BibleProject - What Do Moses and a Rock Have to Do With Jesus? – Numbers Q+R

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

Are numbers in the Hebrew Bible literal? Is it dangerous to adapt God’s laws? Does Israel’s conquest of Canaan justify other historical conquests? In this episode, Tim and Jon explore audience questions about the Numbers scroll. Thanks to our audience for your insightful questions.View full show notes from this episode →Timestamps Are Repeated Numbers Literal or Literary Embellishments? (1:20)Why Does Israel’s Population Decrease in Numbers? (16:25)What Does Jesus’ Title “The Rock” Have to Do with Moses? (21:45)Is it Dangerous to Adapt God’s Laws? (34:34)Does Israel’s Conquest of Canaan Justify Other Historical Conquests? (47:35)What’s With All the 10s and 2s? (52:22)What Are Some Resources for Seeing Edenic Themes in the Torah? (01:01:58)Referenced ResourcesAni Maamin: Biblical Criticism, Historical Truth, and the Thirteen Principles of Faith, Joshua BermanA Defense of the Hyperbolic Interpretation of Numbers in the Old Testament, David M. FoutsDeuteronomy 1-11 (The Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries), Moshe WeinfeldJesus and the Land: The New Testament Challenge to "Holy Land" Theology, Gary M. BurgeUnsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery, Mark Charles, Soong-Chan RahThe Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race, William James JenningsInterested in more? Check out Tim’s library here.You can experience the literary themes and movements we’re tracing on the podcast in the BibleProject app, available for Android and iOS.Show Music “Defender (Instrumental)” by TENTSShow produced by Cooper Peltz with Associate Producer Lindsey Ponder. Edited by Dan Gummel, Tyler Bailey, and Frank Garza. Podcast annotations for the BibleProject app by Hannah Woo. Audience questions compiled by Christopher Maier.Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

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

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode. Hello, we are gonna do a question response to the number scroll. We did nine episodes walking through numbers.

There's three movements in numbers. We did three episodes each and covered a lot of ground. And you went through about, I don't know how many questions, and picked out about a dozen that you wanna try to get through. Yep, as always, this is a broken record, but there's way more questions than we can ever deal. We are so slow in exploring these questions, which is fine, I think, but it just means we don't get through very many, but I try to pick the ones that are repeated the most. So, or that represent themes

that have kind of been weaving throughout all the different questions. So, there you go. We're talking numbers or otherwise known as in the wilderness. Bommid bar. Whoa, yeah, John. Did I get it right? That's it, Bommid bar.

Bommid bar. Bid, oh, like a D. D. Bommid. Bommid. Bommid bar, yeah. Yeah. Anyhow, should we get rockin'? What's rock? Okay, first question is from Johnny,

who lives in the UK. Hi Tim and John, from Johnny, and I'm based in whole in the UK. You showed how the Pentateuch's writers arranged it in patterns and sequences, for instance, the seven rebellions, and that number seven keeps coming up. My question is, do you think that it happened exactly like that?

Or did the writers of bearish things or maybe even leave out certain rebellions to keep the number at a nice round and symbolic seven? Thanks. Yeah. Thanks, Johnny. I love that. I feel like I used to always ask this question of you. Yes. Some sort of version of this question.

Used to? I'm slowed down. I think I slowed down on this question. Well, I guess Johnny's keeping you honest. But that's fine because it's Johnny. It's Johnny and Johnny. Keep you honest. Thanks, Johnny. Johnny, John's got to stick together. Because while I am getting more and more comfortable with, I think, the heart of this question,

or at least I don't want to get to redundant, I think it is on everyone's mind as we talk about the literary design of these scrolls. That's exactly right. This is a question, well I think that specifically actually occurs to people who have some kind of investment in the historical truthfulness of Scripture. In other words, not every Christian tradition like emphasizes that to the same degree. And for people raised in traditions where historical accuracy of biblical narratives is like a boundary line issue, this issue comes to the fore immediately when you start talking about literary creativity

on the part of the biblical authors. In which traditions is historical accuracy not that important? Oh, well, I'm just saying there are traditions where they haven't either that aren't at home in Europe or America that didn't undergo the cultural developments in enlightenment. So I'm thinking here primarily of Eastern traditions of Christianity.

They're comfortable with these stories being allegory or... Well, I'm just saying, given that those cultures didn't undergo anything like the reformation or the enlightenment, the questions just don't surface in the same way for many people in those traditions. So, that's hard to wrap my mind around.

Yeah, that's right. It's hard for a fish to think about what it'd like to live in another fish ball. But it's true. Okay. Because these are questions that didn't occur to Jewish and Christian, many Jewish and Christian readers for centuries.

Specifically, the question of, did this happen exactly the way it's written in history? Correct. In time space, did this occur exactly as being portrayed? Yeah, that's a particularly modern question in the ways that we ask it and approach it. But that doesn't mean it's illegitimate. It's our question. Yeah.

No matter when or how we happen to come to that question, it's a question that's on many people's minds. And I think from my fish bowl, the importance of the question is about trustworthiness. Yeah, that's right. Can I trust this collection of scrolls? And if it's not telling us about something that happened, that actually happened, then did Jesus, like live and say what was reported that he said, did he rise from the dead as reported, or is that also something that I can think of as being.

Yeah, totally. All name and author, a Jewish author who's helped me really think this through in helpful ways in recent times, Joshua Burman. And it's kind of a personal book called Anima Amin, which is Hebrew for, I believe, biblical criticism and historical truth. And he is raised within a very conservative part of Jewish tradition, but he has gone full-bore into biblical studies and historical cultural context of the Hebrew Bible.

And he firmly is like a believer. It's part of the Jewish tradition that's where he sits. He's a believer. Anima means, I believe. But at the same time, he's also convinced that both in Jewish and Christian traditions, we take our modern categories, which are a spectrum of fiction to historiography. And then we try to fit the biblical writings onto the way we had constructed that spectrum. And he just says that is just not how ancient history writers thought about what they were

doing. And this is very helpful. And where he goes is comparing biblical historiography to ancient Egyptian Babylonian and Assyrian historiography. And what you see is a concern to represent the traditions of the past as they've been received, but also to use literary creativity to help later generations understand the meaning and the significance of what has happened. And the literary creativity and historical representation and truthfulness are not at odds with each other in their culture's way of imagining, history writing.

