Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep930: The Scandal of Christmas, Part 4: Joey Dodson

Episode Date: December 28, 2021

In this fourth and final episode in our “scandal of Christmas” series, New Testament scholar Dr. Joey Dodosn walks us through parallel birth narratives in the Greco-Roman and Jewish environment of the New Testament. Reading the biblical birth narratives in these contexts helps us read the story in HD, or through a 3D lens, so that we can better understand the author’s intention in how he’s telling the story.  Dr. Joseph (Joey) Dodson is associate professor of New Testament. He studied at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland and the University of Tübingen in Germany. In addition to many academic and devotional essays, he has written a number of articles for top-tier, peer review journals such as Harvard Theological Review, Novum Testamentum, the Journal for Jewish Studies, and Catholic Biblical Quarterly,. His most recent books include The Things I Want to Do: Romans 7 Revisited (forthcoming), A Little Book for New Bible Scholars with E. Randolph Richards (2017) and a co-edited volume with David E. Briones, Paul and Seneca in Dialogue (2017). Dr. Dodson’s current research includes a Romans commentary in the Brill Exegetical Commentary Series and a Colossians-Philemon commentary in The Christian Standard Commentary Series. Most importantly, Joey is my best friend. Theology in the Raw Conference - Exiles in Babylon At the Theology in the Raw conference, we will be challenged to think like exiles about race, sexuality, gender, critical race theory, hell, transgender identities, climate change, creation care, American politics, and what it means to love your democratic or republican neighbor as yourself. Different views will be presented. No question is off limits. No political party will be praised. Everyone will be challenged to think. And Jesus will be upheld as supreme. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

If you would like to support this show, you can do so in three ways. Number one, leave a review, or you can share. Number two, you can share this episode or others like it on your social media platforms. Or number three, you can support us through Patreon. That's patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Raw. Support the show for as little as five bucks a month. All the info is in the show notes. My guest today needs no introduction because he's been on the podcast many, many times. He is my best friend, Dr. Joey Dodson, professor of biblical studies at Denver Seminary, author of several books. Again, all the info is in the show notes. So please welcome back to the show for the umpteenth time, Joey.

Welcome back for the 18th time to Theology in the Raw. Got the buddy pass. Do you listen to Joe Rogan? I forget. Sometimes. I do. Yes. You're like the Joey Diaz. You're like the Joey Diaz.

You're like the Joey Diaz of the Algen Ra. I feel like every month he's got Joey Diaz on. Actually, I'm more intimidated this time than ever before. You've got me playing with LeBron, Jordan, and Pippen. Oh, man. We had some good ones, man. I feel like Woody Harrelson's on White Men Can't Jump My name's not Jump, it's Royal

Craig Bomber Michael Byrd, I'm not nearly as brilliant as Craig and Lynn and not nearly as witty and can't rap as well as Michael Byrd Does he rap? He doesn't rap, does he? He raps Hamilton, have you not heard him do Hamilton? He kills it

When you have him on, you need to get him to wrap it I need to have a back he's very proud of it as well nice well uh I just found out from you offline congratulations are in order you are now the Craig L Blomberg professor of am I getting this right of New Testament or chair chair of New Testament chair of New Testament L Blomberg chair of New Testament, chair of New Testament, Craig L. Blomberg, chair of New Testament. Yeah. And Craig Blomberg's L stands for Leonard, by the way. Oh, Leonard. So if you ever see Craig, you can call him Lenny.

Yeah. So I think, but thanks so much. I'm really honored. And it's one of those things where God is just doing immeasurably more than I could ask for or imagine. My first book on Paul that I think I read was his commentary on first Corinthians and then IV application commentary. And then my first class that I taught, I used his Matthew commentary in the New American Commentary Series when I taught high school.

So, yeah, to be able to step into this is renowned New Testament evangelical New Testament scholar who's, gosh, for a few decades has been kind of the leading scholar in the Gospels and Corinthians. I mean, the guy touches on a lot of different areas of the New Testament. Really just a sweet guy, too. I've met him a couple of times. Like I often say, he's a Christian first scholar second, it seems like, you know? Yeah. Wow. What an honor, man. He's a king of puns as well. Yeah. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Yeah. Well, let's dive into the Crips story. You're going to help us unpack some of the background stuff that if you just read the Bible, you're not going to notice really,

you have to do a little bit of work. But once you do a little bit of work, man, you just read the Bible, you're not going to notice really. You have to do a little bit of work. But once you do a little bit of work, man, you just unearth some fascinating background material. And, you know, background, it helps us to read the Bible in its context, you know? It would be like, I mean, this is off the top of my head, so maybe I should not do this, but it's Theology in the Raw. So it'd be like reading the biography biography of a a jew living in germany in 1947 or something with no awareness

of hitler or the nazi regime or something like that like oh it's cool story it's like no no this is this is huge look at the background and see kind of the broader context in which the story is happening and same thing like both you and i love to dig into the background but man you you're able to fill out the New Testament in such engaging ways. So tell us, how does the background, what are some aspects of the background help us to read the Christmas story through a 3D lens? Yeah, sure.

