jordan River, and then Moses is about to die, and he gives a long speech where he says he's expositing the laws of the covenant, and it's the Book of Deuteronomy, and the center of Deuteronomy is chapters 12 to 26, and it's just hundreds of more losses. Yeah.

And most of them are repeats. They're repeated from the earlier sections. So then you're just like, I'm over this. Yeah. Like my year was far enough reading it the first time. Totally. Yeah. I'm reading them again.

Again? I'm reading all this ancient legal literature again. Yeah. And this one most people bail if they've made it that far. If they've made it that far. They bail a Deuteronomy. Yeah. And by that point, by the time you finish Deuteronomy, you have taken in over 600 individual laws and commands given to ancient Israel. Yeah. That's a lot.

Yeah. And they feel random and they feel irrelevant often times. Yeah. You're relevant at best. Aude, at medium, and primitive and barbaric. It wears. Right. So this is a major issue. It's not a great strategy for the beginning of a holy book.

I feel like if God had a literary agent, he would have been like, you know, let's rework the first five chapter. Or five chapter. So it's, um, yeah. There's a lot going on here. A lot of the issues that work here are problems in our, how we come to it. The problems in us, modern readers, and in the assumptions that we have loaded, that we don't even know about when we come to the Bible. Some of the problems are just in cultural translation,

the way that laws work in the storyline of the Bible, is once it's pointed out to you, it seems really common sense. It's not that hard actually of a thing to get, but it's a paradigm shift. If you think the Bible is some kind of divine behavior manual, so you can make baby Jesus happy or whatever. By living according to the law of divine behavior manual. So you can make baby Jesus happy or whatever. By living according to the law of God.

But that's gonna frustrate you real quick. You're like, do I obey? You said it in our law video, do I obey? Some of these, none of these, all of these. What am I supposed to do? Yeah, picking chews. Yeah. Well, the top 10, those are good.

We'll keep those. It's right, they're dead. Well, maybe nine of the 10. You're not told. It's the Sabbath, at least for Americans. Some of it wasn't a Protestant anyway. And Catholics. So some of the problems are on our end that we need to address those.

Some of the problems are in the cultural gap. And so learning about what law codes were in the ancient world and how they were actually really, really different than the way we conceive of law. That little conversation we had about law at the beginning here, the way that Moses or Jeremiah or any of the ancient Israelites,

Ruth would have thought about law would have been really different, different concept of law. So we need to address that. And then it's learning to see that these laws embody a different way of thinking about the world. If you think about it, there are certain laws that any culture has that are unique to their worldview.

I didn't prepare for this with an illustration. And example of a law that isn't like universal, but it's specific to a world. Oh, okay, here, because this is related to religion in America, religious institutions are given a certain non-profit tax status. Ooh, even older, I learned this when I was a pastor. For clergy, yeah, there's this tax rule called the housing allowance. Yeah. It goes all the way back to when clergy were paid very little, and so part of their compensation would be in reduced housing costs

by giving your pastor a place to live in the parish house, next door to the church. Yeah. And so all of a sudden, whatever they spend on housing can be tax deductible. Yeah. So that law is carried forward, and now for some foreclosure you qualify. That's very unique.

It's very unique. That's unique to the religious history of one particular country. If you go live in another country, you're not gonna find that. Don't have housing laws. And so you're saying that's from a specific world view. Yeah.

And that the mentality of young America was, hey, we really care about our pastures. Yeah, this is an honored institution and we want, right? I mean, that's what a government does when it subsidizes something. Yeah. It's saying this should have a place in our society, even if it's not financially sustainable by itself. Yeah. So that comes from a value set, a set of convictions and beliefs and a world view that say this thing's valuable. So in the same way, all these ritual laws about bodily fluids and purity and sacrifices and

Sabbath, all the feasts and all the days, holy days that are set on patterns of the number seven, this is all symbolic world view stuff. And once you see how these all these different laws actually tie together and just like a count on two hands, the set of symbols at work, tying all the laws together, it really helps. Okay. At least helps us become more sympathetic readers of these ancient laws. So I've learned a ton over the years that's really helped these seconds of the Bible become way more vibrant and profound to me. Even so, they're not my favorite parts of the Bible to read,

but they've become way more interesting and engaging than they were even three, four years ago. Yeah. So that's what I hope the video can at least begin people to start that journey. Yeah, that makes sense. You asked how many laws are there? Hmm. I said over 600. Over 600 laws.

That's not too many. I mean, it depends on your point of view. If you're trying to read through the Bible. For some reason that feels a reasonable amount. Like if you're just like, yeah, you're going to read through the Bible. And it's going to be very difficult because you got to read all these ancient laws. Oh man, there's. I see.

If it was like a thousand, and you're like, really, how many are there? 600, okay, I could power through 600. So more duplicates, that's all right. Yeah, well, that makes the number technically smaller. Yeah, okay, that's good point. I'll grant you that. I think it's a lot.