It is for us. And that's essentially where the rub is. It's at odds if what you're after is what you've called before video camera footage. Yeah, that's right. If you're after like, what would I have seen? Yeah, where I was transported back to that time. So your point, Johnny, is what I've seen the seven rebellions in seven days? You know, or something? Because that's what it feels like. When you read numbers, you numbers, 11 through 20, it just feels like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

And that's the literary effect that's been designed to have that effect. And the question is, does that represent what would have happened to me if I'd been there? And so you're saying that the ancient authors, the authors here, they weren't interested in trying to create the video camera footage, replay. But at the same time, I don't hear you saying that they were trying to be anti-historical or...

No, no, it's hard to imagine a people group on the history of how for planet that has its identity anchored more in history than the Jewish people. It's all about historical memory that is recast, retold, and reshaped for each generation to help us understand the meaning of this history and are one's role within it.

But literary creativity was how they communicated the meaning of that history as they passed along these texts. The seven rebellions is an excellent example. But also we pointed out along the way that numbers has a number of very explicit moments where the literary sequence of the stories are out of chronological sequence of when they happened. And the story doesn't hide that fact.

So even that just alone tells you that this author has some other agenda than just to tell you what you would have seen if you had been traveling in the wilderness. So if I still feel really uncomfortable with this, that book you recommended as you could place together. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, yeah, it's a whole chapter. It's very helpful. Introduction to modern concepts of historiography versus ancient concepts of historiography. And what happens when we

don't honor the biblical authors and in their setting. And then he does it as this great case study, which is the Exodus, the historical truthfulness debates about the Exodus. And actually, it's really fascinating because he's able to show is that people who try to fit the Exodus events into the video camera footage model or into the complete literary fiction model, neither one of them can actually account for the story as it stands in this role. I can understand how the video camera footage doesn't fit, right?

We talked about like, there's the number of people going through the wilderness as depicted is kind of crazy. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And that's another good example of an ancient literary and historical graphical convention of using numbers, census numbers, battle numbers, that kind of thing. But I guess I don't appreciate the other side, which is why wouldn't it just work as a

piece of fiction? Yeah, it is really hard to account for how foundational the Exodus event is in Israelite culture and history, and how it has surfaced and manifested itself. That story has manifested itself in so many different forms over such a long period of time, in terms of both texts written about it, but also cultural practice. I mean, Passover. Yeah. Still celebrated today. So there's that. Also, the narrative accounts have all kinds of historical details in them, Egyptian like words woven into the account, illusions to Egyptian cultural practices that are the subtext of many details in the story that would just be to create an account where all of that is fabricated.

Centuries later, by scribes who were removed from the time and place of the actual events. You have to come up with this fantastic theory. As sometimes, as fantastic a theory as the video camera physician has to come up with to account for how to million people could drink from 12 fountains in the desert. So maybe it opens up a messy middle that makes some people uncomfortable, but also I think it's important to realize this isn't about skepticism. Like the reason why we're talking about the seven rebellions is because of actually reading the biblical text

more closely than ever before. And you see its literary artistry and now we're trying to account for what's actually their inscripture as opposed to validate my presuppositions one end of the spectrum or another. Yeah, this feels like a summit you have to climb in order to then be able to appreciate

like the true summit, which is like, now why are there seven rebellions? And what are the seven rebellions telling us about the character of God, and about the story of Israel and the story of all humanity? Yeah, that's right. And so I think I've, I still am uncomfortable. I'm still the fish in the bowl going. Man, as soon as you start pulling this thread, what did, you know, what goes out the window? And it makes me really uncomfortable.

But I find so much benefit in saying, well, let's summit this other mountain. And let's see what's there. And there's so much that you learned and it's beautiful and like God's word comes to life in a new way there. That I've just kind of become comfortable going, I'll just leave that aside. But as soon as Johnny asks us, it's like yeah, it comes right back up again.

Yeah, I've been wrestling with it many years and anytime books come out relevant to the topic, you know, they're on the top of my list, like Joshua Burmins, to think it through in another way. What's fascinating about Joshua Burmins' treatment of the topic is he is sitting within the Jewish tradition in a very analogous place to where I am trying to find myself

in the Christian tradition, which is, it's not all or nothing, either none of this happened as represented or it happened only blow-by-blow video camera footage as represented. And it's not being skeptical to try and find that messy middle, because you're actually being more honest, I think, to reckon with what's actually there

within the scriptural text themselves. And you can do this within the Hebrew Bible. We talked about this. You can read the accounts of the origin of the monarchy of Israel all the way down to the exile in Samuel and Kings. And then you can go to the Chronicle Scroll and read them in parallel columns, like these books exist that do it for you. And you can watch the chronicler adapt details,

leave things out, add details, and use literary creativity to reshape the accounts. And it doesn't mean that nothing happened. But it does mean that that author is passing on what happened to communicate a unique aspect of those events, meaning that's different than what the author of Samuel King's was trying to do. Yeah.

And so it's inherent within the biblical story itself to adapt itself to show later generations new meaning within the events. Well, I don't know what else to do. I guess we could just try and have a different Bible. What are you doing? You could just pretend like that's not in the Bible. But I don't know. I just said that's not being honest. But I know anyway. So it's hard. It's very hard not to fall into extremes when it comes to these topics. Sure. And so one thing you've brought up a number of times when we get into this territory is

that the histories and our lives and the stories that are most important to us, we don't actually talk about them and treat them in the way that we're expecting the Bible to be doing it or like a history book on what we're to to be doing it. We're very comfortable in our own personal histories, saying, crafting and understanding our story. You're talking about like, retelling the story of how you and Tristan met. Something like that.

Or the story of my like vocational journey. Yeah. From like, I think about that because I'm be sharing that in a few days in a setting. And it's like, yes, you want to beat truthful and accurate. But also you want to make sure that the important ideas emerge. And also the, I mean, kind of the truthfulness of the experience and what you've learned, and how it's cashed out.