Let me make two prequalifications. One is that it's not like New Testament backgrounds in the sense that we have these books in the background. It's more like New Testament context. This background is alive and well. They're contemporaneous. They're walking on stage. And so sometimes when we hear background, we have this picture of like a backdrop that is not dynamic, but really kind of New Testament context. And so what I enjoy is the intersection of Second Temple Judaism, Greco-Roman literature, and early church Christianity, and see almost that common intersection and interpenetration between those three.

And so having those two qualifications, I think, helps us even understand that it's not just like this background, but instead, it is alive and well during the time. And so it's almost like my granddaughter walking past us while we're talking. She's not in the background, but she's right here. Like the word background sounds like, oh, and by the way, this is also happening while the New Testament is being written. And that's absolutely not. Yeah, dead and static. Yeah, yeah.

Right. Good. Well, yeah. What do you want to talk about? Yeah, along that roundabout, I mean, we could go down the Jewish context that intersects. Or we can look at the Greco-Roman, although, of course, those aren't hard and fast. Or we can look at some of the early church parallels to the infancy narrative. So do you have one of those that you want to jump into first?

Why don't we start with Greco-Roman? Let's start with the Gentile background. Yeah. Because some people don't think that there's any kind of parallels here, you know? Right. Good. But one thing that we see in Matthew and Luke, the two infancy narratives, is the emphasis of Jesus being the Son of God. And even that term Son of God is going to make the listeners, in light of that New Testament context, think of Augustus Caesar. Augustus Caesar, way before the birth of Christ, was known as the Son of God. It was on their coins all around. And he has a birth narrative that starts out actually with this heavenly sign.

There's this general heavenly sign that there is going to be the Savior of Rome that is going to be born. And so the sage tells this to the Senate. The Senate is vexed. They're greatly disturbed. And so what the Senate does is they issue a decree that there will be no more babies born in Rome during this year. Obviously, that doesn't work out. And so meanwhile, back at the ranch, the story, Sustonius is the one who tells us the story. But meanwhile, back at the ranch, there's a woman named Atea, and she is a priestess of Apollo. And one night she falls asleep and Apollo turns on some Marvin Gaye and comes in the form of a serpent and Netflixes and chills, if we make that into a verb, with Atiyah.

And about the same time, Octavian, Augustus' dad, he has this vision of his wife being pregnant, and she is giving birth to the sun. And then in another dream, he has a vision of this sun who is standing by the right side of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Sounds like a transformer more than meets the eye. And Jupiter meets the, but, but, um, and, and, uh, Jupiter Maximus, uh, Optimus Maximus gives, uh, Augustus his thunderbolt, um, his lightning bolt. He gives him his scepter, uh, and, uh, he is, uh, has a crown on that has sunbeams that are coming out of it. Uh, he has, he's on a chariot pulled by white horses, 12 white horses that are, are whiter than white. And, uhtea also has a dream that she is pregnant by the god Apollo. And in her dream, she is caught up into the stars as well. And she has one foot on the ground and one foot on the sea. And she has this heavenly vision. And so at this point, Augustus is born,

and you have all these visions that are happening around him. And so, yeah, we can kind of see immediately some of the parallels that the original audience of Matthew and Luke would have heard with respect to Jesus and Augustus Caesar. There's no virgin birth, is there, in that story? And do we have any examples of a virgin birth myth in ancient world? Yeah, not really. The closest that we get is, I think, in the Jewish world with Philo. Speaking of Philo, by the way, you had Con Campbell on,

and you were talking about how we used to meet with Pete Williams and translate on the giants. Yeah, so I have a bone to pick with you. There are times where I would show up, and neither you nor Mark would show up, and I would just be like one-on-one with Pete Williams to translate Philo. It was like interrogation, like one light bulb and there was no good cop and he just drilled me. There was no good cop. But anyway, Philo, on the Giants, he talks about Moses. And we can come and talk about Moses in a moment as well, because Moses is going to also be connected to that Lagos. He's also going to have this divinity that's connected to him and a very similar infancy story to what we see in Matthew. But with Moses, Moses doesn't

have a virgin birth. But according to Philo, this is on the cherubim, Moses and Zipporah have, Zipporah gets pregnant without any quote unquote moral agency. And so we don't, we're not sure if Philo is speaking allegorically as he does, but he talks about how this is a mystery. And so there is a connection possibly with that. But with Atiyah, who is, she was already married, so she wasn't a virgin. You have the story of Hercules, I have to bring in Hercules, right? Where it's not Apollo, but it's Zeus who looks down and Hercules' mom has gone away. And so he decides to dress up and pretend to be Hercules' dad. And so he goes down and hooks up with her as a serpent as well.