It is a lot. I think it's a lot. Well, I mean, I wouldn't want to memorize 600 laws. There is an ancient debate in Jewish tradition about exactly how many there are. This is really interesting. There are two standard counts. One is 611. 611 laws. The other is 613. So the close. Yeah. Okay. The close. We're not too far off of each other. So there's two laws in the dispute. Yeah.

In the Babylonian Talmud, which is a big collection of traditional Jewish rabbis conversations about everything in the world view, but particularly about the hundreds of commands, because there's only 600. Right. And they were trying to discern in the 600, the principles of divine wisdom, yeah, that governed every aspect of a lot of human life, which would require tens of thousands of laws. And so the Talmud is them kind of like extending those 600 laws into principles that can then become those tens of thousands of laws that cover all of life. Yeah, they're using the 600 plus as a base like axioms Yep, to give them the core principles and then they reason out and these are then the further laws and customs that Jewish people yep will use yeah, yeah, that right. The classic one is on the Sabbath.

Don't work on the Sabbath. Yeah. And then there's one that says, there's additional clarifications that says don't light a fire on the Sabbath. And that's in the Torah. In the Torah. Yeah, and so there you go.

Don't work. Example, don't make fire. Yeah. And don't prepare food. But can you like prepare the fire? And it's not like that. Yeah, right. So then, yeah, what, there's a whole section of the Talmud

that's the debates and conversations and the formulating the principles. And it became an official list, I forget, off the top of my head. It's in the 40s of the basic, sorry, 40 rules. Oh, 40 rules. 40 clear guidelines through. Oh, principles that came out of the Torah what not to do on the Sabbath Oh, oh first specifically for the Sabbath specifically for the time. So I'm sorry. That's totally too long to get to it

Yeah, so the two rules in the Bible don't work on the Sabbath Example don't make don't make your food and don't light a fire those two get probed and debated over yeah to make a list of 40 and the 40 will then cover pretty much everything you need. Correct. So that's how the Talmud works. So this is the section of the Talmud where Rabbi Simu-lai is entering this conversation of how many commands are in the Torah. So this is a quote from, I forget where. It always starts with a quote, and then they discuss the quote. So the quote is, God gave us abundant Torah and numerous commandments. Rabbi Similai expounded, 613 commandments were given to Moses,

365 negative ones, thou shalt not. Do this, don't do that. And interestingly, 365. Yeah, that's a... 65 negative ones. That will shout not. Do this, don't do that. And interestingly, 365. Yeah, that's a... That corresponds to the days of the solar year. There are 248 positive commandments. That will shout, corresponding to the parts of a man's body.

Okay. So some footnote there. Yeah. On some ancient accounts, there are 248 parts of the body. Yeah, that's interesting. Okay. So some footnote there. Yeah. On some ancient accounts, there are 248 parts of the body. Yeah. That's interesting. Okay. Now, this is interesting.

Rabbi Hamnuna, this is how the Talmud will often work. Okay. There will be an intro quote. One rabbi says this, and then another rabbi will come and say, wait a minute. And then it's a straight-up dialogue. Yeah. That's what the Talmud is. Yeah.

It's it's a bit ofup dialogue. Yeah, that's what the Talmud is. It's it's a bit dialogues of the rabbis. Yeah, disagreeing. And then sometimes coming to a conclusion. Rabbi Hamnuna says, what verse of scripture indicates that there are 613? Well, Moses commanded us Torah in inheritance of the congregation of Jacob, that's a quote from Deuteronomy chapter 33.

The numerical value assigned to the Hebrew letters of the word Torah is 611. That's a fact. So there are... Because in Hebrew... In Hebrew, the letters... The letters are letters. The letters are numbers. The letters are also the number system. Yeah. So just stop. Just let that register.

Every time you're looking at words... You could also be in Hebrew, you are looking at numbers. The letters are also the number system. So they just stop, just let that register. Every time you're looking at words, you could also be in Hebrew, you are looking at numbers. And sometimes, and sometimes that's important. Yeah, the biblical authors, they know it. Very keen on this, and they often were very creative. We've talked about one of these, the section of Proverbs in the center of the book, chapters 10 to 22, there's

375 Proverbs in that section, and that section begins with a little heading that says the Proverbs of Shlomo, Solomon, and Shlomo is the number, 375. That's awesome. It's a good one. Yeah, they do stuff like this. Yeah. So the word Torah for letters in Hebrew and it's the number 611, which is the number of commands in the Torah minus two. So Rabbi Humnuna goes on. He says, but that