And the meaning that you can now see in the events that is precisely because it's in retrospect. Right. Yeah. And so you can craft an account for this particular audience that might be slightly different than how you would craft it a year from now for like a different audience. Yeah. But it doesn't mean it didn't happen because you were there. Yeah, and at what point are you being untruthful?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that is a due with the expectation, the listener or the reader brings. Yeah, yeah. So thank you, Johnny. It's, I feel like it's a topic that we need to talk about at least four times a year Okay, I don't know what number this is, but yeah, you put a fine point to it Johnny. Thank you All right, let's go to

Carl and Wisconsin. Yeah Hey team Carl from cross plane to Wisconsin here in the wilderness a census is taken twice constant here. In the wilderness, a census is taken twice. Once while at Mount Sinai, and once is there about to enter the land. At Mount Sinai, they count well over 603,000. While 40 years later, as they're about to enter the land, they only count 601,000. What are we supposed to take from this? It doesn't seem like they've been fruitful in multiplying, like God's promise would indicate. Thanks, friends. Yeah, it's actually a good kind of case study in the conversation we were just having. Yeah, and I brought up the census saying, if this was just the men being counted, men of like fighting ability and age. Okay, so like, yeah, the two are men.

20 to 50, I think. Yeah. Can't fight when you're 16. I guess not. You gotta sneak in. So there's potentially a couple of million people here. Right. So that aside, it's like how are so many people going to the wilderness? That's right.

And there actually were many questions about the numbers and numbers. Okay. And we did address it, but maybe people didn't happen to listen to one of the nine episodes. I pointed to the work of a scholar Daniel Fouts, who's done recent work on the way numbers function in ancient Near Eastern census lists and in battle accounts. And it's very similar to the question that we were just having. So we can link his work in the show notes, but it's a very similar dynamic about the scale of the numbers. But that's not quite your question, Carl.

It's about the difference of the numbers in the two census lists in numbers. And you'd have to add them up to be able to see this. Oh, no, the biblical author does it for you. Oh, he does? At the end of the list. Yeah. He left all the tribes individually and then gets you told. He gives you total. Yeah, it's really convenient. So I think you're right. And I think it's a good example where first of all, there are big round numbers anyway, like the numbers that are given in the census list.

They're usually in multiples of 50 or 100. Okay. If the idea was, this is a story of Israel being fruitful and multiplying just up into the right, then that would stick out as being like, but the population went down. But recall Carl, this is, there's one census before they leave Sinai, and then there's one census after 40 years in the wilderness. And the main theme of the 40 years in the wilderness is about how Israel's rebellion and consistent refusal to trust in God's promises landed them in exile

from the Eden land of Canaan. So my hunch, the narrators didn't say this, but my hunch is that the diminished population number is a reflection of that toll that Israel's rebellion has been taking on it in the form of the loss of life, which is a sign of being outside of Eden, is the loss of life. And so I think that's probably what's going on. So I guess the God's promise of fruitful and multiplying is the fact that it didn't go down to like 10,000, but that it, you know, is not that far below the original.

No, just bleeding out a little bit. But nonetheless, the number goes down as well as the feeling of the reader just keeps descending into pessimism about whether this people will ever accept the gift of God's blessing as heaven. So we've seen this theme when Israel's in Egypt, they're being fruitful in their multiplying. We see the theme when they're in the land, you know, like I'm thinking of Solomon talking and to God just being like, this people is large and multiply. Like I'm gonna rule them. Yeah, that's right.

So the theme does develop and you see that it's at work. God's doing it, but there is a moment here going, wow, but in the wilderness, it's stalled out. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, I think it's supposed to grab your attention. Yeah, it's this tension between Israel's refusal to trust God that keeps diminishing their life. But yeah, God doesn't bail on the people, even though he feels like he wants to a couple

times. He shares that with Moses and Moses' intercedes on the people's behalf. So what I appreciate, Carl, is just you drew attention to a little narrative detail that's in a part of the number scroll Census list that most of us are like it's begging you to skip to a worse early skim and so Carl you didn't skim You notice those numbers and I think they are meaningful at least that's my hunch is that's what we're supposed to see in the in the decreasing population amount there. Okay, next we actually have two questions that are paired. They're both about the use of themes and imagery from numbers in the New Testament.

So first is a question from Dina in Washington State and then from Chris in Connecticut. It's like Connecticut, but it's. It is Connecticut, right? I think there is a sea in there. Silence. Hard sea, which is kind of rare in English. Anyway, so first from Dina, then for Chris. Hey, Tim and John, my name is Dina and I'm from Washington State.

Throughout the Exodus and the wilderness series, you'll talk about the story when Moses hits a rock for water to come out. Does this connect to Jesus when he calls himself the rock and living water? And does God telling him to strike it the first time and speak to it the second time instead have any significance? Thank you for all you do. God bless you. I'd say, man, John, this is Chris from Gail's Ferry, Connecticut. In 1 Corinthians 10, 4, Paul says that the Israelites drank from the spiritual rock that followed them and the rock was Christ. How might this passage comment on the narrative of Moses striking the rock in Numbers 20? Paul calls it a spiritual rock, but the Israelite

strength water from a tangible rock that Moses could hit is Paul suggesting that Moses struck the pre incarnate Jesus with his staff when he struck the rock Thanks for all you guys do Yeah, it's great questions. Yeah So Yeah, how does Jesus relate to the rock to the rock? Yeah in numbers. Yeah, yeah. That's essentially kind of what's underneath, underneath both of them. So there's a few observations. Well, first, to Deena, your question, in the gospel of John, in particular, where Jesus describes himself as a source of living water that brings eternal life to others. And then the story of where Jesus is pierced by the soldier when he's being executed,

and that is only in the gospel of John, and we're told that blood and water flow down from him. Those are meaningfully connected points in John. And actually both of them connect back to earlier threads in John, one where Jesus is at the well with the smith and woman, and he talks about how he's the source of water that gives life eternal. And then that connects back to the thread where Jesus goes to the temple and like throws down, turning over the tables and says, destroy this temple and I'll raise it up in three days. And then John whispers in your ear, the temple he's talking about about his body. So how does temple body relate to the living water? Yeah, because within Hebrew Bible, there is a

consistent depiction, especially in the Psalms, but also in the prophets, that depict the temple as the cosmic mountain garden, like a Eden place, out of which flows a heavenly river. And so you can go here to Psalm 46 or Psalm 48, Ezekiel chapter 47 is vision of the river in the new temple. I was all over it in Joel, the mountains in the temple are flowing wine. And Jesus turns water into water.