So if you find your spouse in the bed with a serpent, it's probably a God. And so he, and he, and anyway, so sorry, no, that's Alexander the Great. I'm getting, I'm getting my stories across. Zeus comes down looking like Hercules' dad. He stops the stars in heaven. He stops the sun from shining so that he could have all of his pleasure. And so they party all night, all night long. And then what happens is that she gets pregnant, not only with Hercules, but also with Hercules's other dad. And so there's twins that are born. And so she gives birth to twins, one who is the son of Zeus. The other is going to be the son of Hercules's biological dad. And so one comes out looking like Prest of Zeus. The other is going to be the son of Hercules' biological dad.

And so one comes out looking like Preston Sprinkle. The other one comes out looking like Post Malone. But again, they're not virgins. And so if we go down the early Christian line, they're going to see that this is one of the things that separates the Christian story from the Greco-Roman and Jewish parallels. And so in like the Proto-Evangelion of James, the Ascension of Isaiah, both of those are going to go to great lengths to underscore Mary's virginity. And so, yeah, do you want to question about that or do you want me to talk about that more? So is that because, I mean, I'm thinking historically or literarily here. Is that because they're aware of all these other birth narratives that have a lot of immorality wrapped up into them?

So is it trying to distance this story? Because there's so many – Yeah, I think – Okay. Because there's a lot of parallels. I think it's compounded. The parallels, it sounds very much like the birth of Augustus, but then it's not wrapped up in all that immoral Roman stuff is kind of what's going on here. That's right.

Okay. Yeah. You don't just see the Christians doing that, but you also see the Greco-Roman philosophers kind of moving away from that as well. And so Plutarch talks about how Plato is the son of God. And it's not the seed of God that goes into Plato's mom, but instead it is the spirit of God. And it's not the seed of God that goes into Plato's mom, but instead it is the spirit of God that goes into. And so the dunamis of God's penuma is what impregnates Plato's mom. And so you even have a great philosopher's, yeah, which is the same two terms that we see in Luke's gospel kind of overshadowing her. In one text, Zeus or Jupiter, and Jupiter is much more stoic than Zeus.

You know, they're the same guy, but the Romans make him less promiscuous. But I think it's Alexander the Great's story. Zeus just like sends a lightning bolt to hit Alexander the Great's mom's womb. And so it's a lightning bolt that impregnates her. But yeah, I do think that's one thing that the early Christians are going to separate. that this child is virgin birth unless I thrust my hands into the womb to see, which has parallels with what we see in the Gospel of John with respect to Thomas. And so she goes and she does it. And when she sticks her hand, when she does the check, her hand starts melting, like burns off because she didn't believe. And then she confesses and says,

no, I believe in the virgin birth, and she gets her hand back. So you see early Christians later on wanting to underscore that. In the Ascension of Isaiah, it has a story of after she gives birth. And it's funny because even the birth that Mary gives in these stories is almost like, there's a baby. There's no pain. It just kind of looks in and there's a baby there. And it says that in the ascension of Isaiah, that at that point, her vagina was restored to the days of her youth. And so she has like this biological anatomical restoration of her vagina in that just again, underlying her virginity.

These books are second, third century Christian books, right? The Proto-Evangelion of James and then Ascension of Isaiah. I know that one's had some redaction done to it, I think. I think it started as a Jewish work and Christians took it over, but we're talking about like second century Christian works that are kind of retelling the birth narrative. That's right. And so it's interesting to hear them because we see what they want to highlight

and what to add on to so it's almost like the prequels of star wars although that's some those are terrible uh these kind of give you in a sense the prequel and tell us some of the stories that we weren't familiar with um they seem to be like gynecologists almost really fascinated with mary's vagina like but both those stories they're like one guy's wearing girls reaching up. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Wow.

I wouldn't picture the early church. It's so odd. Yeah. I wouldn't picture the early church to be so explicit with sexual anatomy. So let's go back to the parallel. So you have Caesar Augustus, you have Luke who's very steeped in the greco-roman world unlike maybe unlike matthew you might need to agree or disagree

on that i don't know matthew's much more jewish but luke is right into theophilus he's very much has a lot of um i mean especially in the book of acts right i mean a lot of he's very politically aware like luke's very aware of these birth stories that you're talking about with Augustus and so on. Okay. So think about Luke. In that same story that I was just telling you, after Augustus is born, the son of God, you have these prophets that come and they see the baby and they declare that he is the savior of Rome, that he is the son of God. So Cicero is one of those in the story. But then immediately, like fast forwards to when Augustus is a baby and his nurse lays him down and she looks back and he's gone and she can't find him. And so they search and search and search because the Son of God has disappeared. And then

finally, they find him in a high tower, looking at the east, watching the sunrise, the rising sun. And so if you remember Luke's gospel, he fast forwards from the infancy narrative to the story of Jesus getting lost at the temple. All right. So real quick, Son of God, is that a divine title or a royal title or both? Because when it's used of Augustus, yes. Because I think Christians automatically, well, Jesus is God. Look, he's called the Son of God.