611 doesn't account for the two. These two other ones. And what are the two? The first one is I am. That's a law. Is it one of the six 13? So the divine name is counting as a law. It's interesting. The second one is you shall have no other gods since these have come to the mouth of the Almighty. Here's how the count got to 613. There are actually 611 thou shalt and thou shalt nots. The two additional ones, one is from the first commandment, which is actually not a commandment. The opening of the ten commandments isn't a command, it's a statement. God says, I am Yahweh your God. The assumption being that's a

command to believe that Yahweh exists. In other words, they're assuming that statement is a command. Believe that I am. So that makes it in the 613. And then the other one, this is interesting. I'm just now realizing this. You shall have no other gods. Oh yes, okay. You shall have no other gods is the one that follows. As, but that is a shell. That's interesting. Sorry, this is a conflict of my notes that I'm just realizing in this moment. There are other rabbis who say that the Shema

is the other, the second implicit command, namely, the Yahweh is one, to believe that Yahweh is one. That's how. That's how you got rid of two. That's how I understood the second one to be, but then right here in the Talmud it says, I am, and you shall have no other gods. Yeah, and that's from Hamna, and his logic is, both of these commands come from the mouth of God. Come to God himself. So let's not count them as law.

No, he's adding them to the 611. I see. So it's like we have 611 that all come from Moses, via Moses, but those two come straight from God. Yeah, that's Rabbi Humnuna's argument. And that gets us to 611. 600 and that gets us to 613. 13. Okay. Now, but what it seems like is happening though is I just want to make sure in the 613, included in that is the I am Yahweh the implicit law.

In the implicit command. And then the second one, Yahweh is one, the Shema is also in the 613. In implicit command. And it's an implicit command. So another way to look at it, what you were going to describe is that there's two implicit commands. There's two implicit commands that aren't formed as thou shalt or thou shalt not. You're kind of adding to the rabbinic tradition right now, it seems like. No, no, no, I'm telling you, the classic rabbinic conversation, are there 600-11 or are there 613?

Yeah. One was there was a rabbi in the medieval period in the 1100s, rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon, who became known as Maimonides, or his acronym was Rambam. Rambam. Yeah, Rambam. Yeah.

So he was a Arabic speaking and Hebrew, medieval philosopher and rabbi. And he wrote kind of the official commentary on the Torah and all the laws. He was kind of collecting all the discussions of generations past and he put it into this collection called Mishnetora or a second Torah. And he came to the count 613. So wait, oh wait, so the Mishna all comes from him? No, no, got it. Mishnetora is different than the Mishna. Oh, sorry. Sorry. That's okay. So he advocated 613 and that's why it's the standard number today is because he took the two rival positions, argued it out and said, let's go with 613. 613, that's the deal.

That's still today. However, it's important to note that that 613 contains two implicit laws. Commands that aren't phrased as commands. One is the Shema, Yalai is one, and the other one is I am yalay your God. If you take those two out, you get 611, and lo and behold, that number is the value of the word Torah itself. Now that's different logic than... Rabbi Hamnuna.

Yeah, he has two. I need to do more homework on that. Interesting. So here's what's interesting. Let's just finish this out. Yeah, so there's a conversation going about the number of laws in the Torah, but then check this out. This is continuing in the Talmud. Rabbi Simla continued and said, you know, David came and he reduced them all down to 11. Hmm. Did he? And what he quotes is Psalm 24.

Oh, oh, okay. And this is just a long quotation of Psalm 24. And he reads Psalm 24 as giving you the essence of the 613 by giving you 11. So who can dwell in your holy tent and go to the holy mountain, the one who walks uprightly? That's one, works righteousness, two, speaks truth in his heart, three, no slander on his tongue, four, no evil to his fellow, you get it, you're right on down, 11.

They go from like really general to really specific. Yeah, yeah. Cause at the end, it's like, does not land on interest. Yes, does not take a bribe. Yes, that's it. Now those are all actually commands from the Torah. Yeah. But the first one walks up rightly. Oh yeah.

Yeah, that's more general. That's a pretty, that's a good job. Yeah. Then he continues and he says, but you know Isaiah came and reduced them to six. Mm. The one who walks righteously, he's now quoting from Isaiah chapter 33. Yeah. Walks righteously, speaks's now quoting from Isaiah chapter 33, walks righteously,

speaks up rightly, despises the gain of oppression, shakes his hand from holding bribes, stops his ear from hearing of innocent bloodshed. He continues, Micah comes along and reduced them to three. We quoted this in the Justice video. Right. Do justice. Yeah. Love mercy. Right? Do justice? Yeah.

Love mercy. Well, come blue with your God. Isaiah came again and reduced them to two. Quoting Isaiah 56. Yeah. Do justice and do righteousness. Amos came and reduced them to one. Thus says the Lord to the house of Israel, seek me and live.

Seek me., seek me. Seek me. And Habakkuk came further and he didn't reduce it to one. He based all the commandments just on one thing. The righteous will live by faith. Good one. This is good. Paul would feel, Paul the Apostle would feel right at home

in this conversation. Yeah, and Jesus. And Jesus, yeah, totally. Yeah. Well, yeah, Paul quotes a back kick on, right just with my faith a lot. Yeah, totally, yeah. Yeah, in other words, Paul wasn't the only Rabbi

arguing that true fulfillment of all the laws is based on a heart disposition of trust in God. Yeah, that, yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. So I mean, what, how do you say his name? Simla. Simla. Simla. Yeah, Rabbi, yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. So, I mean, what, how do you say his name? Simlai?