Exactly. Yeah, totally. In the story right after the situation with the temple, oh, no, excuse me, right before you, John. And all of this is connected back to the core depiction of Eden as at least a hill, a high hill, where it's one river that comes out of the center of the garden, splits into four, and then comes out of the center of the garden splits into four and then waters all of the different regions. So yeah, there's this mega theme of living water. And we actually did a theme video on this.

Yeah. And so you got the four streams that come from a head water in the Eden mountain. You've got Ezekiel's vision of the temple mount and the water that like waters the earth and turns the dead sea. Yeah, into like a garden pond. Yeah, totally. And so, and like you said, a bunch of Psalms that talk about flowing water from the temple. And this is a picture of, like, because the water from the Garden of Eden is what gave life to the land. That's exactly right. Yeah.

And so it is water, but also it's, there's something, it's kind of God's energizing, I mean, what is it more than just water? Yeah, it's a, it's a symbol. It's a narrative image that keeps reappearing, reappearing, depicting a river coming out of the cosmic sky mountain, flowing down to earth to become the source of its life to grow plants and to make humans. And the fact that it comes out of this cosmic place is saying, ah, it's actually, it's using a physical image to make a meta-physical claim about God's relationship to creation, namely

that all of the life, taking one example, the life that we see that appears when there's water, all of that life is ultimately sourced in something that transcends creation above and beyond it, who is the source of all life and existence and being for every moment of every molecule of life as we know it. So that in other words the Eden River is a narrative way of making a metaphysical claim about God as the source of all life and being. And this is what Jesus does at the well with the Samaritan woman. It's exactly what he's saying to her. It's exactly what she's saying.

The water. You can drink this water and you'll be thirsty again. But drink of the water that I give you. Metaphysical water. Exactly. Yeah. So, or spiritual water, for example. So all of these narratives, and it kind of explains why this image of the water

of life can be connected to so many different geographical places in the Bible. So Eden, which is really heaven, heaven on earth, but then also the temple, and there never was actually a river coming out of the temple. Maybe like a sewage river. They made conduits to funnel water onto the temple area, because they had to deal with all that sacrificial blood. But also, think of all the moments, like with Hagar, the two moments that Hagar and then Hagar and Ishmael and Genesis are about to die in the wilderness and God reveals a spring or a well to them.

And so the stories of Israel in the wilderness and of a striking of a rock that issues in life-giving water is making exactly the same claim. It's an Eden moment, which is to say, it's a moment where God sustains the life of his creatures in a very direct and powerful way that can't be explained by any of their circumstances, because all around them is death. And what God gives them is surprise life. So surprise Eden in the desert. Now let's talk about the rock. Oh yes, okay. Yeah, yeah.

So the rock will actually begins life, okay. Yeah, yeah. So the rock will actually begin life with the image of the Eden mountain coming with the dry land emerging up out of the waters on day three of Genesis 1. And then this mound from which a river pops out the top, that's Genesis 2, verse 4 and 5. Okay, so we talked a little bit about this in our metaphor video a long time ago. Yes. Is that the idea of land or a rock or fortress being up above the chaotic waters, being

safe also then becomes a symbol of being up above your enemies who are trying to get you. Yep. And so it's this place of refuge. Refuge from the realm of death that lie below. And remember, the two opposite images of chaos and death in the Bible are either chaos waters as in Genesis 1, or a desolate wilderness, which is where the Eden story begins in Genesis 2,

or it's 4 and 5. So when you're in the wilderness, wanderings in Exodus or Numbers, the fact that there would be a rock. I'm supposed to picture a mound. Like a small mountain away. Yeah, I mean, if you're using your imagination of the meaning of the rock,

what you're looking as is a little refuge. You're looking at a little micro mountain. Little micro mountain. Yeah, looking at a little micro mountain. Little micro mountain. Yeah, from which flows the cosmic river. It's a little, wow. So in that way, it's this little image of the cosmic mountain.

Eden, it's Eden, shown up in miniature in the middle of the wilderness. Surrounded by wilderness. Surrounded by wilderness. So what's interesting, there's two interesting, and in Exodus 17, which is the first Moses strikes the rock to bring out the water. What God says to Moses, it's very odd detail, I was just working on this yesterday. God says, go to this rock and look, I will stand on the rock

in front of you and you will strike the rock. So Yahweh is, it's as if, and we're talking about the fire cloud here, the pillar of fire and cloud. That's how Yahweh is showing up in the wilderness. That's how he's standing there. Yeah, so it's Yahweh goes to dwell on top of the Eden rock. And then- You almost get this picture of Heaven's his throne room, Earth's his footstool. Yeah Yeah, he's gonna stand up and just like be there with you. Yeah, and Moses strikes the rock with his staff. And in Exodus, you know, that's the staff that he used to strike the waters and split the sea

and to strike the Nile River and to turn it to blood and make it undrinkable. That's a little detail in the first plague when he strikes the river, it becomes undrinkable. And here he strikes the rock. Okay, so there's a whole theme of just Moses striking. Yeah. And it either brings order or disorder.

Yeah. It's God's created, great of power, as Genesis one power in the staff. Yeah, and God dwelling over the rock is for sure another narrative image that's paralleled in God's glory, taking up residence in the temple. So much so that even in at the end of Deuteronomy, Moses just straight up calls God the rock.

You are the rock. Rock becomes like a name for God in the Torah and the prophet, oh, and the Psalms, actually, throughout the Hebrew Bible. So it's very suggestive, the symmetry, which connects then to your question, Chris, about that moment in 1 Corinthians 10, where Paul actually straight up calls the rock Messiah and talks about as a spiritual rock that followed them in the wilderness.