It's like, well, so is David. So is Israel as a nation. So just the title itself doesn't have to mean divinity. But you're saying in the story of Augustus, because he was later divinized, right? Viewed as being divine. So Son of God is not just a royal title for Augustus. It's both royal and divine. That's right.

Yeah. So remember Julius Caesar, he has an apotheosis um and uh caesar adopts augustus and so he is the son of god he is the son of caesar along those lines uh in contrast to the eastern kings uh the roman kings didn't usually uh proclaim divinity uh but uh we do see um alexander the great does a little bit of that, if you remember. And then later on, you're going to have this story that's, again, going to say that his divinity wasn't this adoption later on in his life, or even at the death of his life. And so when the Senate comes together to say that Augustus is the son of God, they are just giving a rubber stamp on what everyone believed. And so there were different, some believe that the emperor himself was a god, and they would worship that in the imperial cult.

Maybe similar to what we see in Revelation with the 666 and stuff. But others would worship the genus, the spirit of the emperor that was kind of the anointing that was upon him. But yeah, so Augustus is the one who was known as the son of God. Let's go back and just give us a summary of Luke 1 and 2. What's Luke trying to tell us here by the language that's being used, by how he's retelling the story in light of all this? Like, what should we walk away with? Yeah. Well, it gets us back into one of the conversations that we had before with the imperial critical discussion. As you know, in Luke and Acts, and especially in Acts, is one of those great questions.

What is the relationship of the church to the empire? And you do have in Thessaloniki, they're talking about how Paul is preaching another gospel. And sorry, he's preaching another king besides Caesar. another king besides Caesar. And so I think if we can kind of read Luke and Acts together, that there is this discussion that now there's the true savior, not just of Rome, but the savior of the world that's connected. And yeah, I mean, the Romans were so great at propaganda. So it's not like I'm pulling out this story that no one would not have heard. It was on their coins. They had it on the stage. You know, it was all around. There was probably no one in history as great as propaganda besides the Nazis, perhaps. And so these stories were all around. And so as soon as you hear the term Son of God, as soon as you

hear the story of the angel appearing and saying that this is going to be the Son of God and that he's going to be the savior of the world, These type of terms are going to bring this type of picture that there's a new Caesar in town. He is the real Caesar. So the birth of Jesus in Luke 2 is a political statement, you're saying. I mean, this is – I think so, yeah. So I think when we look at Christmas from this vantage point, we realize that the Christmas story is a political story. And it is even either Augustus Caesar, he's like, that's it, I'm just going to knock off of my

shoulder. Or it could be kind of really in the face of that, similar to what we see, more subtle than Revelation chapter 12, but still kind of sticking it to Caesar. And is that why I've always wondered, like in Luke chapter 2, verse 1, like why give the seemingly insignificant details about, you know, decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census would be taken. And this is the first census while Quirinius was governor of Syria. It's like, who the heck cares? Like, well, who's Quirinius?

He's not in any nativity. Like this isn't, but by framing the birth of this new king, the ultimate king, the true king, against the backdrop of these other human rulers, I mean, this is deliberate. Luke is, like the story wouldn't read the same from Luke's perspective if he didn't mention Augustus and Kyrian.

And even the census and this subordination and their taxing the Jewish people and their commanding to go here, they're very much there's the, I mean, the empire is empiring, which drives Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem. Yeah. I mean, it's almost like us saying today, if we were retelling the Christmas story that the angel Gabriel said to Mary,

and he will give you life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You know? And so a thousand years from now, people may not make that connection. But for us, we're like, oh, wow, this is connected to the manifest destiny of America. The other day I was in Oregon and I saw a guy with a New York Yankees hat on.

As you know, I'm a Yankees fan. I was like, hey, you know, a Yankees fan. And he's like, no, no, no, I'm not a Yankees fan. I'm like, what do you mean? And he's like, it doesn't stand for New York. I'm like, well, excuse me. I think it does. I'm kind of a big Yankee fan.

He's like, no, no, no. I am a native American and I'm from the Yakima nation. And so I wear this hat not to stand for the New York Yankees, but instead for my tribe. And so it's really amazing that he would, I mean, this is a walking example of someone who is using the same terminology, the same hat that represents the U.S. all around the world, no matter what you think about the Yankees. Everywhere you go, when people think of the U.S., they think of the Yankees, not the Dodgers. But anyway, yeah, but here's a guy that was wearing it subversively. And so I think kind of some of these same stories that the early Christians accommodating and emphasizing about the historicity of Jesus Christ

is showing that they are turning the world upside down to go back to that passage in Acts. I mean, this is going to be lame and not totally accurate, but it'd be like saying, you know, it came about in those days, a decree went out from Donald Trump that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth first census taken while biden was where i don't i mean i'm just trying

to level the playing field but yeah these are it is it too much to say that that in the very birth story luke is trying to cultivate a christ Christian identity around the birth of their savior that has, that's intrinsically, I mean, counter-imperial would be very easy to say. I'm trying to think of a more parallel, a modern parallel without going too far.