Simlai. Simlai? Yeah, Rabbi Simlai. I think what he's observing is that there's a lot of laws, and there's many different ways to try to understand the essence of these laws. Yes, that's right. And all these biblical authors have been involved in that exercise. Correct.

Well, all of these prophets, and David. Yeah. Yeah. It just strikes me that Jesus is right in the exercise. Correct. Or well, all of these prophets and David. Yeah. And yeah, it just strikes me that Jesus is right in the conversation too. Yeah, right, when they say, what are the most important commands? Yeah, and he boils it down to two. Yeah.

To, well, he says one, and then he says, he's asked what's the most important one. He says one, and then he just says another one, as if they're both the most important one, he says one and then he just says another one, as if they're both the most important one. He specifically asked, hey, out of all the laws, which is the most important, not like what's the essence of the law? That's right.

He's asked what's the most important and what he gives us to. As the most important one. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, this is ancient conversation. So for me, this is significant in that, all the way back to... We just read some Talmud. I don't think I've ever done that. You remember read Talmud?

No. That's my first reading of it's Talmud. It's awesome. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, it's totally cool. It's really interesting stuff. Like I imagine, in printed editions, all of the Bible texts are in quotes.

When you read this in Aramaic and Hebrew, these guys know the Bible so well. All they have to do is utter a phrase. And they don't say that was from Deuteronomy 33. Like they just quote a couple phrases from Deuteronomy 33 and everybody in the room's like, oh yeah. Yeah. It kind of reminds me of like when I used to do marketplace explainers and you'd go to a room and everyone just starts speaking jargon. Oh, yeah, I told you. You could've asked me to the FI West.

Totally. And you're just sitting there going like, I don't know what anyone's talking about. Yes, totally. That used to happen to me at the Bible projects. So really days, yeah, when I didn't know the acronyms. Hmm, for like, for video production stuff or any of the production jargon.

Yeah, totally. So, ancient Jews who were way closer to the origins of the Bible, we are, they also took note of the hundreds of commands. And we're trying to think through why and how to think of them as a whole statement. Yeah. Right? That's what they're doing in reducing it down and they're trying to find other biblical authors who create little short lists of like, what God's will is for a human life. Now that's interesting because it because it seems like two opposite things are happening. One is they'll

take a law and then they'll expand it into 40 more. That's correct. Yep. It's not clear. It's not clear enough. And so they're creating like a robust law code. That's right. And then but this other exercise is how can we distill it down to its essence? Yeah, they're doing both. Yeah, they're doing both. Yeah, which makes sense. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. If you have a rule that isn't adequate as stated to cover all the situations that need to do, you need to fill it out. But then you get a ton of commands, which is going to force you to constantly go back and be like, why are we doing any of this in the first place? Yeah, it's right. Yeah. But the fact that there's 611, the number... Yeah, that's the value of the word Torah.

Torah, which is what this is in, it makes you realize even more like, okay, yeah, they're designing this. Yes, it's a very specific way. Totally. Yes. Some larger body of laws have been drawn upon and selected 611 were selected to be in the Torah. Right. For a reason.5% 2.5% 2.5% 2.5% 2.5% 2.5% 2.5%

2.5% 2.5% 2.5% 2.5% 2.5% 2.5% We've already talked about that first one, that they're odd, irrelevant, sometimes primitive and barbaric. We don't need to emphasize that. Yeah, that's clear.

The laws have throughout history and Judaism and Christianity have created different crises of biblical authority. For people who say that the Bible's God's word and is a statement of God's will for his people. Yeah, and what could be more clear than God's will of God's will than laws? Bows out or thou shalt not. Yeah, totally. So, for example, a quarter of the book of Leviticus is detailed, the priestly tech manual. It requires a sanctuary, either a tabernacle or a temple. At two different times, the temple was destroyed. Once by ancient Babylon, and then once by the Romans.

And after that one by the Romans, it hasn't been built. It hasn't existed since then. So you can see the crisis there. How do you obey those laws when you don't even have the temple? Correct. If a whole bunch of the laws for how God wants us to relate to him require the presence of a physical building Yeah, where we can offer sacrifices. What do we do? So this happens in the Talmud and earlier that the

Rebynic leaders had to find shape new ways of reading those texts to discern principles from them that they could do even without a temple. And so certain forms of prayer could take the place of a sacrifice, certain forms of generosity could take the place of a gift, instead of giving a gift to the Levites,

you give a gift to the poor within your town, and that kind of thing. But you can see it corresponds in a way that feels like I'm still obeying the law. That's right. But just the fact that a set of written laws were bound to a certain place and time connected to a building, create a problem.