What Paul is drawing attention to is the fact that in Exodus 17, Moses struck the rock at a place called Marybah. And then on the other side, I'm outside now, there's the story in Numbers 20, where there are a different place that's called Kadesh, holiness, a holy place. So he strikes the rock at the holy place. And when Moses strikes a rock, but he doesn't speak to it, what the narrator says is, these are the waters of Marybah. Okay. You're like, what? No, they're not. They're the waters of Kadesh. But these two stories are linked. Yeah. Yep. Totally. They're linked

in a symmetry around on the other side of Mount Sinai. So the narrator wants you to see that you're at a different location. Same rock. But it's the same waters flowing out of the rock. It's the same waters. Yeah, interesting. And so there was developed in Jewish tradition and you can go like in the early Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible

called the Targums. They talk about the how the rocks that most struck the first time was rolling. Following them for the 40 years. That's cool. The wilderness. So Paul was aware of that tradition. And in the place of saying the rock is Yahweh, which is what Moses will say. Okay. What Paul does is he puts the Messiah in the Yahweh slot when he calls him the rock and the source of life. So this is all, you know, so when Jesus gets speared, in John's account.

He's the rock getting... Yeah. ...getting struck. For sure. John wants us to see that symbolism there. That's interesting that Moses, he struck the Nile, turns the water to blood. He strikes the rock, living water comes out.

Yeah. Jesus' struck, blood and waters separated. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Comes out. It's really fascinating. So yeah, thanks very perceptive questions. And what's cool is that both John and Paul,

they're not just making this up. They are attuned to the details of the stories and also they are tapping in to very common themes within the Hebrew Bible and the way Jewish readers of their time period were paying attention to those details and kind of uniting them. Wonderful. Yeah, thank you Ooh, we got a John spelled like me, JoN. Oh yeah. Oh, from the USA. We're like brothers. Hey, Jonathan. On episode 319, you discussed number 27-1-11, where God creates a new law so that Daughters can inherit land when a father has no sons to give it to. It seems like God's law can change and adapt to new situations. How does this make sense with what God tells Israel and Deuteronomy 4-2 where they are

strictly commanded not to add or change to the law God had given them? Especially since Deuteronomy 13-1-5 warns Israel to stone someone who does signs and wonders to get them to rebel. Doesn't number 27 open up a dangerous door where God's law can be manipulated Looking forward to hearing what you say thanks You know what's interesting is we have two Johns a Johnny asking a question that you asked before and now a John Who is asking a question that I know is like we've talked about two and I think it's it something you've expressed before also Yeah We've talked about two and I think it's something you've expressed before also. Yeah, but I think here he's asking it very explicitly in a really helpful way.

I love very direct explicit questions. If in one sense we get a story where you're kind of learning that the law is adaptable to a new situation, not only that, but like the scroll of Deuteronomy is Moses adapting the law is adaptable to a new situation. Not only that, but like the scroll of Deuteronomy is most adapting the law for a new generation. What do we do with a verse that says, do not adapt the law? Yeah. Well, maybe that's what it means. So let's read it. It's Deuteronomy chapter four, verses one and two. Now, oh, Israel listen, Shema, to the statutes and the judgments. I'm teaching you to perform so that you may live and go in and take possession of the land, which the Lord the God of your Father is giving you.

You shall not add to the Word that I'm commanding you, nor take away from it, so that you may keep the commandments of the Lord, your God, which I'm commanding you. Don't add, don't take away. To the word, to this, basically his speech here, which is gonna be turned into a school. Correct, yeah. Famously, the revelation does this too. Yeah, yeah, John, the visionary quotes this,

and yeah, attaches this to his... Which then becomes a bit of a proof text, in my tradition to say like, hey, Canon's closed. Yep. This is what we got. Bible says it, that's what God means. Yeah, right.

But that's kind of what's assumed right there. Yeah. Yeah, so one important thing is that this line in Deuteronomy 4 is actually picking up a trope in ancient Near Eastern covenant treaties. So this was Moshe Greenberg's commentary on Deuteronomy and Encore Bible series. I think where I first came across this. And he was both a scholar of ancient Near East literature and Hebrew Bible. So he has copious, like examples. And so what he's talking about is the function of these So he has copious examples. And so what he's talking about is the function of these treaty introductions is essentially

to say you can't just change the terms of this relationship at will. But what's ironic is within the biblical tradition, this is the introduction to a law collection where Moses is not changing the terms, but he is adapting how Israel can be faithful to the covenant because of the change setting that's ahead. So it's either a contradiction that its face value or what this means is actually fully in sync with what Moses is doing in Deuteronomy, which is adapting numerous laws from earlier for a change setting. Does that make sense?

Or perhaps we're wrong and he's not actually adapting the laws? Is it pretty clear that he's adapting laws? Oh, well, yeah, yes, just compare them. Okay. Yeah, just compare them. Yeah, so whether it's like the calendar of feasts, for example, in Deuteronomy, I think I think I've been 14. And you compare it to Exodus 23 or Leviticus 23. And what you'll find is how the like the annual feasts are to be celebrated gets dialed in in Deuteronomy,

with all kinds of additional details or adapted details, because now you're going to be in houses on settled land, whereas the earlier ones were full on, like, adapted for setting, for celebrating intents as a migrant community and the wilderness. So genuine adaptation. Okay, so if this is a formula I used in Covenant treaties, you're saying then the purpose of the formula isn't to say, hey, this will never get adapted to a new context. The purpose is then what? Oh, um, to say, this is a covenant, these laws are the terms of a covenant relationship between Yahweh and his people Israel, and you don't get to determine the terms of that relationship.

This is Yahweh is entering into the relationship with you. And what's happening with adaptations of the law is not reinventing the covenant relationship. It's opposite. We need to honor this covenant relationship. And actually, now that we're in this new situation, the laws as stated might lead us to do something that won't faithfully honor the intentions of God for this covenant. And so that's where these adaptation moments come in.