Clearly it's counter-imperial. Clearly it's these dudes think they're ruling the world, but they're not. This little baby born feeding trough is. Yeah. I don't know if it's clearly, it could be super imperial where our nobility is so much greater than Rome. It's not that we're anti-Rome, but just that we're so much greater than Rome.

And the king of the universe, the one who's at the right hand of God, the father, who has not the lightning bolt, but our ever-present help in time of trouble is the one who's connected to this ragtag, motley crew, early Jews made up of women and slaves and Ethiopian eunuchs. And so it does connect this small group of people to say, hey, you are royal, and it is countercultural, and your king is greater than Rome's king. Well, on that last point, I mean, part of the Christian identity is to embody a social order, an economic order that is very different from the empire.

I mean, that to me seems so intentional by including all the people that Rome would not have elevated in terms of their social status, which we see in the, I mean, that to me seems so intentional by including all the people that Rome would not have elevated in terms of their social status, which we see in the – I mean, obviously with the shepherds, right? I mean, they were seen as lowly people. They're the ones who come and greet the king. I'm trying to think. Matthew will – well, that would be more Jewish. So that might take us in a different direction, which we do need to go to. But here you have these foreigners from Babylon, these Gentiles coming, and they're the ones who are while all Jerusalem, including Herod the Great, half Jew or whatever,

is upset. Here's these Gentiles coming to celebrate the king. Well, yeah, let's go to the Jewish. So that's a lot of the Greco-Roman background. It's kind of like counter-imperial. What's going on? And this might take us to Matthew in terms of Jewish parallels to this birth narrative. Sure. Yeah. So, I mean, if we look at Luke and the more Greco-Roman, I don't want to fall into the trap of having this Jewish Greco-Roman divide, because obviously they are hand in glove and we need to get rid of that divide. So again, with that pre-qualification, but from a Luke's perspective, from more of an empire perspective, it's going to be make Rome great

again. And so Jesus Christ is the one who's coming to make the world, the oikomenoi, great again. Now if we go to Matthew, it's going to be make Israel great again, if you will, to bring in your Trump-Biden discussion earlier. And so just like we have parallels with Augustus Caesar, we also have contemporaneous parallels with Matthew's gospel. And one of the best places that we see that is in Josephus, Flavius Josephus. I like to refer to him as Flava Flav, but Flavius in his book Antiquities. Now what Flavius Josephus is trying to do is maybe similar to what we see with Luke's story of Luke and Acts, in that he's trying to convince the Romans, who have a tendency towards anti-Semitism, that the Jews have noble, noble

roots, and they're people to be honored, not people to be hated. And so Josephus in Antiquities goes back and he tells a story. In Book 9 of Antiquities, he tells the story of this guy named Moses. And so there was a Pharaoh, and one of the sages, one of the astrologers, one of the magi of Pharaoh came to Pharaoh and said, hey, I've just seen this portent, I've just seen this sign that there is a son who is going to be born among the Hebrews who is going to lay Egypt low and who is going to deliver Israel from bondage. You can imagine that.

Real quick, Josephus normally just kind of, when he's talking about biblical stories, he largely follows the biblical narrative with some interjection. But this, what you're talking about here is not in the Bible, right? This isn't in Exodus. Yeah. So if you remember in Exodus 2, the reason that Pharaoh wants to kill the babies is because he's afraid that they are becoming too numerous and that they're going to overthrow the revolt. Can you hear the people sing?

And so that's why he does it. But for Josephus, it's because there is this child that's going to be born, this hero that is going to rescue Israel, that's going to deliver Israel from their bondage. Yeah, so I think it's interesting. It may not be Josephus that has, this may not be unique to Josephus. My daughter, Maddie Mae, sent me a story out of some midrash from the story of Moses this past semester. And in this story, you have, again, very similar type of idea. Pharaoh's trying to kill the baby boys because one is going to be born that's going to be a savior. And so what Moses' dad does before

Moses is there is that he sends Moses' mom away silently and he divorces her because he doesn't want to have a baby with her because he doesn't want the child to be thrown into the Nile. And so he sends her away, he divorces her, but Miriam had already been born. And so Miriam stands up to Moses's future dad and says, no, this is not right. You don't need to do this. And so he remarries Yochebed, the glory of the Lord. So he remarries her. She gets pregnant at this point. And so, again, very similar to what we have, Joseph being a righteous man who wants to send Mary away, and then he's rebuked by the angel. And in Josephus' story, he's also going to have the Lord God appear to Moses in a dream, if you want to go back to that.

But anyway, there's some midrash stories that are very similar. Miriam even says something very similar in the Sittah to what we have in Matthew. His name will be Jesus because he will save Israel from their sins. She says that he will save Israel. I think it's from bondage, he will deliver, but very similar type proclamation that we have with Gabriel and Miriam in that midrash. When do we date that midrash? Is that after the New Testament? Yeah, after the New Testament. And Josephus is also going to be after the New Testament. So it gets into that question, which came first?