Yeah. If you still want to do those. In Christian tradition, it's been similar problem but in different ways. Especially once the Jesus movement went multicultural, all of the ritual purity laws, a kosher diet, circumcision, you know, Sabbath and so on. There's a bunch of laws about how to keep a Jewish identity separate from other people. Yeah, that's right. And so now if you have other people who want to get involved in the Jesus movement, which is a Jewish movement, what do you do with those laws? Totally.

Yeah, it's actually, yeah, you can see it immediately. That's a problem. It's a problem. We got to solve that problem. Jesus was waiting into that problem and people knew it, which is why he had to say things like I didn't come to set aside the Torah and the prophets, but to fulfill them. But then you have Paul, the apostle, who says that the Messiah is the fulfillment of the Torah. But yet, he'll still quote from the Ten Commandments. You know, like,

like, it's authoritative. Yeah, he'll still quote from the Ten Commandments. And then you get the Acts 15, the Apostles come together and elders and they say, yeah, non Jews don't have to follow the ritual laws anymore. Although they wanted them to follow some of them. Yes, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. But in terms of holy days and kosher food laws and so on, those were... Yeah, they gave a pass. Yeah, they gave a pass on those. So there's all to saying, these 611 laws, they cover lots of topics,

and the fact that they're bound to a time and place in ancient Israel is when they were written, has created crises of biblical authority in later generations. For Jewish people who live in a time where there is no temple, to sacrifice, it creates a problem. Or just living in the Promised Land,

like all these laws about pilgrimage feasts, or what you do with your harvest, and taking it to the temple. I mean, seriously, this is like a third of the laws are irrelevant without a temple in the Promised Land. Yeah, interesting. And they have to be totally reconciled of how you might fulfill them.

Yeah. So that becomes a problem. And the other problem is, if you aren't Jewish, and you believe that Jesus was the fulfillment of the whole storyline, then do you adhere to laws that are specifically for Jewish people to keep themselves separate from other nations? Because you are the other nations. Yes. That's right. And so one argument is, yeah, we'll then just follow laws.

In fact, there are Gentile followers of Jesus, non-Jewish followers of Jesus, who believe that. Yeah. Pre-Jesus. There were non-Jewish. Not saying like, I know guys like that. Oh, God, you're saying, yeah, okay. So my point is, even before Jesus, there were non-Jews who would essentially become Jewish,

even circumcised for men. Yeah. And what would they be called for God-fears? Yeah, God-fears, proselytes. Yeah. And then that continued on in the Jesus movement where it was non-Jewish followers of Jesus who converted as much as their life as possible to a form of

cultural ethnic Judaism. And then you run into the same problems that Jewish people run into in terms of adhering to all the laws. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And then that has continued on today. Certain strands of Messianic Judaism take that line, take that view that we should try to keep as much as is possible as many of the laws. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. So all that to say is these laws, they're very presence in the first books of the Bible, causes that tension. Yeah. Another problem. This is the last one. And it's one that most readers will not have noticed because the laws are just boring for them to read.

Yeah, the haze. The haze? But there are about a hundred of the laws. Forget, there's a count, I forget. I should remember this, but I don't. There's over a hundred laws that get repeated. In other words, they're stated more than once. And they get counted twice.

They get counted twice. And if you compare laws that are about the same thing. Yeah. Between like Deuteronomy and their earlier statement and Exodus, Lovetticus, you'll start to notice differences. Descrepancies. Yeah. So here's a significant one because it's in the 10 Commandments. It's the Sabbath command. Oh, in the 10 Command. There's a discrepancy. Oh, that's right. We've talked about this. Yeah, we have. So in the book of Exodus, this is God speaking from the mountain, in the Ten Commandments. There's a discrepancy. Oh, that's right. We've talked about this. Yeah, we have. So in the book of Exodus, this is God speaking from the mountain, from the fire cloud. Yeah. That's the scene here. Yeah. And in Exodus chapter 20, God says, remember the Sabbath. Keep it holy.

Six days, labor, do your work. The seventh is a Sabbath. Don't do any work. Your son, your daughter, your male, your female servant, your cattle, the sewed-journer with you. Why? Why? Yeah, tell me why. What's the reason? In six days the Lord made the skies and the land and the sea and everything in them and rested on the savants. Therefore, He blessed the Sabbath day made it holy. Why do you obey the Sabbath? It's inherent to the fabric of creation. Fabric of creation. So you rest because you're imitating God. In the book of Deuteronomy, remember when Moses exposits the Torah for the next generation. Yeah. The generation he repeats the Exodus. That's right. He repeats the 10. And here in Deuteronomy chapter 5, verse 12, when he repeats, he's just retelling the narrative, here's what happened on the mountain, here's what we saw.