That's certainly how God responds in the daughters of Zalofaah's story, where God says, yeah, those daughters are right. I mean, God says that they're right. It's not Moses, it's the right. Moses is like, I don't know. God says that they're right. And John, you bring up Deuteronomy 13,

which is about warning Israel, to react severely to people, leading them away toward covenant faithfulness. But that's exactly the point is in Deuteronomy 13, what these prophets will try and do is to have you give your allegiance to another God. And that's not what these adaptations are about. They're about increasing your faithfulness to Yahweh, but doing it by means of wisdom, discernment, adaptation, and then as we talked about, where followers of Messiah with Holy Spirit guidance. But I want to honor John that it is,

it appears to us as attention, like the laws, you know, once and for all for all time. But then those same laws are getting adapted. Well, it seems like the laws are presented in such a way of saying like, hey, this is it, follow it completely, and things will go well, and you don't follow these things, and there's big consequences. And so you get the sense, it's like, don't mess with these laws. And in one sense, that's true. Don't mess with them in a way that will lead you

out of covenant faithfulness, start worshiping other gods, put your loyalty somewhere else. Like that's a huge problem. Yeah, that's right. But then you get these stories where Israel's in a new setting. The other story was in Leviticus maybe

with the Passover, and if you're like unclean. Yeah, actually that's earlier in a new setting. The other story was in Leviticus maybe with the Passover, and if you're like, unclean. Yeah, actually, that's earlier in the number scroll. That's actually earlier in the number scroll. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the guys are rich really impure, and so they can't do Passover on the day. Okay, yeah. That's right.

And so they have to add to the law, and kind of come up with a loophole of sorts in the law. And so you get these stories, and then becomes attention of, okay. So you do adapt. How do you do that in a way that still honors your covenant relationship with God? Yeah, that's right. John, the end of your question is, does this open a dangerous door to manipulating God's law. And man, I think it really depends on what side of the debate, I guess, you're on. Because certainly, we brought it forward to the Jerusalem Council in the New Testament.

And certainly, by we, you mean, you and I did in our conversation about the story of the daughters of Zelochad. We went forward. Talked about. Yeah, because you had the Messianic Christians who were Pharisees, who were, I mean, they could appeal to Scripture about circumcision and kosher food laws. Yeah. And you're talking about the early apostles in Acts. In Acts. Yeah. And so to those Pharisee, Messianic followers of Jesus, this was a dangerous door, being opened. But what James and the Apostles conclude is this actually is not an innovation. This is actually honoring even more consistently what has been God's heart from the beginning, which is that the blessings

of Abraham go out to all of the nations. And really, it's about the identity of God, as Paul will say in Romans, is God the God of Israel only? Is he not the God of all nations? And if he's the God of all nations, then, so for Paul, this isn't just about rules about how to obey God. It's about the identity of God is what's at stake in those debates. And isn't it interesting? I've just tried recently to do a lot more reading in the history of the early creeds in the Christian tradition. It struck me, well, I didn't notice this as somebody else, but it struck me that really

what all those early creeds are about and the debates and the trinitarian debates, they're about the identity of God. Like what God is it that we believe we're connecting to? And that's what The Apostles believed was at stake also and I think that's what these covenant formulas are about is about your allegiance to the God revealing himself through Exodus and through through the Messiah. So it certainly isn't clean and tidy, and I definitely want to honor that John in you in person and John who asked the question, but it's dynamic. And I guess that's just built into what it means to follow this God. Are you trying to massage or change or do some sort of jiu-jitsu with the law in order for license to live apart from Yahweh and to kind of whatever, take the fruit, desire and take. Or are you doing it to try to live more faithfully to the covenant in the setting that you find yourself in?

That's right. Seems like that's the main thing. And what that will look like doesn't always look the same to each person. And I think that's what makes us such a fraught question. Yeah. It's like, well, one group can say that that's why they're doing X, Y, or Z that looks like an innovation in the tradition. Yeah. And another group can say, we're just going to keep doing it

the way we've always done it. And that can actually prevent the story from moving forward in the new territory. And again, that's what was at stake in the Jerusalem Council. So it's not easy. The Paul says, I'll become all things all people. Yeah. He tries to adapt in a way to honor and love

the people in the setting he's in. Yeah. Yeah. Man, this is so built in to the Jewish and Christian story. This is what, you know, the musical Fiddler on the roof. Yeah. It's like, it's all about. It's the central theme of that musical. Oh, well. And the image of a Fiddler up on an angled roof line as he sings the song about tradition. Do you have you ever seen it? It's been so long. Yeah, tradition. Yeah.

And it all, it's all, well, I'm thinking about the film version of the musical but it's like how far can you bend before you break right like that's the whole point. And so it's a tension built in to the Jewish and Christian story told in the scriptures. Is it that dynamic? And that musical captures it. Yeah, or as Paul doesn't need try to get at that when he's like, I don't know, you'll know the verse better than me, but he's like, look, it's freedom. We've got freedom, but the freedom isn't so that you can be captured by sin.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's to serve and love your neighbor as yourself. Yeah. Yeah, when he's writing to the Roman churches who were divided up along boundary lines of cultural practice about dietary laws and festival calendars. Yeah.

So there you go. There you go. There you go. Thank you, John. All right, let's move on to Katie in Canada. Hi there. My name's Katie from Ementen Canada. We see in the Hebrew scriptures that God chose a people, a family, and then gave them a promised land. And when they finished journeying through the wilderness and came to the land of Canaan that God had promised to them. They found that the land was already populated with people. And yet this was the land that God had for them. So my question is

how this same concept of God giving us the land has been used in really awful ways over history and specifically for our country and Canada and taking the land and culture from the indigenous people here. I wondered if you had any thoughts of how, yeah, the history that we find in Hebrew scriptures, how that connects to some of the awful things that have happened since then. Appreciate it. Yeah. And we talked about this a little bit. appreciate it. Yeah, and we talked about this a little bit. Actually, I think we are going to talk about it in the Deuteronomy conversation.