But again, just because it wasn't written down doesn't mean it wasn't already in circulation because we have to say the same thing about the Gospels. The Gospels were written decades after. Yeah, neither Josephus nor the author of the Midrash are reading the New Testament. I mean, Josephus probably wasn't even available yet, but even then, he's not going to be reading this Christian literature. So this does, I mean, right?

It seems better to assume that these are independent traditions, the one that goes into Matthew and Luke and the one that goes into these Jewish stories. So that, well, what do we make of this? For somebody listening and saying, well, what does this mean? Like, okay, these sound very similar, a lot of similar things. What's that? Do you want me to finish the story out so you can see the similarities before we talk about significance?

Well, no, I got onto a rabbit trail talking about the midrash. So back from the midrash to Josephus. So at this point, they begin to throw all of the baby boys into the Nile. There's weeping, there's this great tragedy. Moses' dad doesn't know what he's going to do, so he's praying to God, and God appears to him in a dream and says, hey, don't worry, I am watching over Israel, and this son is going to be the savior of Israel, And I'm going to give him an everlasting glory, not just for himself, not just for Israel, but also for the nations, for those who do not know him. And so you have this everlasting glory forever type of idea. Moses is born and when he

is born, he is Ketov. So this word Tov in Exodus 2 takes us back to Genesis chapter 1. But the Jewish people didn't know what to do with that Tov. What does that mean that he was Tov? Some said that he was born already circumcised. Some translated the Tov. It's almost like our Imago Dei conversation. What does it mean that we're in the image of God? What does it mean that he's Tov? So some say that he was born already circumcised because we don't have any mention of him being circumcised. Some say that he was born already with the spiritual gift of prophecy. So he had this penchant towards prophecy. But all of those accounts say that when he was born, the entire house was filled with light.

And even some say that when Pharaoh's daughter opened up the basket, it was full of the Shekinah glory of God. And so this brightness that connects us later on to him being so shiny. But yes, so those are kind of those stories that we have that, again, we see connections with, especially Matthew's account. Well, and Matthew has this, like, Jesus is the better Moses, right? Kind of theme to it. And you see it in Luke as well. But we all know about Jesus as the new Adam, the second Adam, obviously from Paul, but even like a new Israel from going into the desert and succeeding where Israel failed in the desert 40 days, 40 years. But you also have a fairly decent Jesus is the new Moses leading his people out of bondage, being the Passover lamb and so on, right? Is that pretty prominent in

Matthew in particular, the Jesus and Moses thing? Very much so. I would say more so in Matthew than anywhere else. As you mentioned, we do have it in Luke, we have it in Acts. Hebrews is going to bring it out quite a bit as well. Moses is great. He's a servant in the house, but Jesus, he owns the house, right? But in Matthew, you have this typology that continues just to go on and on and on in it. And it goes back actually to Deuteronomy 15 where Moses is preaching and he says, hey, one day God's going to raise up a prophet like me and he'll speak the very words of God. And God's like 18, yeah, 18, 15, I think. Yeah. You're the old Testament guy here, man. Yeah. I think it's 18 verse 15, I think is where it starts. And then God's like, Hey, did you hear what my boy said? Did you hear what my boy said? One day I'm going to raise up

a prophet like him and he's going to speak the very words of God. And if you don't listen to him, then I'm going to open up a can of wolf wrath upon him. And so we have this anticipation, this prophet like Moses. And so we can look at that Flavius Josephus story and those connections. But we can just go back from the story of Matthew. Where does Joseph flee? He flees to Egypt. Who else grew up in Egypt? Moses.

That was his playground where he spent most of his days. And then the angel appears to Joseph again and says, hey, you can go back because those who are trying to kill you, they have died. That's actually an exact quotation that we don't see in our New Testament text, but it goes back to Exodus 4 where Moses says, we can go back because the Lord told me that those who were trying to take my life have died. So you have that connection. Matthew fast forwards to the baptism. And we have in the story, Moses going through the Red Sea. And it sounds like a stretch, but in 1 Corinthians 10, Paul has already made the connection between the Red Sea and baptism. After the baptism, Jesus goes into the wilderness. He's there for 40 days. Who was in the wilderness? Moses was in the wilderness for 40 years. While he's in the

wilderness, he's quoting scripture. He could quote Psalms. He could quote Isaiah. He could quote anybody he wants to, but three times Jesus quotes scripture. Three times it's Moses, Moses, Moses, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy. After that, he calls his disciples. He has 12 disciples. Moses has the 12 tribes of Israel. He goes on to the mouth, the Sermon on the Mount, and he gives that. Okay, where Jesus goes to the mountain. So you have Matthew 5 through 7, where Jesus gives a new law, which, of course, is parallel with what we see with Moses. In Matthew's gospel, he takes the miracles of Jesus, the healing miracles of Jesus, and he puts them in chapters 8 through 10. of Jesus, the healing miracles of Jesus, and he puts them in chapters 8 through 10.