And in verse 12, he says, this is what God said, keep the Sabbath day as the Lord your God commanded you. So in Exodus 20, it was remember the Sabbath in Deuteronomy 5, it's keep the Sabbath. So it's a small difference. It's very small. But it's the difference. It's like here in Obey. Remember. Remember and keep. Totally. I'm not saying they're different in meaning in a drastic way. I'm just saying it's a different word, which if you're telling, retelling a key moment in your foundation story, you know, if you're quoting God's speech. I'm not saying he's doing anything wrong.

I don't think this is actually a problem, but it's important to pay attention to it. Well, it doesn't end here, it's keep going. Why should you obey the Sabbath? What keep the Sabbath? In Exodus, do you remember? Why? Because God did.

To. God did. So you go down into Rime 5, it goes through the command, six days labor, seven days to your rest, don't do any work, the list of people, daughter, servant, and so on. So that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. So that's an addition to Deuteronomy.

So in other words, Moses makes explicit here. It's not just for you, it's not just for rich landowners. But that's an Exodus too. Mm-hmm, yep, it is, yeah. But it's just phrase differently. Well, an Exodus too. Mm-hmm. Yep, it is. Yeah. But it's just phrase differently. Well, an Exodus that says, you're gonna do this, your female servant, your male servant, and your cattle are gonna do this. Well, they don't work. That list of people is not supposed to work.

Yeah. In Deuteronomy, it says, you and this list of people is not supposed to work. And you know what, your slaves get the same rest that you do. That's the same thing. Oh, it is, but it's making explicit. In other words, some reason, there's some purpose, there's some agenda in Deuteronomy that's trying to show that the landowners on the Sabbath are equal to their slaves.

Got it. He's just making it more explicit. Yeah, more explicit. Yep, totally. Yep. Why should you obey the Sabbath according to Deuteronomy chapter 5, verse 15? You will remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to obey the Sabbath.

Yeah, so that he's wrapping it in another kind of paradigm. In Exodus, the logic is, let's look at creation. Look at the way that God created and let's imitate God's rhythm. And then in Deuteronomy, he says, well, we remember the Sabbath, let's do it because our story is that we were slaves. And now we're not. Yeah, therefore you and your slave get the same rest on the Sabbath day. This is just important because it's one of the ten commandments, quoting God's speech.

And yet you can phrase it differently for a different audience in a different moment. That's a different approach to law than how we think of law. Oh, yeah. Well, man, it's so interesting. There is probably a similarity in American politics, where you get these founding fathers who write something like, you have the right to bear arms, and then everyone's like, what does that mean? Where do we draw the line? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And people restate and then the new restates become the new formulation.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. And you can see that process right here within the Torah itself, where the Mount Sinai version of the Sabbath command is stated to that generation who came out of Egypt. The audience of Moses is the children of the Exodus generation. And he reshapes the reason for the Sabbath and makes explicit the equality, the social equality that the Sabbath creates. That's the highlight here.

And it's Moses, it's the same person in both of the stories. So that's really significant. The approach to law, you can see the same discussion that the rabbis are having about the essence of the laws. If there's something similar, you can see going on right here, where there's a core law, a core essence, yeah, but in different seasons of a nation's life, we need to talk about it or frame it in a different way. It's core principle, but it can be applied in different times and places with different language.

That's interesting. I think that, well, I don't know. Why do you find it interesting? That's what I'm gonna be really explicit here. Oh, what it means is that there's, we'll talk about this later, we, modern Westerners, if they live in a certain kind of democratic republic or democratic society, we are a couple centuries

into cultures that have what's called a statutory law, or a statutory law societies, where the laws of the land are actually located in an actual body of formulated laws written in books. And when judges and lawmakers want to create new law or change law, what they have to consult is the stated wording of the law. I mean, I've been on a couple of juries.

You know, and whatever. I actually was skipped out on most of my like, civics classes in high school. But, but that's how law works here. We think of the law as something written somewhere. Yes. And the way it's written is the wording of the law. That's why the wording of the law is what gets debated in courts. Is this worded this way? So how does it legitimately apply in this way? Not that way.

So that's our cultural setting. For most of human history, and certainly in the ancient Near East, that was not how law worked. These cultures were part of what is called today a common law tradition, in which the law doesn't exist in a written code, and that the law isn't something precisely worded and written that you go consult. Rather, written laws are assuming and then just different expressions of some ultimate even greater source of law behind the written code. And you can see that coming out here. The Sabbath, right? But for one generation, Moses will word it one way, for another generation, Moses will word it one way, for another generation, Moses will

word it another way. And what we as later readers of the Bible, we have now two statements of the Sabbath for two different audiences, with two different rationales behind it. One's creation, one is Exodus. Now, okay, but it's the same law. The law doesn't change. Yeah. It's just the rationale changes. Correct Yeah, what I'm saying is you have two written expressions of the law that are not the same. Yeah, right? There's overlap. Yeah, but they're not identical and so a statutory approach to law would be like well, we need to reduce these into one

So we just have one law. Yeah, you wouldn't keep both in there. Correct. And what you're going to find is, actually, here, let's go to another difference. This is good. This is great. This is about Passover. Passover is important.