That's right, okay. So I just wanted to flag it, Katie, first of all, thank you. Like this is such an important question, especially for people living in cultures that are the fruit of colonies that took up residence in inhabited lands. Our neighbors to the north, UK, up in Canada. But this is a reality that is as old as the human story, people taking land from each

other, but it's very much a part of the global stage right now. People taking land from each other and saying, God gave God gave us this land. That's very exactly right. We deserve this land because we've got God on our side. Yeah. You, you guys are less, even human in some ways. Yep, that's right. So, I think just to be very frank, Katie, when you ask how do we reconcile this portrait of taking the land in God's name in the Hebrew Bible,

and then the way that those narratives have been used to legitimate future colonizing efforts? I wouldn't recommend we try to reconcile it. It's a use to which those narratives have been put that has been incredibly destructive and damaging, and it just is a fact, like it's a part of the legacy of those narratives. The question, I think, is that inherently, is that what those narratives were trying to communicate to later readers? Is that you can do this too? Or is it just the fact that the president is set? Even if you argue that this was a command for one time and one place for that generation of Israel

to take that populated land. Yeah. And that the seal's been broken. Yeah, the seals has been broken. And so you can't say, well, God didn't ever tell them to do it again. And when they went back after exile, and Ezra Niyamaya, they didn't try to do that. Or some people did try to do that or make some people did try to do that and how as Renemia relates that is as a really complicated

unsuccessful effort so You can qualify it all you want the but as you say like once the cans open It creates the precedent. Yeah, so I don't recommend you try and reconcile it and it remains for me the violence of God and the act of taking his people, using them as instruments of divine justice on the Canaanites, when the Israelites are no morally superior to them. For me, this is one of the parts of the Hebrew Bible that I wrestle with the most, and it's never gotten better for me.

And so we'll talk about things that I've learned, about how design patterns and hyperlinks help you kind of get the message of what's going on more in Deuteronomy. We'll do that in the Deuteronomy School. But I just want to honor it it that it's a real tension. As far as it goes for followers of Jesus, I think it is really important to say that how Jesus envisioned the arrival of the Kingdom on Earth and the enemies that Jesus named

and what he thought he was taking over was not a piece of geographical territory and not human enemies. In fact, part of his whole message was another human is never your enemy. They are the object of God's love and are to become the object of your own love as well. If you give allegiance to Jesus.

And Jesus identified as Jesus looked at the people coming to arrest him. What he says is that this hour belongs to you and to the powers of darkness, which is akin to what Paul says, which is that our enemy is never flesh and blood. But spiritual powers. So here's my deep punch is that those historical narratives of about Israel conquest and conquest of the land have actually through design patterns are trying to communicate the same message that Jesus and Paul are communicating. And that's why the Canaanite enemies are almost always linked to the giants in the Nephilim from the rebellion of the sons of God in Genesis 6. In other words, even the narratives about them taking the Promised Land are trying to show that the ultimate enemy represented here is not another human, but are the spiritual forces that are kind of the subtext throughout the whole Hebrew Bible.

But even if you can get there and understand that as the message, but as you say, the seals been broken and these narratives have been used and read against that grain of their design to legitimate all kinds of really terrible things. And all you can do in the face of that history is just lament and be honest and learn and learn. I've learned a lot about this topic. I'll just name three authors that have helped me a lot. One is Gary Burge, his book Jesus and the Land, the New Testament Challenge to Holy Land Theology. That'll wrestle some feathers. That's really good Another one is a co-authored book by Mark Charles and Soon Chan Ra called unsettling truths

ongoing legacy of the doctrine of discovery If you're not familiar with how the biblical stories have been used to how the biblical stories have been used to legitimate conquest and colonization, then I really recommend that book because you will learn more than you ever want to know and hopefully be really disturbed in the process. And then Willie Jennings really, really significant book, the Christian Imagination Theology and the Origins of Race. book, the Christian imagination, theology, and the origins of race, really, especially gets in to some case studies, especially in the Spanish and Portuguese conquest of what we call South America and the way that the Bible was used to legitimate that.

So thank you, Katie. We'll have to wrestle through this more as we go into Deuteronomy, but it's important to just start recognizing that question even now in numbers, because that's a part of the number school too. Okay, how we doing? We got a little bit of time. We could do one and maybe two more.

All right. We've got a question from Femi. Hey, Femi in California. Oh, this is Femi. Yeah. Hi, Femi. You asked a really great question. This fits into the category of people and listeners and the audience are like super smart. And they tell me

is incredibly smart. Hi, Tim and John. This is Femi Oluhtadeh from Irvine, California. And I was wondering whether we're supposed to be seeing a pattern of 10 versus 2 as in the 10 spies that didn't want to go into the Promised Land, verse 2 that trusted God, the 2 and a half tribes that were on the east side of the Jordan River, verses the 10 and a half that were inside the Promised Land. And then earlier in Genesis, also the 10 older sons of Jacob, who were pitted against the two younger sons of Jacob, and then later on, the split between the 10 northern tribes of Israel, the two southern

tribes. And so is there a pattern that the biblical authors are highlighting and is there a meaning behind it? Thank you so much. Well, I think you showed us the pattern. You told me. Yeah. Yeah, for sure, that's a pattern. I don't know why I'd for some reason the 10 That's a pattern. I don't know why I'd, for some reason, the 10 and two, I had never been the prominent thing in the linking of these stories, but now it is. It feels very obvious, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So thank you for that, Ops. You have brought up the Northern and Southern tribes and how that relates to Jacob's sons, but then connecting that to the 12 spies. And yeah, that's right. So yeah, if we take it all the way back, when you have the 12 sons, and then you have, it's our begins, you think?

Yeah, with the 12 sons of Jacob, and then you have the two of the sons are from Jacob's favorite wife, and that's Joseph and Benjamin. And so they're the ones who get put in the most vulnerable position because of the schemes of the 10 older brothers. They're also the two youngest brothers.

So that story plays out, but then the split between the Northern and Southern Kingdom, for example, later on, is definitely between Joseph representing... The younger Joseph, yeah, and then Judah, but what's really interesting there is... Because Judah's one of the 10.

Judah is one of the 10, but then it like flips. And basically it becomes Joseph and the rest of the tribes in the North, and then in the South are his Judah and right in the middle, like a little dot in the middle of Judah's territory, is Benjamin. Oh yeah. So then so Benjamin switched, switched brothers. Firstly, with a line with Joseph, then he's like aligned with Judah and then you get the

tribe. But you still got ten or two. They still got ten or two. And then on the east and the west side of the Jordan, that's ten and two. Yeah, you're talking about the story. Was that in numbers? The story where yeah, like they're ready to go

and two tribes, two and a half tribes are like, mm-hmm, it's kind of nice over here. Totally, that's Rubin and Gad and the half tribe of Manasa. And then you get the others on the west side. And then you get the spies, the ten spies. Oh, and the two spies who trust God are from the tribes of Joseph and Judah. Oh, really?