And there are 10 of them, which seem to be a connection with the 10 plagues. So it's up, Jesus is giving these 10 miracles. You have Jesus going onto the mountain of transfiguration. There, his face gets shiny, which reminds us of Moses being shiny in Exodus 34. And by the way, who's standing up there with Jesus? Moses is on the mountain with him. And it's Moses and Elijah. Mark actually switches those two. Mark says it's Elijah and Moses. And if Matthew's drawing on Mark, then he intentionally switches it to put Moses first. But then when Jesus is coming down from the Mount of Transfiguration, oh, well, let me kind of back

up. The Lord God said, God the Father says to Jesus, what says to Peter and the people around after the Shekinah glory kind of fills that place. This is my son in whom I'm well pleased. Listen to him. If you remember when Moses is on the mountain in chapter and Exodus 34, God says, you know what, I'm going to send my messenger ahead of you and he will prepare the way. Are you lost you again? No, you're good. I can hear you. You're freezing up on me. Okay, good. But anyway, Moses is like, no, no, no. We don't want the promised land without your presence. And God's like, I can't go or kill you guys all. And Moses is like, please.

And God says, well, because I have favor with you, Moses, I will go with you. And so God goes with him because he's well-pleased. It's not the same Greek word, but it's in that same semantic range of that. But Jesus comes down from the mountain. If you remember, he's angry because the disciples don't have enough faith. And he says, how long do I have to be with you, you wicked and crooked generation?

Which is quoting Deuteronomy chapter 32, echoing back to Exodus 32. On and on and on it goes. Matthew ends with the Great Commission on a mountain, sending the disciples to the nations, which is how the Pentateuch ends as well, with Moses sending Joshua into the nations. And so, yeah, Matthew is going to unpack it. I mean, I'm just scratching the surface of Jesus as the new Moses. I encourage my audience to hit pause, go back 10 minutes and listen to that probably four or five times to get it all. So the one that I was wanting to, I don't want to stop you, but it is interesting that you have the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5 to 7, in terms of mapping these stories upon each other,

that mirrors Sinai, right? So that Jesus is giving kind of the new law, which it's kind of clearly what he's doing to keep saying you have heard this but i'm telling you this um what is the purpose of this why is matthew um what seems to be obvious i mean if you had given one or two parallels people could say well i don't know is that intentional but there's way too many numerical similarities content of story similarities, and purpose similarities. So that seemed, I think we can agree that Matthew clearly has an eye on Moses and the Exodus story. What's our takeaway from this? Yeah, there are numerous takeaways.

One is that Jesus is that fulfillment of the promised prophet of Moses. And so he's the one who doesn't speak. If you remember, Matthew, it's divided up into five different speaking sections. Moses has the five books of Moses. And so the Sermon on the Mount is the first of that. And each one of those five teaching sections ends with the people were amazed. They were like, wow, because he didn't speak like the scribes, but he spoke with one who spoke with authority, like the very words of God. And so

I think if we go back and tap into Deuteronomy 18, where God tells the people, hey, when this prophet comes, you better listen to him, to listen to my prophet, which again, goes back to the transfiguration. This is why God, this is maybe one of the most climatic events in all the biblical and all of history. You have Moses, you have Elijah, you have Jesus, you have Peter, you have John, you have James, all on top of the mountain, the God, the father. And what does he say at this moment? Hey, listen to my son, listen to him, you know? And so I think, I think that's one thing that we can unpack here is that Jesus, the words that he is teaching, these aren't the words of men. These are the words of God. He is that prophet who is speaking the very words of

God. And we need to not just hear his words, but to put them into practice. So I think maybe the end of Matthew chapter seven is giving us that application of Jesus as this prophet. chapter seven is giving us that application of Jesus as this prophet. And to a Jewish audience that needs to be convinced, a Jewish audience that is running around saying we're of Moses, we're of Moses, you know, you're, you know, you're, we're disciples of Moses. You're born of your father, the devil, whatever. Like that kind of audience who's really stuck on this Moses thing might need to be very impactful for,

for Matthew to tell a story in a way that says, here's somebody who's better than Moses. And even in Luke's gospel, the transfiguration, it says that Luke says that he was, that Jesus was talking to them, Moses and Elijah, about his, and the Greek word is exodus. I think it's only used twice. That's right. Fact check me on that. But I think the other time the Greek word is used in the New Testament is referring

to the literal exodus, I think in the book of Acts or something. That's right. Yeah check me on that. But I think the other time the Greek word is used in the New Testament is referring to the literal Exodus, I think in the book of Acts or something. That's right. Yeah. Jude, I think. Oh, maybe Jude. Yeah. Yeah. Wow, man.