The meal. Yeah, the meal. I mean, if you think what cultural, religious community has been celebrating the same thing every year for 3500 years. Right. It's just pretty short-listed. This is a huge significant event for Jewish history. In Exodus chapter 12, it's the first statement of the laws about the Exodus, the rules and

the rituals for holding the feast. In Exodus 12, it says, usually at the Passover Lamb, the rules and the rituals for holding the feast. In Exodus 12, it says, usually the Passover lamb, the same night, roasted with fire, eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled. The Hebrew word for boil is bashal. Don't boil it at all with water, rather roast it with fire. Head, legs, entrails, all that. Okay, so it's very clear.

Roast it. And trails being the intestines? Correct. In other words, basically it's like it's... Don't gut it. Yeah, exactly. Put it on a... Like kill it.

Put it on a steak and rotate it over a fire. Roasting. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So, yeah, don't prepare it or dress it. Isn't that what a butcher would do? Dress it. In terms of removing skin and all this, it's just like cook it as it is. Got it. Roast as it is. Once again, you get to do Deuteronomy. And when you get to the description of the Passover laws in Deuteronomy, as it says in chapter 16, Deuteronomy, at the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish his name, you shall sacrifice the Passover in the evening at sunset. At the time that you came out of

Egypt, you shall boil, bushall, and eat it in the place the Lord your God chooses in the morning, go back to your tents. and eat it in the place the Lord your God chooses in the morning, go back to your tents. Contradiction. Oh, so wait, this is very practical. Yeah, boil or not to boil. Yeah. Do I boil the Passover lamb or do I roast it? Yeah. In one, in excess, it says roast do not boil.

It says roast and don't boil. And then in do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do referring to the Passover land. Passover land. Yeah, just right there. Roast it, need it. Roast it. Do you see what they've done? Here, look down. Yeah. So in Exodus chapter 12, it says, don't eat any of it raw or boiled. Mm-hmm. Roast it.

Deuteronomy chapter 16, verse 7, you shall boil it, Bashal. And what does- That's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It's an- It And what does it's an it's an I.V. says roast it. And I.V. says roast. Oh, so it, um, they smoothed out the

contradiction. Yeah, yeah, the new international version has taken the word boil and translated it roast to make it agree with the law with the statement in Exodus 12 sneaky. Do you see that? So there's actually an ancient debate. People have noticed this difference for thousands of years. Sure. It's just straight up. See what King James does.

I want to see what King James does. Oh yeah, let's see what King James does. Roast it. They say roast. Yeah. So just think about what's happening there. There's a clear Hebrew word for roast. The Hebrew word salah.

There's a very clear Hebrew word for boil. Yeah. Bushal. Exodus 12 says, don't basal the Passover. Deuteronomy 16 says, you shall Bushall the Passover. And translators, they're like, let's go with the first one. Let's just go with the first one. Yeah. Which hides the problem from, you know, readers of the translation. But ancient Jews know exactly what they're

doing. So dude, check this out. In the book of Chronicles, in the Hebrew Bible itself, there's a story where Josiah, one of the kings of Israel, is holding a Passover, and it tells you how they prepared the Passover look, and look at what it says. And they boiled the Passover lamb with fire. How do you do that? Well, I guess if the fire is boiling the water, it doesn't say that. It says they boiled with fire. Hmm.

They're just like, boiling is just another word for roasting at this point. There's a couple of years on what's happening here. One is that they boiled it, namely by heating up the water with fire. Yeah. Another one is that they're actually adapting the meaning of the word boil.

Yeah, right. To mean roast, but they've created a new phrase to boil with fire. You know, we've got a word that sounds like boil, but it means roast, broil. Oh, broil. Whoa. Oh, you can do a great wordplay here.

They broiled it. They broiled it. So here's what this shows us. This shows us that the author of Chronicles, first of all, observed. Yeah, saw the description. Saw these two. And what he wants to show in the Chronicles, his strategy is to make very clear what kings are the kings that are the pointers, the signposts of the line of David that was faithful to the covenant, and therefore an image or figure of the ultimate coming, the Senate of

David. And so there's just a handful Solomon Hezekiah, Josiah. And so he wants to depict Josiah as like the ultimate Torah faithful person. And so he actually, even though it feels like a contradiction in terms of how you boil something with fire, he's trying to portray him as obeying all of the Torah. So he's obeying both commands simultaneously. Even though it's impossible. Yes. I think that's what he's doing. Yeah. Yeah. It's a theological creative claim about his hyper-Tora faithfulness that he could spoil the Passover Lamb of fire. He's so, yeah, so faithful to the Torah, he's

defying laws and physics. Yeah, I mean, I think the author of Chronicles, you're supposed to kind of chuckle and get it. Here's why I don't think this should bother us. Let's land the plan on this part of the conversation. If you think of Zatura as a law book, a law code book, that gives you all in one statement, God's will for all people of all time, then all of these differences in the laws, massive problems, massive problems, so much so that you'll be willing to retranslate words that don't actually mean what they mean, just to harmonize the problem. massive problems, massive problems. So much so that you'll be willing to re-translate words that don't actually mean what they mean. Just to harmonize the problem.