So what's interesting is in the 10 and the two, it's never the same tribe. Yeah. It's always a mix up. Okay. But usually Joseph and Judah are highlighted in the mix. And I think the meta theme is this is a part of the elevation of a firstborn, where the elevation God continues to elevate one from among the many. And it's

never the one that you would think, and it turns upside down all human value systems and expectations. And then that one, when that one is chosen, it often forces a division among the brothers, or it forces the rest of those around to either acknowledge what God has done and celebrate it, or you can resist it, and then it will divide the family. And the story isn't as simple as the one God chooses ends up being the really awesome one that trusts God. It does the right thing.

Yeah, it's exactly the same. And in the 12 spies, it feels that way very clearly. There's two, we're going, we trust God. And they get to go into the land. So if that's kind of the center of gravity for this theme for you, then it's like, okay, the theme's about the two that are like on the right track.

But then everywhere else this shows up, it's a lot messier. Yeah, the two and half tribes that stay east of the Jordan, their decision's really ambiguous. And then they are the first to get taken out when a Syria comes knocking a couple centuries later. So, it seems like the meta pattern underneath it is about God's choice of a remnant or choice of one out of the many that forces that remnant to make a choice about whether they'll be state in allegiance to the one who chose them, and it also poses a choice for everybody around them.

So each of these versions of 10 and 2 is exploring that tension from just different angles. And so yeah, super interesting. Is there anywhere else that this theme is standing out to you that if I may didn't bring up? About the 10 and the 2. Well, notice this is all about the sons of Jacob. Yeah. That's really where this is all coming out. So I think those are all the iterations. I can think of what's interesting in judges, and the judges scroll, is the different judges come from different sets of tribes, and then you get different tribes

like coming around the one judge. And I can't think of a 10 and two example. Maybe in the battle with Deborah and Barack, I have to go back and look at the details. So I think Femi you've accounted for all the 10s and 2s. There's a lot of stuff in the new testament in the revelation or maybe in particular where the tribes are brought up very specifically. Is it ever done in this 10 and 2 kind of way? Wow, it's interesting. I mean, the one list of the tribes in the New Testament

is in the revelation, and there a tribe or two have been left out. Because remember, there's actually 13 brothers. Oh, right. What's the two sons of Joseph get adopted in? So, and then any list of 12 has to figure out how to make 13 into the 12. Yeah, but it's not, I forget. In the revelation list, it's a long-standing puzzle.

Like why one of the tribes is not accounted for. I forget if it's Dan or... All right. God. Well, that's a rebel. Anyway. Okay. Yeah. So, thank you, Pebi. One more.

Minimas. So we'll end with Caleb from Kentucky. Hey, Tim and John. My name is Caleb Lewis from just south of Louisville, Kentucky. Thank you all so much for all the work you put into the Bible project. It's been a huge help to me in my life as we try to understand the theme of scripture.

In the podcast, you mentioned several authors who have helped you recognize the repetition of the adenic themes throughout the Torah. Could you cite some of the specific works or even signals within the text that would help me to better understand and see the repetition of idinic themes within the Torah? Thanks. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, that's the on point question. Here's a short list of resources that have been helpful. One is book by Seth Postel, called Adam as Israel, Genesis 1 through 3,

as the introduction to the Torah and the Tenak. I mean, that's a jam. That's so my jam. Anyway, Seth, done a great job, bringing that together, it's outstanding. A very helpful kind of high flying overview of the whole Torah by a scholar, Ari Leather, called Waiting for the Land, the storyline of the Pentateuch, and I forget how I learned about his work. He also has a book, he has another book you can find him

on an Amazon, that's also a biblical theology of Joshua through Kings, which is kind of a continuation. But what he's really tracing is how the Eden's story sets the basic premise for every cycle of the story, the Torah and prophets after that. Another helpful scholar that I've learned a lot from is T. Desmond Alexander. It's an introduction to the Pentateuch called from Paradise to Promised Land. And he's also showing how every iteration of the story from generations, one of the next, is playing out the themes of the Eden story. This may seem like a council of despair or a council of like, here's your mission, and

I'm so excited, but I really would be to just, to so immersed yourself in Genesis 1 through 11, and then in particular Genesis actually won 1 through 5. Which you have a whole class on from Adam Tenoa. Which is just Genesis 1 through 5. You slowly go through all those texts. Yeah, but really internalizing. And that class is available, right? That class is, yeah, it's up on Bible Project Classroom.

Yes, it is. But it's just to internalize almost all of the vocabulary to the degree that you can just hear the melody. Can you do that in your English translations? Mm-hmm. Yeah. But what it means is learning not just to see the repeated words, but then any time an Eden theme gets replayed in a later story that might add, so instead of the tree being good to look at, then you'll get in a story where

Potifar's wife sees that Joseph is beautiful to look at, and so she tries to take him. It's the word beautiful, which is not used in the Eden story, but it's a little creative twist. So now in your mind you're supposed to have not just good to look at, but beautiful to look at, and that can signal the Eden theme. So that's how it keeps building its vocabulary in the cycles as you go on. But really, to just hang out in Genesis 1 through 5 or 1 through 11, memorize it, and Genesis 1 through 5 or 1 through 11 memorize it. And you will be greatly helped in noticing the vocabulary and imagery as it appears in later stories. Okay. Yeah, there you go. That was the numbers Q and R. You guys, thank you for sending in your questions. It's really always fun both to read through them

to see what y'all are thinking and then to always fun both to read through them to see what y'all are thinking and then to get to respond to some of them. So yeah, thank you guys. It's a really fun part of doing this. Yes, we appreciate all the questions. We are sorry we can't get to all of them, but we really, we really value all of your interaction with this. We've got the Deuteronomy scroll. We'll do one more Q and R and we'll have finished the Torah

at least in this journey that we've done. That's going to take us through most real time in the podcast through the end of near the end of 2022. We'll have a little bit of little bonus bits at the end of the year coming up. A little extra. Mm-hmm. And which I'm excited for. Yeah. And we'll talk about that more later. But that's our time for numbers. Bommi Bar. Mm-hmm.

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