Yeah. And, you know, it's not just in Matthew. It's not just in Luke. But John, he ends his prologue in John chapter one with this comparison with Moses and Jesus. And then we have it in Paul. with this comparison with Moses and Jesus. And then we have it in Paul. Paul in 2 Corinthians 3,

he talks about the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant. And that's to a predominantly Gentile audience, if not a solely Gentile audience. So yeah, I think we have it from Matthew through Revelation, this picture of Jesus as this new Moses. A Gentile audience that might've been converted to Judaism before,

right? They might've been proselytes. And if they were, they were probably discipled in these themes so that even their previous Jewishness, if there was such a thing, might've had a strong Moses kind of theology in it, which, wow, dude, so much to chew on. Let's go back to the Christmas story then. So in light of all that, how should we, like, if you just kind of a broad overview, like if somebody, say somebody is going to preach on Matthew 1 and 2 to start there, like what are some themes you would want that preacher to kind of hit on in that sermon? I'm sure there's a lot of different angles that can go. Yeah. Right.

I think so many times when people come to the Christmas story, they yawn rather than gape. We think we know the Christmas story, but we don't really know the Christmas story and seeing the continuity between the old Testament, if you will, the Hebrew Bible and the stories and the Christmas story just helps give it, you mentioned high def earlier, it gives us just more depth to it, to see Jesus as this new Moses. Many of our people who have read and heard or seen the Passion Plays have never connected.

Herod, the king of Israel, quote unquote, has become the new Pharaoh. And so just that craziness that is there. And so seeing the continuity between the And so just that, that, that craziness, um, that, that is there. And so seeing the continuity between the old Testament and the new Testament, um, I think we want to look at the old Testament through the lenses of the new Testament and vice versa. And often we don't do that. And so, uh, this is a way that maybe helps the audience see the Christmas story, uh, afresh and in new eyes. Yeah. And so, yeah, I think that's one example of if we're coming from Matthew.

Yeah. I think it's easier... If you're coming from Luke, go ahead. No, you go ahead. Go ahead. I'm just saying, if we're coming from Luke,

we could also bring up the political aspects of that. That it's not just a spiritual salvation that Christ is coming to give, but instead, it is subversive a spiritual salvation that Christ is coming to give, but instead it is subversive to an empire that's built on violence, that promises peace, but they back that peace up with a sword, you know, that promises this utopia. But the truth is, is that

it's a utopia built upon the backs of women and slaves. And so Jesus Christ came to subvert and turn the world upside down again to bring in relax. And Luke's famous, right, for emphasizing the marginalized. You have a lot of, you know, I think it's something like 50, 52% of Luke is repeated elsewhere. So you have about half of his material is unique to Luke. And a lot of that new material, the stuff that's only in Luke and nowhere else, a lot of those additions have to do with some story of the marginalized being included in the kingdom. I remember I taught an ethics class at Cedarville.

This must have been 15 years ago. And one of the exercises I had them do is read through Luke's gospel and take note any time economics is mentioned. Some kind of use of wealth, misuse of wealth, taking care of the poor, not being able to give up wealth. Just something that has some economic theme. And it's pretty much every chapter, sometimes multiple times in the chapters. And you have, obviously, women, Luke 8, 1 to 3, of women that are funding Jesus' ministry.

That's nowhere else. You have Mary and Martha. That's nowhere else. You that are funding Jesus's ministry, that's nowhere else. You have Mary and Martha, that's nowhere else. You have the Good Samaritan, that's nowhere else. So this theme of this upside down kingdom that the very people that Rome used to build their empire, Jesus is making them into an empire, an upside down kingdom

that looks nothing like the kingdoms of this world. So, yeah, you had, uh, LeBron James, I mean, uh, Craig Bomber, I mean, uh, Craig Keener on, and, uh, he talked about Zachariah. Uh, Brittany Wilson has a book, um, called, um, what was it? Um, Unmanly Men and Luke and Acts. And, uh, she is going to emphasize that the very first thing that we see in Luke's gospel is the silencing of a man. And this is emasculating of a man. And it's a good, righteous man.

It's Zachariah, right? And God shuts him up. And at that point, as soon as he is quiet, Elizabeth starts to speak. And so Elizabeth becomes the first and primary theologian to propagate Luke's gospel. And so you have that contrast. And then it's funny. It's almost comical what was made out of Zachariah because Mary comes to Zachariah's house and Zachariah can't say anything. And so Elizabeth and Mary have this conversation on.

And Zachariah, as a father during this time, the paternal responsibility was to be able to name the son. And he's even lost that. And the only time he finally gets his voice back is when he agrees with his wife. And so there we go. That's a good application point right there. But yeah, so even this aversive from the very beginning of the narrative story in Luke's gospel is exalting the voices of women. Zechariah does get his voice back, but it's only to compliment what Mary and Elizabeth has already said. And so you even see that aspect of not just political subversion, but also the subversion of gender power in Luke X.

Social status, social roles, economics is all throughout that. Man, so much to chew on. Joey, thanks so much for unpacking so much i feel like i should divide this podcast in like five parts just so people can chew on it because you gave me a fire hose which uh i i is as i in as much as i know my audience i think they love this kind of stuff so thanks so much man i appreciate you coming on and i just love how you can explain these really complicated things super clearly and entertainingly flavorfully. All right, man. Well, I love you, dude.

Thanks for having me. Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for coming on. Thank you.