But maybe that approach to the Torah, maybe that's, maybe the problem is us and our approach. Because the biblical authors clearly don't have a problem with these differences. They highlight them. The author chronicles is highlighting this difference. So there's a difference of audience like the people leaving Exodus. The whole point is pack your bags, cloaks on, staff in your hand, get ready to go.

So like you're not going to do overnight baking. It's just roast it, eat the thing, and because you got to go any moment. Yeah, okay. That's why it's like don't dress it. Put that thing on a stick, roast it up. Totally. We're going. Yeah, any moment. We're going to be out of here and so you can't take eight hours to cook this thing.

Yeah. Due to around 16, assumes you're in the land, you're settled, you have homes. So you can. Let's adapt the recipe. You can adapt the recipe. And so it makes sense that the laws are stated differently for different audiences, just like the Sabbath command is. But the moment you try and take the laws out of their narrative context and make one seamless, right? Whole code, a statutory code. That's where the problems come in.

Yeah. And we talked about this before when we talked with the law is that if that's what the Torah was trying to do It just feels big time at doing that that's right like giving a Comprehensive law-coded and now I can go and follow as it is realite correct first of all don't throw narratives in there Yeah, what are the narratives doing there? That doesn't make any sense. Yeah, give me the laws. Yeah second of all Don't repeat laws right. That's redundant. And if you're going to repeat a law, maybe restate it the same way. That would make it easier. Basic rules for me in the law code. That's right. So something's going on in which we're supposed to clue in immediately, okay, the purpose of this law code's something bigger than yeah, yeah, a lot. Yeah, you know, it's not actually very similar to

When my little boys we have a small garage with a tool shed and they'd love to use my tools for all the wrong purposes And so for two summers they were convinced that my hammers were a kind of pickaxx The clock turned around and you turned around to use the claw. Yeah, that were a kind of pickaxe. The clock turned around. He turned around to use the claw. That's a very effective pickaxe. I mean, I think it'll break up dirt. And so I remember the first time that I showed Roman, my older son, it's for pulling out nails. And then he was like, this thing,

I just remember seeing it as I was like, it dawned on him. What this is really for. And then all of a sudden, he was so excited. He was like, I mean, he wanted me to pound in nails just so he could pull them out. And it's kind of like that. It's kind of like, if you use the laws of the Torah

as a lock code, you can do it. But there'll be problems. You can dig a hole with that. Yeah. It doesn't explain the design of the whole thing. It just, you're repurposing one part, but there'll be some problems with it, and then it won't explain all these other features.

Yeah, if you sit back and you look at that hammer thing, you'd be like, you know, it'd be a little more effective if it was more like a shovel. Totally. Totally. I give you that. And then you find yourself wishing, like, I wish, why didn't God make a shovel?

Yeah, and then you're like, you're kind of embarrassed for God. You're kind of like, Yeah, that's right. You know God, you could have, yeah, you could have designed this a little better. Exactly. When, in fact, the problem is me and my assumptions, and I'm attributing my ignorance to God. So maybe I'm the one who needs to back up

and get a whole different paradigm for what the Torah is, accounting for the laws and for the narratives, and why the laws work together and where they occur and so on. And so, there we go. That's the rest of our conversation, is a handful of perspectives about the laws in their ancient context, and the literary context that help us rediscover the purpose of the Torah that is not a shovel. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bible Project Podcast. Our video on

the lawn is on our YouTube channel and on our website, thebibeproject.com. This episode was produced by Dan Gummel. If you'd like to follow up on some of the ideas we talked about in this episode? Make sure to check out our show notes. Hi, this is Boopesh from India. I am excited to be a part of making the Bible Project videos available in Telugu. Thank you for your support. Let all your friends know these videos are available. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. The Bible Project is crowdfunded. You can find free videos, study, notes, podcasts and more at thebibelproyject.com. ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ ۔ காரா நிவٹی میکنہ کچھ கண்டத்தலு அந்த வாட்டல் ஒன்றால் இவிடிவல் சமா چாரம் மீத்தினையுத்தலக் கு, தெரிசினவாருக்கி தெளிஷயண்டி பயவில் மிகவல்லும் நியசவேப்கு நட்பின்று ஒக்காயே கிருத்தான் காதானே மேகவல் முத்தினாவ இவிடிவல் பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு பிறகு ப यहानारो पार कास्चो यह पूर निका वरे नहीं वो पूर चितन्गा पूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर नपूर न� you you